Full-Body Yes

Hey there,

I’ve been noticing a pattern when something wants my attention. Almost like a weather system that arrives seemingly suddenly, though in fact there have been hints it was headed my way.

For example, when I have something to write about, I don’t just think it.

I feel it.

• A rush of energy that lands in my gut — inspiration

• Groundedness and peace in my chest — truth

• Chaotic, bouncy energy in my head — excitement

• Tightness in my throat — fear

• Fog and sense of blur behind my eyes — self-doubt

• A crawling irritation under my skin — readiness

I’ve experienced this combination of sensations over and over again, but I’ve never really understood it until now.

You see, for most of my life, I believed creativity was primarily intellectual. Something you conceptualized. Something you planned. Something you could get better at by trying harder.

But my body has been telling a different story.

That creativity is somatic first.

That direction lives in sensation.

That alignment announces itself in the body before it can be explained.

That a full-body yes can always be trusted.

What I Mean by a Full-Body Yes

When I say “full-body yes,” I don’t mean certainty.

I also don’t mean excitement, or confidence, or having a clear plan—though sometimes those things can co-exist.

Rather, a full-body yes is when something strikes a chord with you and it instantly feels like an exhale. When you can feel the truth of something even if you can’t articulate it.

Sometimes this is a thought, or a decision, or an idea. Sometimes it comes from yourself, from someone else, or in patterns that keep showing up.

Most of the time, when a full-body yes shows up for me, it comes in a moment of stillness after a period of rumination. I might be resting, or fully engaged in a conversation, or walking, or letting my mind wander while I listen to music or a podcast.

Things are how they are, and then they change. Suddenly, my body feels oriented.

It’s subtle, but it’s unmistakable once I notice it. Something in me feels direction. Not in a rushed way or a controlling way.

It’s more like a quiet willingness.

That’s how I’ve learned to tell the difference between a full-body yes leading me and anxiety controlling me.

Anxiety scatters me. It sends me spiraling outward, trying to manage every possibility at once.

A full-body yes does the opposite. It organizes me, even when I’m afraid.

The fear doesn’t disappear — but it takes the back seat to the direction I sense is for me.

If you, like me, drive around with little people in your backseat all day long, you know they do not like to be quiet back there. They like to be loud. They like to scream. They like to be in control in any way they can muster.

It is extremely distracting and challenging to stay in your center when you’re up against this noise.

I’m talking about the noise of anxiety that’s not given the driver seat.

When Everything Feels Murky

At some point, there will be so much noise. There will be signals and voices pointing you in different directions. Everything will feel murky at best.

Your mind fills with narratives and what-ifs. Anxiety stories. Contingencies to plan for. Managing future potential problems becomes the focus of your attention.

That full-body yes? It feels distant now.

Did you really ever feel that? You discount it. It feels foolish to entertain the idea of ease when you have all of these problems to deal with.

If you’ve been there before — which I’m sure you have — caught in the confusion, frustration, aimlessness of an anxiety spiral, I’m going to tell you my philosophy.

The path forward is not to go through them.

Instead, once you recognize them, push them to the side. Jump over them. Cast them out like the little demons they are.

Do not, I repeat, do not interpret them as signs.

The only way to quiet them is to fall back on that full-body yes and acknowledge the anxiety narratives for what they are.

You can trust something is a yes when it feels like an exhale.

When it brings alignment.

When it relieves pressure rather than adding it.

Next, I will share an example of this. Including how the anxiety stories can find their rightful place in decision making once they’ve lost their charge.

A Yes, Followed by Resistance

A recent full-body yes for me was the idea to keep my 2-year old son home on Fridays in the new year. An opportunity to have dedicated one-on-one time, just us.

The yes itself came quietly and clearly. It arrived when I was reading a book while on a trip with my husband.

The background is that I had been asking questions and considering possibilities for how to balance the energy and attention I give my boys differently for weeks. I felt a pull to give my little guy more, but it never seemed to go that direction when the three of us (me and my two sons) were together (which is a lot of the time).

I felt the exhale. The direction. The yes.

But almost immediately, resistance followed.

• Fear of the time crunch

• Fear of losing spaciousness

• Fear that I had this idea because I was trying to be a “good” mom but was actually going to self-sabatoge my creative work and goals by cutting off a day of work each week

And these fears made sense, because spaciousness is a core value of mine. It is my ultimate way of being.

When I feel like I have open time, no pressure, and few expectations, I feel present and curious and engaged.

So of course, I felt tension at the thought of losing access to some of that spaciousness on Fridays.

But the contrast between how the fully-body yes felt and these fears felt was stark. So I committed the idea to my calendar by blocking off all Fridays as “Monte Day” and worked on integrating the fears.

Interrogating the Resistance

It was by interrogating the resistance — rather than trying to push past it — that I came to a deeper understanding of why this yes was so aligned.

My coach challenged me to look more closely at the thing I was afraid of losing.

“What does spaciousness actually feel like in your body?” she asked.

“When do you feel most spacious?”

My answers surprised me.

I feel spacious when I am doing my writing work. Sitting down and just doing it. The practice of writing brings presence, and creativity gets me into flow, which feels spacious. And once the writing is done, it’s no longer hanging over my head. I feel freer throughout the day.

I feel spacious when I’m engaged in creative projects — painting, DIY tasks, even cooking. Using my hands. Being fully absorbed. These activities require mindfulness, and time has a way of expanding or contracting creatively.

I feel spacious when I’m with my kids — not when I’m multitasking or planning how to get all the house tasks done, but when I’m actually with them. Present. Engaged. This realization surprised me and moved me. Not every day is all magical playtime bliss. But the proximity of slowed down moments, cuddling, and laughter alongside the fighting and negotiating makes me feel so alive. Like I’m stepping between two worlds, back and forth. It was powerful to realize that I feel spacious in the midst motherhood because it requires presence.

(Note: This requires letting go of the idea that motherhood creates a dichotomy with creativity/work/career/personal identity).

I feel spacious when I’m in nature. Walking in the woods. Exploring. Feeling like I’m a part of something larger.

When the Reasons “Not To” Become the Reasons “To”

This exercise helped me reconcile something important.

The idea of keeping my son home on Fridays doesn’t actually reduce spaciousness. It creates the conditions for more spacious feelings throughout the week.

It also revealed something else.

The biggest resistance wasn’t about time at all. It was about structure.

I realized how much I have been relying on flexibility right now to get things done. Flexibility is valuable in many ways, but for me, it has a shadow side — procrastination.

And procrastination makes me feel the opposite of spacious.

I found that constraints that force me to create structure and rhythms are actually life-giving. They relieve pressure rather than add it.

Many of the things I had mentally categorized as “musts” — early morning wake-ups, going to the gym, meal planning, cooking nourishing food, writing and sharing my work — are actually deeply supportive of my well-being and my ability to access spaciousness.

Seeing how much they support me helps me understand why they need to be integrated into my day-to-day, rather than treated as obligations to work around or that “take” my time.

And then there is the heart of it.

I’ve never had dedicated one-on-one time with my second son.

He is a pure delight.

I’m so excited to see what I learn about him — and learn from him — as we spend more quality time together.

My vision is that we’ll spend our Fridays getting out in nature, exploring new places, sharing novelty and presence. It will feed both our souls.

A New Understanding of Resistance

We’re taught to treat resistance as a stop sign. As evidence that something isn’t viable, responsible, or realistic.

But what if resistance is just information?

What if all of the reasons not to do something are actually pointing toward why you should?

In my case, the resistance surfaced everything that needed attention:

• My relationship with time

• My avoidance of structure

• My fear of doing less and trusting more

None of those were reasons to abandon the yes.

They were invitations to grow into it. To experience alchemy.

For you, if you have an idea or a dream, or a vision that’s calling you — that you feel you’ve had a full-body yes reaction to but now you’re second-guessing yourself — consider this:

If it weren’t aligned — if it didn’t belong to you — you wouldn’t react like this. You’d feel neutral. Unmoved. Unbothered.

You wouldn’t experience resistance because it wouldn’t make a difference to you if it came to be or not.

Your reaction is evidence.

Often, the strength of the resistance is proportional to how clearly you can already sense the life on the other side of the decision.

And maybe, it’s not the vision we’re reacting to, but our hesitation. Our unwillingness to commit. Our refusal to decide.

Our body knows when we’re betraying ourselves. And it responds accordingly.

Thank God for that.

Staying With the Yes

I don’t think the work is to eliminate fear, doubt, or resistance.

I think the work is to stay curious about what our body is already telling us — and to live in a way that doesn’t require overriding it.

Body responses are the strongest signals we have toward alignment. Alignment is how we access flow. And flow is life force energy.

Whether you want to create work that matters, or simply want to feel better inside the work you’re already doing, flow is what you’re looking for.

I don’t have a neat conclusion for this.

Only a growing trust that listening for full-body yeses — and choosing to follow them — even when they disrupt our plans, even when we can’t yet see how everything will work — might be one of the most creative acts available to us.

This Is as “Everyday” as It Is Magical

This happens for every creative who listens (I believe all people are creatives). In big and small ways. In the past week, I have coached 3 people through different variations of this resistance. In shows up when you’ve just made a commitment to do something. It shows up when you are on the cusp of receiving the reward for something you’ve worked toward. It shows up daily, cyclically, seasonally in different magnitudes.

If you learn to expect this resistance to show up, you can train yourself to shorten the cycle of sabotage. Which means you’ll have a lot more energy freed up to move you forward.

Invitation

Speaking of moving forward, I’m opening up spaces for Body of Work coaching starting in January. This will be a 6-month long coaching program for creatives who have a project, piece of work or business offering they want to bring into the world. You have felt the full-body yes, and you recognize that you need some external structure and support to see the work through to completion. 1 spot is already taken, and I have 2 more openings.

If this sounds like you, please reply to this email and we will find a time to connect. With the holidays, I am manually managing my calendar instead of sharing my scheduling link at this time.

Sending warm holiday wishes to you.

Warmly,
Jennifer