Listening When Life Asks You to Slow Down
In this reflection, Inner Bliss Yoga Instructor Katie Brown explores the practice of body listening and how awareness on the mat can guide us through life. Drawing from her own healing journey, she shares how tuning into the body’s subtle signals fosters greater trust, clarity, and alignment in all facets of life.
The universe knocks softly the first time. And it is best to answer.
When we don’t listen to those little nudges or knocks, the universe gets louder and louder, until we finally listen.
This often shows up in our lives as a forced slow down, or ending, or things not working out how we imagined it in our minds.
While this can be frustrating or disruptive to the big plans our minds had for us, it is usually a gift wrapped up in the form of discomfort that we get to sit with and feel our way through until we experience the lesson and then we get to continue on our path.
While this can be frustrating or disruptive to the big plans our minds had for us, it is usually a gift wrapped up in the form of discomfort. Discomfort that we get to sit with and feel our way through until we experience the lesson and growth to continue on our path.
A favorite quote from one of our Blissful Book Club books is from The Little Prince by Antoine de St Exupery, “Here is my secret. A very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Recently my yoga practice has looked very different. I am healing from a misalignment in my body which also mirrored all of the ways I was out of alignment in my life. The parts of my yoga practice that have healed me and supported me over the past 2 years are the practices that are invisible to the eye.
Breath work, awareness, self study, yoga nidra, mantra, somatics, meditation, surrender and body listening are some of the practices I am leaning into. And, most of which are invisible to the eye but are invaluable to my entire being.
Witnessing how I tend to cling to certain thoughts has allowed me to slowly and sometimes painfully, let go of what was and in doing so, unveils all of the amazing things that now can flow in.
While I often miss the movement of my physical practice, one day (healing doesn't know time the way we do) I will be back on my mat, with a healed heart and body.
In the meantime, I am grateful for the gift of slowing down so I can experience all of the practices we can’t see, but those that truly transform from the inside out.