Where is your energy?

Its time for a little rant this Friday morning. Bear with me.

I’m speaking mainly to women in this post, though men should read it too.

Are you tired? Exhausted? Do you lack energy, feel constantly fatigued? Worse, do you wish you could sleep and rest, but find yourself tossing and turning all night, waking up at odd hours, or waking up still feeling groggy? Maybe you’re sick of your job, maybe you love it, but either way, you find yourself wishing you weren’t so damn tired when you’re there. Maybe you have a list a mile long of things you would do if only you had time, or if only you weren’t so beat once you finally made it home for the evening.

You can blame it on your incredibly busy schedule, your high-stress job, your kids, your “inner drive” or “type-A” personality. You can even blame it on Western Society and its relentless pressure to achieve and progress.

I want you to think about how much time you spend trying to make yourself smaller. Seriously. I’m not just talking about restricting or exercising here. I’m talking stalking the internet for low-cal, grain-free, gluten-free, pick your diet modification, recipes. Reading articles on how to balance your hormones (so that you can lose that bloat and extra few pounds!) what foods to cut out or add in to lower inflammation, increase your body’s alkaline level, what exercises are the most efficient. I’m talking hours spent convincing yourself that you have to work harder than everyone else at your company because you are constantly in danger of losing your position, or have to prove yourself to earn a promotion. I’m talking criticizing yourself or your work.  I’m talking every minute you waste not speaking up or sharing an idea. I’m talking going over conversations in your head that haven’t happened yet, or maybe already happened but you wish went differently. I’m talking any and all time spent diminishing, or not fully accepting the value of your body, your ability, your work, or your life.

Its a lot, right? Can you imagine how much energy all that takes? I by no means am criticizing health and living  a healthy lifestyle. I realize that preparing healthy meals for the week or the day is a great practice, and I advocate for finding what foods nourish and fuel you best. Both of those things require education and practice ( read: TIME). I also realize that most women do have to work extra hard at work, especially in male dominated fields. All I’m saying is that we maybe take inventory of how much time and energy we actually are spending focused on these things, and introduce the crazy idea that maybe, just maybe, if we cut back, we might realize that we do have the energy we are constantly trying to find.

Dieting, while clearly not the only culprit, is one of the greatest time and energy sucks that exists. Its also a NEON FLASHING SIGN that shows that women today are obsessed with making themselves smaller.
Um hello, the whole point is to whittle your physical presence down!

23% american women on a diet at any time. SAM‘s amazing post from a few months ago speaks to this pathetic statistic. 23% of American women. Do you know how many that is? 40 million. And that number doesn’t even include the women who “aren’t dieting” but are nonetheless completely diet obsessed (i’m looking at you, macro-counting).

Dieting requires a great deal of energy from your brain, body,and spirit. It removes you from being present what actually fulfills and strengthens you. Trust me.

So about those 40 million women…You know what they’re not doing? Taking positions of power at fortune 500 companies. Or garnering seats in government. Or sleeping well.

A country with women this obsessed with shrinking their physical body can’t also be a country where it feels safe or acceptable for women to step into their full power, or to grow their energetic presence. It just doesn’t work.

SO my question is this:
What could women in this country accomplish if we channeled all that energy spent on shrinking, holding back, and minimizing our presence, and instead took steps to embrace our full greatness-our BIGness, our creativity?

Damn! I’m glad I finally got that out. This post has been in drafts since July.

Have a great weekend everyone!
xoxo