Acceptance & Love: Learning to Live for Ourselves

Angelina Yokoyama Teh • May 25, 2021

 At first, I was really resistant to the idea of publishing any content on platforms because I hold so much fear and shame around being perceived. Eventually came around to it because I felt that it had the potential push me to do things I don’t want to, that ultimately hold me back from a lot of my endeavors.

 So I asked myself, why am I doing this and why do I feel so gravitated to the idea of doing this? This question opened up the potential to what I’m about to share:


For the last couple years, it has felt like words that used to so easily flow out me were in a drought and even more so, the last few months I haven’t even been able to think of the words I want to say. It’s like my vocabulary shrank and my words ran out. And then I realized 2 main things, one recently and one through the process of making this:


The first, was that my words hadn’t run out, I just had less to say. Growth can be so subtle, so much so, that I wasn’t able to catch on to how I’ve changed over the last 2 years. My writing used to often be attached to trauma, suffering, victimization and the need to prove myself because I was in the process of working through those projections for the first time. I was trying to become a spiritual being instead of realizing that spirituality is just as human as anything else. It’s almost essential to a balanced human experience. We’ve grown so distant from it that we see it as esoteric or “other”, when it used to be something so natural to the human experience. I saw that the more human I was becoming, the less spiritual I was becoming, thus the less enlightened I was becoming. I couldn’t see beyond the veils of separation. Seeing that separation automatically assumes that one form of existence is better than the other, that there were spiritual beings and non spiritual beings and

capitalists and anti-capitalists and logical people and empathetic people, not being able to see how they’re connected through the same things— how they all are the same thing because they come from the same questions, the same source. Of course, the nuances come after that but within the bigger picture that’s the main equation. I thought my inability to need to dissect these complexities to understand them, my inability to publish things or explain them, was me taking 10 steps back, when really my world had just become so much more simple than it used to be. Instead of seeing the world as a complicated matrix purgatory, the rules of the world became simple, yet complex only if we wanted it to be. My words no longer relied on being a victim of trauma to survive. When I lost my will to prove myself, I thought I lost my will completely because my whole life that’s what my will relied on— the need to prove myself worthy. So I went searching for something else to fuel it but all I could do

was grieve its loss, not seeing that I let go because the will to change was already there.


The second was that as I dissected my relationship to expression and what I want to share with the world, I realized how attached to this idea of service I am. I’m always trying to say the most helpful or intellectual thing and I used to cry because of it. So many people in my life, so many people I would meet only ever saw me as some spiritual guru who could solve all their problems, some gifted person distant from a “normal” human experience. I was always expected to say something wise or be all knowing or have the answer to every problem they’ll ever have like it’s my responsibility to teach them that (if they’re not paying me to do that labor lol).

When I would show my human self, I’d often hear things like “I didn’t expect that ”, “Do other people know you’re like this?”, “That’s not like you” and I learned to internalize this until I realized wait a second... yes, that was like me. This is like me because it is me, it’s coming from me— so how could it be anything separate? It wasn’t that parts of myself were unlike me, I was just never really being seen clearly or being seen for the things other than what I could offer other people. People weren’t seeking to build honest relationships with me, people were seeking to take from me and pretend like it was learning and growing together.

I don’t blame anyone. How can I? How can I blame someone else for my low self-worth or my desire to feel needed? Of course it doesn’t mean I wasn’t angry or resentful because I have been, I was and maybe parts of me still are. I don’t get to ignore the process of my feelings or else they’ll just get suppressed where no one can reach them. I honor the cycles of evolution, growth, the ugly, the shameful, being human and now all I can really be is thankful for all the ways they exposed my weaknesses so effortlessly, and how I was angry at them for that. Sure, it doesn’t give anyone the right to take advantage of our weaknesses but their choice to do that has nothing to do with me anymore. At the same time, it’s nobody else’s fault that I had weaknesses to expose. All we can do is grow to be better and forgive ourselves by not letting it happen time and time again.

I played into this game the whole time, believing I was only valuable if I was sharing “valuable” information as if I myself am not valuable enough. I was getting my life force sucked out of me trying to be everything everyone needed because I thought that was my responsibility, I thought that was my gateway to being loved and appreciated.


When I was cut off from my ability to write or say the “right” things, I felt like my world was crumbling, when really, I was learning to humanize myself and see myself as something more than some channeler that exists for other people. I now recognize my need to be what everyone needed comes from a past of abuse. Needing to be on edge, reading the room, understanding the situation for my own safety and until I free myself from those habits, I will never be free from the effects of that abuse. In many ways, I’m grateful for that too because I think it triggered my “gifts” of channeling to existence. The experience of living in the shadows, allowed me to be able to see in the dark so clearly. I’m able to hear people’s guides, ancestors, higher selves and they tell me people’s deepest shadows or deepest suppressions, hidden truths, anything relevant to what they need to work through, in order to support them. These spirits somehow know I have this ability and deem me a messenger.

I often saw it as a curse because I would know things that felt unconsented. People would push me away because I knew too much of the parts of themselves they don’t want others to know. Even when I didn’t judge them for it, I would get pushed away, because it was me knowing that was the problem, not the ability to accept them for it. This made me sad, angry, judgmental anyway and I would get angry at my inability to be friendly to people because I could see the things they lie about and when they do, the things they hide from others and themselves and couldn’t help but judge them, pushing others away too. But, in this journey, I continue learning what unconditional love is, and seeing people’s shadows offers me the ability to see people as they are, shadows and all and be able to love and accept them whole-heartedly when I do.


The gift of channeling being strengthened from abuse was also strengthened from being born through darkness, right before the sunrise, on a new moon, when the sky is dark, and the cause of my mother’s death. Being born into the death of the one who brought me life was like a portal of transcendence and creation, like I was born between a veil, maybe making it easier to communicate to spirit. Yet, no matter the darkness I was born into, the darkness that I’ve seen and saw in others, I would still seek the love from the same people who hurt me, I would still do anything to be loved by them and maybe that too is a subtle form of acceptance (not to be confused with condoning abuse of course).

These gifts came with a price and came with a sacrifice and I think I was hurt that nobody acknowledged that, as if they would even know. How could they know something I never explained? Something I didn’t even realize yet? And yet, I couldn’t help but feel that everyone just wanted to take everything I had, as if I wasn’t attached to that suffering. I wanted to blame them for digging me deeper into my addiction to abuse because I saw abuse as love, but they weren’t even the ones digging and even if they were, I was the one who gave them the shovel and decided I would simply cry when I was buried.


I often would make random videos and send them to my friends instead of texting them because it was fun and then it hit me that I can and have shared myself honestly without being exploited, and I can do things to share with the world just for fun and it doesn’t have to be some life altering spiritual experience. The pressure of having something or being something doesn’t have to exist when we realize, it’s not our responsibility if people rely on it. I’m allowed to exist without being what everyone wants from me.

I think it’ll take time and practice before I’m able to even produce a video I’m comfortable sharing but I’ll believe in this process. I’ll believe that I can grow with something even if I’m not good at it the first or second or eighteenth time.

I think forcing myself to share parts of myself publicly feels scary for the exact reason I distance myself from being perceived or why I try to be invisible. It’s because I thought that was the only way people would love me. I think doing this channel and doing what I don’t want to do is what is good for me right now. I used to not want to share anything unless it really resonated with me, was perfect, and the timing felt right. If this was a few months ago, I probably would have decided to scrap this video because I’m so afraid of shame and how I’m perceived but that isn’t humanizing. I think sharing something in the process of growth is something I’m learning to accept. Life won’t wait for me to be the master of all elements before I can share what I want to.

So, I’m sharing a part of me that’s trying, even if it doesn’t feel good. It’s not that trying doesn’t feel good, it’s that it doesn’t feel good because it doesn’t feel perfect. So this feeling of not feeling good, I think is actually good for me. It reminds me I’m willing to be accepted as someone who grows and outgrows many patterns, many lessons, many mistakes. If we feel so guilty, so much shame, so addicted to the past— it’s not about who we were, or what we’ve done but more so our potential for growth. Our resistance to change and evolution is a home for stagnation. To see how far we’ve come, how far we’ve grown is more rewarding than the consequences of our past and even if it wasn’t, what do we make of the human experience? Do we see it as perpetual punishment? perpetual suffering? that all will lead to suffering in the end? all will lead to pain? If the world, the universe, moves in cycles then doesn’t the end just mean a beginning, pain just mean joy? but even beyond that, even beyond a beginning and an end— what does it mean to experience being alive? What do we feel when we sit under a tree and hear the leaves rustling, birds chirping, sun falling on our skin. is that not life?

We’re all evolving, yet of the birds, of the trees, of the insects and grass, we are the ones reluctant to grow. So why don’t we chose growth over guilt? Why are we so obsessed with everything we’ve ever done instead of all we have the potential to become?

If we are trying so hard to run, why not try the same amount to confront feelings of accepting all that we are honestly and whole-heartedly? What is it about our own self that makes us feel unsafe, unchangeable, unloveable? Where is our will hiding? Where does our faith lie? I’ve seen my world melt into puddles at the palm of my hands, not understanding that my hands were the furnace. It was easier to believe I was holding the world out of compassion and pity when I was really burning everything I had ever suppressed, all my will power, all responsibility, all trust, all faith because it’s easier to be a victim. But what comes of the story of the self-imposed victim? The world is always being destroyed and never created. And yet, the world turned to puddles instead of ash because those hands knew the truth they weren’t willing to accept. How deceptive our own intentions can be, it appears so convincing that even our own self falls for it. What felt like compassion, what could even be seen

as compassion was a lie I was willing to let everyone fall for. I was willing to let myself believe that I was full of love— that tasted like regret and shame.

What’s ironic is that I’ve been saying how for months I’ve had such a hard time communicating but these words are flowing out of me like they’re asking to be shared. I guess that’s what it means to stop resisting change, stop doubting our path.

When we refuse to see, we can listen close enough to hear the wind whisper the answers that were already right in front of us. If we listen close enough, we can hear how supported we are, feel the soil supporting our feet, the air supporting our breath, the wind blowing our hair back so we can hear the ocean calling our name, the salt water cleansing our lips of every lie we once thought was true as they fall from our bottoms of our lashes. How supported we are, how supported we can feel, when we’re honest about what support we need.

Thank you for listening to me, supporting me, allowing me to feel loved, allowing my tears to be heard, allowing me time and time again to recreate a world I destroyed and allow me to be forgiven every time, and allowing me to grow.

Thank you. May we feel loved in every life time and every moment beyond that. ♡


Suicide Prevention Month

By Angelina Yokoyama Teh • September 22, 2021
I’m 24 and I didn’t think i’d live past 17. For the last 7 years I’ve dedicated my life to self-growth, but as authentically as i was trying to, I think i was just trying to prove myself. I think I was afraid of not being okay, afraid that I was failing at the only thing iI had to offer--and who am I when I have nothing to offer? I had always been closer to death than life and it has taken life for me to realize this. I’ve grown so much and yet it took 7 years to admit how much I haven't resolved. Part of the human experience is to learn from our suffering, from our joy, experience both without running away from either. I have so much support and love, people who care so much about me but in this state it didn’t feel like it mattered, it’s somehow still not what I need— because if I don’t know how to accept these things, if iI was never taught how... who will save me? Nobody tells you that support can be triggering. nobody teaches you what to do when a step forward and a step back both lead to the same emotions. nothing you do feels like anything and everyday tasks lead to breaking down. So naturally, it feels like you’re unfit for life. how unfair, as you watch people work so hard and you have so little left in you— you can’t even try. So what do you do then... when you’re in a battle with yourself? You feel undeserving of all the opportunities so graciously offered to you. when I said it out loud, I watched people cry for me, with me, cry for my pain, my suffering. it was then that I saw how our hearts were connected. That every time I cried, I was actually afraid. I felt so guilty that I couldn’t offer more with my life, that I couldn’t be more for the people in my life. I was crying because I so desperately wanted to live but didn’t know how. Afraid I didn’t know how to change, but maybe this is what changing is, being so honest it hurts. I was afraid that the subtle feeling of wanting death would be confused for a prayer that would be answered. Our loneliness is not alone. what is it that we want from life? To love and be loved, accepted, feel understood and I'm all of those things. and afraid of all them, afraid to be without them. what is purpose? and why am i searching for it? Is this not what being human is? to touch hearts, break them, be broken, and healed. that life is so beautiful it can hurt, so beautiful that sometimes we feel undeserving of it. all this time, I wanted death because I was afraid of life, not fighting it. it’s okay to feel afraid, guilty, ashamed, weak, incapable, all of those things are not your fault and all of them mean you have the will to overcome them. You care so much and it must be so painful. if no one else feels your pain, I do. I will. iIll cry your tears for you. I’m so sorry. you’re not allowed to give up, you can’t. If you don’t feel loved, I love you. If you don’t feel accepted, i accept you. if you don’t feel understood, I will try to understand. and if you don’t feel deserving, I’ll help you. If you ask. you have to ask. and with every prayer, I pray for all of us. to be so honest it hurts, feel so safe that fear doesn’t stand a chance.

Am I Seeking Forgiveness or Validation?

By Angelina Yokoyama Teh • July 6, 2021
There may come a time in our process of growth where we begin to become nostalgic, which is only natural because we’re dissecting so much from our past in order to move forward. Guilt, shame, and our attachments to wanting to be “good”, can naturally lead us to want the validation we were never given the space to offer ourselves. Sometimes when we have relationships whether platonic or romantic, that end, we don’t actually want those people back in our life— we just want to make sure we aren’t being deemed as a bad person which is ultimately self- serving. Closure doesn’t have to be in person or through connecting with people physically. True forgiveness can only happen when we forgive ourselves first because then we know we aren’t searching for external validation to prove we have the capacity to grow and change. We all have that capacity and we must acknowledge that others do too. Although, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re growing at the same pace. Some people come into our lives to stay, some to go, some to come and then go, only to come back again. We must learn the subtle differences between letting go, attachment, pushing people away, disposing of people, and resisting closeness as a coping mechanism. It may take a few times of hurting others, being hurt, and hurting ourselves to understand what it is we’re searching for within our relationships and self, but that’s what being human is and we’re all experiencing this journey together through different choices and perspectives. I believe that we make soul contracts with everyone in our lives pre- birth. They relate to our karma, but also our past life good deeds that assist in the roles of people in our life and how they play out. Some people come into our lives to annoy us, some to embody care, some to be our enemies and we learn so much from all of them. Whether an experience is pleasant or not does not dictate the significance it makes in our life. We can love people without liking them. We made contracts to hurt and be hurt, just as much as people play these roles in our lives, we play it in theirs too. We are friends, lovers, enemies, strangers in others lives just as much as they are in ours. As much as we accept that we are an angel in someone’s life, we must accept being an enemy and our capacity to be one. And recognizing that both roles are just as essential as the other. Acceptance means accepting all facets of ourselves— the parts of ourselves we cherish to keep us going and the parts of ourselves that we don’t even let ourselves see because darkness is essential to our being and to ignore one part of ourselves is to suppress them all. To suppress any part of ourselves is to say we are not deserving of love because we dont believe we are deserving of love if we are authentically ourselves. Do you believe there is anyone or anything born to be abandoned? So why, then, do you abandon yourself? Deem yourself unloveable as if that’s for you to choose. You don’t get to choose how people feel about you, how they will love you, perceive you. So why, then, are you convinced any part of you, is undeserving of love? When? The “good”, the lovable can only exist because the ugly, the gruesome does. They work in harmony to exist and support each other through survival. We’ve all had the capacity to be toxic especially when we have a deep relationship to trauma because we inherit traits for survival in order to feel safe. When we refuse to let go of those mechanisms of safety, when they are no longer necessary for our survival, they just become projections that have nothing to do with anyone else. And still, those projections don’t make us any less deserving of love. We could be rejected a billion times by a billion people and it wouldn’t make us any less lovable than before we were. Ultimately, it’s not about how toxic we are or have been but where we go from where we are and where we have been. When we’re attached to our trauma and obsessed with making up for the past, we’re essentially living in the past everyday. We’re not creating anything new for our future or living in the present reality. We just end up living to undo everything we’ve ever done and that’s not a growth that encourages us to move forward. There can be growth found in that process but it will always be attached to guilt and shame. So what does it look like to grow? What does it look like to forgive ourselves? Forgive others? What does it look like to forgive ourselves so much, we no longer use people and pretend that that’s loving them when in reality we just want that love for ourselves. And what does it feel like to realize that that’s okay? When did we learn we had to sacrifice ourselves in order to be loved? It’s okay to want to be loved at the expense of someone else because that’s an honest feeling, what deems us moral or not is not our feelings but what we choose to act on. To suppress an honest emotion as if it isn’t there, is still a lie even if nobody other than you knows about it. Our feelings can stem from experiences we had no control over and we do not need to be responsible for what was not our fault. We are, though, responsible for the choices we make and the consequences and rewards that come with them. I’m not saying we have to forgive everyone, love everyone— we’re human after all. Sometimes the idealism of “loving and lighting” everything is still just an attachment to wanting to be good. We think a “good” person will forgive everyone, love everyone, be kind to everyone, so we do what we think “good” is. It’s essential to question where our motives are coming from. Do we think being a good person makes us more lovable? Makes us better than others? If so, doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose? I also don’t believe love, light, forgiveness, and acceptance of all is unattainable. I think there’s always potential for everything and we can grow into that, maybe some of us have, but to do it unauthentically or to force ourselves to do things at the expense of our own feelings is to basically dispose of this human experience. We’re human, not gods and we don’t have to be. If we were born to be enlightened beings, we would simply be born to die, because the only way that can be achieved is if we leave this body behind. We all have the opportunity to transcend this human experience when we pass on. So while we’re here-- why are we trying so hard to skip the phases and steps of our human experience? Maybe right now we’re at rock bottom, a toxic projection machine but 10 years from now we’ve managed to work through that and our experiences in a healthy way, but that doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t have to. Change, evolution happens in seasons and life is about cherishing what each one brings to us and what we are able to offer and give in return too. It’s not just “I discovered healing or spirituality, so let me follow these rules that will lead me to enlightenment”. When we’re suffering and we discover for the first time, what it looks like to care for ourselves or begin a healing process— is what we’re searching for not catharsis? A relief from the pain, the trauma, the suffering? At what point did we get so caught up in the process of healing, we get lost trying to prove ourselves? What is our goal? In anything and everything we do? How do we show up in our life and in others’ because of those goals?

Living Life Beyond Undoing the Past: The Difference Between Consequence and Punishment

By Angelina Yokoyama Teh • May 10, 2021
While writing the piece “ Healing Trauma Through Our Body ", the original glitched while I was trying to save it and was deleted. Upon other things that happened that day, I couldn’t say I was surprised at the occurrence. I was disappointed because after having writer’s block for nearly 2 years, it was the first thing I was able to produce that resonated with me and felt beautiful. I tried to remain calm and tell myself that the information is still within me. I then found that trying to calm myself down was ironic considering I had just written a piece about allowing ourselves to feel through our experiences, yet I wasn’t letting myself grieve. I knew that once I would be able to rewrite the piece, it would no longer feel like that big of a deal. But, I don’t get to skip an essential part of the process as if how I will feel later on is how I feel right now. So I began to cry tears not even related to this topic at all, tears that were filled with all the times I’ve tried to skip a process I didn’t deem important. Earlier that month I had realized a similar lesson: I felt extremely disappointed regarding issues around my health. Some things from my negligence in adolescence began to arise in my 20’s. Despite starting to take my health seriously years ago, I couldn’t outrun the consequences of my early neglect. I kept wondering what I could have done to prevent this, asking why I was still being punished when I already made a promise to take care of my health. Wasn’t that my lesson? To not take advantage of this body? In the midst of my confusion, I meditated. In this meditation I was reminded that punishment and consequence are not the same thing. Punishment is socially constructed, but consequence is a lesson of responsibility and karma. Nothing that is not our responsibility will ever be chasing us. So I tried to understand what my responsibility outside of taking care of myself was, in this situation. I realized that just because I didn’t have enough guidance to tell me the importance of my health or just because it wasn’t my fault that as a kid I didn’t know better, didn’t mean I was exempt from having to confront it. Just because something isn’t my fault, doesn’t mean I’m not responsible for it. I realized then, that the issue I had to resolve was that I’m always trying to undo the mistakes I make, instead of accepting my consequences and striving to move forward. I was always living in some form of denial and everyday just became a day to make up for the past. There is no way to live in the present moment, if everything I ever do is to undo something else. I learned my reluctance to accept reality and that I was always trying to bargain with the Universe instead of deal with what I’ve caused. Trying to be like “if I promise to do this from now on, can you make this situation go away?” which is less of a prayer and more of trying to escape my consequences because for so long I couldn’t distinguish that from punishment. All this time I had been an escapist, weak-willed and it was in this instance I decided that I wanted to change. I want to learn to move forward, not necessarily without fear or disappointment, but with courage and the will to become better. So the Universe brought this lesson to me again and asked me how much I really wanted to change. So I cried and grieved for a piece of writing, among other things I couldn’t recall in the moment, but I could feel coming from somewhere within me and so I tried to write again. But everything I wrote felt like a watered down version of everything I had said before and all I was doing was failing to remember everything I had lost. So I tried again the next day and the next week and a few times after that and nothing I wrote felt as good as the first one. And I suppose that is a lesson of grief too. I was never able to produce something I was as proud of again and I can’t differentiate if that’s because I grew a romanticized version of my piece through the process of grieving or if that’s just simply what it was. When trying to understand what writing that piece meant to me, I thought about the inability to share it with those who may have resonated but also feeling like I may be perceived as less than I’m able to show up as. So maybe learning acceptance is a greater gift for me than an accomplishment.

The Greatest Version of Our Self Doesn't Rely on The Universe

By Angelina Yokoyama Teh • May 10, 2021
I found myself always asking the Universe for validation or confirmation that my actions were “correct” or if they were supporting my highest potential. I would often ask if I was learning my life lessons the right way or handling situations correctly-- if I was doing this right. I realized then, in the middle of what at the time felt like a prayer, that this wasn’t about the Universe. I realized that this isn’t a battle of learning the Universe’s desires, but a battle to understand my own. If we are part of the Universe then answering to our highest form of self is answering to the Universe. There’s a Universe within us that seeks to be answered. Seeking confirmation of our actions is to admit we don’t fully trust our choices and I was always looking toward the sky for a totem or numbers that could lead me to feeling like I was in sync with a fate greater than myself, not understanding that there is nothing greater than the self. Ahh, so it is then, that what I was seeking was a feeling. Seeking to find guidance in the Universe that already existed within me. It’s not me and the Universe, it’s just me. Because I am the Universe. I don’t need the Universe to not be alone, because I’m not, I’ve never been. Answering to my highest potential, my highest calling and continuing to grow into something more than that, is the journey of answering every question I’ve ever had. The Universe will not start a war with me unless I’ve lost sight of myself and even then the war is between myself and me losing my path. The Universe will never start a war against me that I don’t start myself. So am I doing this correctly? Yes. Because I’m always striving to. The battle isn’t, “by doing this am I answering to the Universe’s desires”? The Universe does not have desires, humans do. While humans are the Universe, the Universe is not human. So life then is about passing the lessons we have set for ourselves. The Universe was never the one who set up the lessons in the first place. Life is a game we create with every choice we make. The Universe is just the board we play on. It’s not “if I have self-control the Universe will forgive me or reward me”. It’s “if I have self-control then I will learn to beat my addiction to pleasure”. It’s a game that tests our own will to evolve. It’s not about seeking the Universe’s forgiveness or the Universe’s rewards, but our own. It’s a game of passing the tests we created ourselves, in order to test our own potential against the greatest version of ourselves-- to become exactly that. The game of life is not to become god or we wouldn’t be born to a human existence. If we really did strive and achieve enlightenment, we would simply just transcend and leave behind our earthly bodies. The game of our life is whatever we create for ourselves and only we know how to beat our own creation and pass the lessons we have set up for ourselves. We’re all playing in our own game, but each person’s potential to clear it benefits every single player because by fulfilling our individual purpose, we contribute to the purpose of all. We are whole all on our own, but we are not complete without each other. So we must recognize that we are whole, before we can understand what it is to be complete. We can’t win by controlling or manipulating another because we have no way of knowing what their game requires. We have no responsibility over their creation, we can simply only support it by recognizing the purpose of our creations. To focus on another person’s game is to abandon our own. To continue to grow and expand our understanding of our personal creation, our life, through the choices we make, is to support everyone else’s journey of clearing their lessons through their own will to achieve it.

Healing Trauma Through Our Body

By Angelina Yokoyama Teh • May 10, 2021
When asking the question: "What does it mean to be alive?" Our response may be to experience the world, or to breathe, or to fulfill our desires, but I have come to learn that the most important aspect of being alive is this body. This may seem simple, probably obvious that the body is what keeps us alive, but our body is alive-- our body is life. Without this body, there is no world to experience, no breath, no desires to fulfill. Our body has a function to heal and restore so that we have the capacity to live our daily lives to our highest potential. The limit of that potential differs from person to person depending on their individual circumstances. I remember once leaving an acupuncture appointment reminded that the body’s natural state is calm, relaxed, and at ease. I remember a feeling of awe wash over me as I thought about how we have normalized being accustomed to feeling unsafe or in constant fight or flight, to the point that I couldn’t realize my body’s way of trying to communicate to me about the state of my health, whether that be physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Our body is always communicating with us, it shakes while doing difficult exercises, shivers when it’s cold, backs away from someone or a situation that makes us uncomfortable before we can even realize we are. These subtle notions are our body’s will to survive and its response to being alive. Our body remembers our past and responds to situations in accordance to those memories. Our body may not be able to recall the events of a particular situation but it will respond based on the emotions we’ve associated with them. When we're up at 3am embarrassed or ashamed about something that happened in middle school, what we're experiencing is our mind's ability to manipulate a situation to match the emotions we associate with that memory. Oftentimes, our memory is faulty. We’re not actually recalling what occurred at that event, but what supports our feelings about it. We continue to carry that event with us because we continue to carry the emotions associated with it. If the same thing that happened in middle school were to happen now, it most likely wouldn’t lead to a shameful or embarrassing memory. This is because we grow, learn, and mature. So what seemed like the most difficult lesson for us at one point of our lives, a few years down the line probably won’t hold the same difficulty. What does not change, is the feelings we associate with it and the only way to release those feelings is to face them and release them. So, if we change the feeling associated with that memory, the memory itself has the potential to change. Our body is what stores our emotions or "energy in emotion" and when those emotions are suppressed or not felt through, when that energy is not longer in motion, they become stagnant and can manifest into physical problems or repeated cycles because our body can’t differentiate that the feeling it’s experiencing isn’t happening in reality, but simply a memory of a feeling that hasn’t been released. A key to understanding ourselves is understanding our body. Grounding into our experience and tuning into the language of our body allows us to access parts of ourselves that cannot be manipulated through thought alone. This is why when we slow our body down enough that our emotional baggage becomes obvious, a response may be to find a distraction, at least until our body has some form of a breakdown and cannot be ignored any longer. Addressing our body’s desire to heal through learning its communication patterns, supports our needs on a physical and emotional level, aiding our ability to address our trauma. Our body, the vessel that supports us on a biological, emotional level may need healing, but we are simply experiencing life through ways of growth. The body may heal, but the human grows. To need healing means that we have wounds that require our care and attention. To identify with healing can become an attachment to our wounds, subconsciously making it difficult to actually find supportive ways to let go of what no longer supports us. We may have wounds, but to be attached to associating as a wounded individual can be halt to the process of healing itself. Our journey with understanding our health and wellness is about figuring out our personal relationship to balance and what that looks like for us. Our environment, diet, the social circles we surround ourselves in, our focus on our basic needs: rest, care, nutrition, shelter are always teetering on a scale. We are constantly evolving and changing, and our body adapts to those changes. What resonates with us now, may not in a matter of time so adjusting to what restoration and balance looks like at the time is how we can properly care for the life we are living.