Step into Feeling like Yourself
It’s 2005. I’m in Richmond helping carry a huge couch from my fiancé’s truck, up the stairs into my new living room. I’m sweaty and exhausted. But I’m exhilarated, I’m strong, I’m capable. I feel amazing.
It’s 2016. I’m in the woods outside New York City. I’m hiking, doing sit spot, playing nature-based games, singing with the women, joking with the men. I’m building a one-match fire and a bow drill. I’m stretching myself mentally, socially, emotionally. I’m dirty and exhausted. But I can’t stop singing. I’m thrilled.
It’s 2019. I’m in Massachusetts assisting my yoga teacher at a huge immersion. I’m the lead assistant so I’m setting up and taking down chairs, moving yoga mats and platforms, helping with microphones, getting water and coffee, directing the other assistants, and giving hands-on assists to 100 yoga students for hours. I’m waking up at 5 and working my tail off until 10. I’m not getting paid but it doesn’t matter. I’m laughing, flowing, singing to myself. I feel incredible.
Flowing, Aligned, MYSELF
These snapshots of my life stand out, not because of what was happening, but because of how I felt. Whenever I think about times when I felt the most like ME, these come to mind. Moving that couch feeling completely aligned with life. Marching up the hill with a friend being my wholly weird, but silly self. Drifting between yoga mats entirely in flow within myself, as myself.
Contrast with the woman who often felt overburdened with responsibilities. The one who needed to be somewhere and do something at a particular time. The one who always had to make dinner. Who would wake up thinking about what to make for dinner. The one with the never-ending to do list. That woman is unrecognizable when contrasted with the one in alignment and flow.
Being myself has a unique feeling to it. It is a specific feeling that feels true. It feels like home. That’s why I put these three examples together. They all felt specifically and uniquely like ME.
That feeling is an energy that we could call my Frequency.
You have one too.
Pulse, Rhythm, Frequency
Remember two weeks ago we talked about life being a dance of pulsation? And that you pulse too? Remember last week we talked about pulse moving in a regular rhythm? And that you have a natural rhythm? (if you don’t remember you can go back and re-read it)
Come with me for this…. that rhythm repeats too. If you mapped it you’d see regular ups and downs… like, a wave. The repetition happens at a particular speed. Frequency measures how often something repeats within a certain period of time.
Your frequency is of how often the natural pulsation of your rhythm repeats.
I know. Got kinda science-y for a sec. Or did we get math-y? Or did we get into music suddenly? Or are we just into all of it because math, science, music are all nature? And what we’re really talking about is how YOU are a reflection of the intelligence of nature.
There’s a mathematics, a science, a musicality of YOU being you. When you feel it, you know it. It’s like a hum that comes from your cells. A song singing through your bones.
I bet you’ve felt it before. Maybe you were holding a child, or making a beautiful meal. You stepped into a feeling of being completely at home in your skin and in your life. Maybe it was a fleeting moment, a glimpse. Or maybe you’re one of the lucky few who lives in your natural frequency more often than not. Either way, being in your frequency feels incredible.
Out of Frequency
The thing is most of us don’t get to live there for very long. Life has its demands that don’t always match our natural rhythm. Responsibilities, while important, don’t lend themselves to being able to hum along to our own song, flow with our own inner pace, or laugh in the middle of a meeting. So instead of tuning ourselves to our frequency the way we’d tune a radio dial (remember those) to pick up our favorite song, we get static.
We spend most of our time away from our natural frequency. And when we do experience it, we mostly just think “that was a good day”. We don’t think: “that’s the truth of who I really am.” And, because we don’t recognize ourselves, our frequency, we don’t let those moments teach us. They pass by in the ongoing stream of ignored experiences.
Returning to Frequency
We all want to be our true selves. But it’s hard to be someone you don’t even know. But moments in frequency can teach us about who we are deep in our bones. I think they hold the key to unlocking our Authentic lives.
After my nature immersion in 2016 my teacher helped me recognize that I’d just been being my natural self. In our call he was sort of lamenting that our culture doesn’t support individuals to be their true selves all the time. He was almost apologetic that the immersion offered only a tiny glimpse of being in my frequency.
I blew his mind when I suggested that that glimpse was very important. It taught me what being in my frequency feels like. Knowing that, I could move towards it more often. Without knowing, I didn’t know what I was feeling for, but now I did.
Since then I’ve been curating my life experiences (within reason) to bring out my natural frequency. That trip to Kripalu in 2019 is something I made happen because I knew that working around yoga makes me feel alive - it turns up the volume on my frequency. I do what I can to drop unreasonable or unnecessary responsibilities. And I tap into my frequency through music, dance, yoga and then do my best to bring more of ME into my chores and responsibilities. In that way, I’ve been cultivating a relationship with my natural frequency. Slowly, I’m getting better at dropping into it more often. (It feels so good to be ME)
Explore Yours
You can do it too. Here are some things to play with as you explore your frequency.
Journal about the times you felt most fully yourself. These do not necessarily have to be peak experiences, they might be very ordinary. But describe them as fully as you can, with all of your senses.
Read back what you’ve written and make any changes that are needed until you feel an inner shift. You’re feeling for a change in your energy. It should feel like a lightening, a quickening. You’ll know it when you feel it. It’s your Frequency. It’s YOU!
Pause and savor the feeling of being totally yourself. Imagine you could drop yourself right into the middle of it and soak it into all of your cells. Bathe in it.
Now drench yourself in it even more. Find images that feel like your frequency (Pinterest board!!) Find songs feel like your frequency. Make a playlist. Look in your closet for clothes that feel like your frequency. Use accessories to remind you. Play with ways to easily surround yourself with reminders that help you drop into it whenever you can.
Now the fun part. Take it out into your world. Maybe you practice dropping into your frequency in the grocery store or when you get to work. Or you try something new that feels like YOU, even if it seems weird or off.
To up level your play, set yourself up with challenges that will ask you to be YOU in a committed way. (for me, that is doing things like teaching workshops, or assisting in big programs). Give your frequency opportunities to come forward. And drink it up when it does.
All of this is about feeling like YOU. It’s about recognizing how your life is constantly dancing between contracting and expanding. It’s about honoring your natural pacing. And it’s about honing in on the frequency that feels like a song in your bones. And doing it all as a co-participatory dance with life, with Shakti-Ma.
Align to Shine
People want to change their lives from the outside. They want to look different, or they want a new partner. They want a different job and they want way they think that job will make them feel.
But I think what we crave more than any of that is the feeling of being completely ourselves. Deep down we want to live our Authentic life, fueled from within. Totally natural. Totally easeful. Aligned. Free. We want to live in our frequency. I hope you’ll play with this with me.