It’s legitimately tough not to check my notifications first thing in the morning, or stay up later than I should, surfing the news, today’s stories, and articles.
But I feel so much better when those first and last moments in the day belong to me, and I can tune into how I feel rather than listening to messages from outside.
I’ve been practicing keeping my phone in a different room in the morning and at night. Out of sight, out of mind—and I can quiet down the outside for a while and follow my inner compass.
Practice being inside your skin, not outside it.
As women, we are socialized to look at ourselves from the outside, all the time.
From a young age, we have such a relationship with the mirror. We look at ourselves, study how we measure up and try to match our own reflections with what we’ve seen in magazine pages and commercials.
All of those habits put us outside ourselves, identifying with those messages, rather than tuning in to how we feel, and how we want to feel, inside.
Knowing how strongly I’ve been encouraged to stand outside and look at myself, I’ve been trying to practice intentionally doing the opposite: feeling how I feel inside my skin.
I’ve started paying attention to how my skin, my face, my body feel from inside. I now tune in to what makes me feel good. And then listening to those messages, and acting on what they tell me.
For instance, when I feel worn down, I no longer criticize the bags under my eyes. Instead, I feel the tiredness from the inside, and I find time to rest or take a nap.
When I feel energetic, radiant, and joyful, I don’t look in the mirror to track whether I look as beautiful as I feel. Instead, I tune in to what’s going on inside, how I’m inhabiting my body and my skin, and how I can support that feeling so it shows up more often.
How have you learned to follow your own compass---especially as you've aged? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!