How To Take Aligned and Potent Action

The most empowered doings come from the place where we feel most integrated. And while society prioritizes productivity and doings above all else, I believe our sense of being is just as important. When we take time to honor our needs, we attune to our most aligned selves for our most potent doings.

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Mentioned:

Time Witchery is a great way to integrate a whole self honoring practice into your day. This anti-planner comes with an audio course and invitations to group gatherings. Our next gathering is the upcoming Spring Equinox on March 19, 2024. Get your anti-planner and join us. https://timewitchery.com/

Witchy Business is my weekly group coaching container for established entrepreneurs moving their lives and businesses in a whole-self-honoring direction. Get support around evolving your marketing and offers while also cultivating the courage and openness to do business in a more countercultural and sustainable way.

Make Magic:

To nourish our most aligned, potent actions, embrace the countercultural practice of pausing human doing to honor human being. Trust that whole-self honoring will lead to more evolutionary actions and a more integrous way of living.

Transcript: How To Take Aligned and Potent Action

Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here. 

Hello, my friend. A teensy tiny episode for you today about moving from, living from, doing business from a fully integrated place, from a place where we aren't just brains floating around in a body container [laugh], but rather our minds and our bodies, our spirits, our hearts, our guts are all integrated, are all aligned as we are moving through the world.

So I'm thinking about this because just yesterday I held a co-working session for my witchy business peeps. So I have a group coaching program for entrepreneurs. It's called Witchy Business. And one of the things we do is on Mondays, we get together, and we co-work. We each and all of us bring a task that requires maybe a little extra focus or a little extra courage, something that maybe we put off otherwise. We come, and we use the power of community, the power of peer pressure [laugh] to sit and to do these hard things together. 

So yesterday we arrived at co-working, and every single person was just a little distracted, a little fried, a little disjointed. I could feel it. As soon as we got on the call, I was like, whoa. And, you know, it was the day after a switch to daylight savings. It is in the very end of winter here in the Northern Hemisphere. We're about to switch into spring, and so there's that seasonal change also. I mean, hey, it's a Monday, and so there's also that shift from weekend energy to weekday energy. So who knows? Astrologically, meteorologically, I don't know [laugh] why, but everyone was just a little out of sorts. 

And as tempting as it was to just say, all right, what are you working on, you know, just kind of move forward, business as usual, get to work in our co-working, thankfully, for me too, because I was feeling it too, I had the presence of mind, body, spirit to begin not with kind of intention-setting for the session but rather with a check-in with our bodies, like, a moment to just be present with our bodies, with what they desire, with what they need, with what they have to say to us. 

And so we began our co-working session, our gathering, we began there, and I led them through a very cool little exercise. And when we did finally move into co-working, we did so from a much more integrated place. And several of us, actually, instead of moving into the task we'd kind of chosen for the day, we took a moment to attend to, to care for our bodies, to do basically what our bodies were asking of us.

And this is where I need to tell you that even though I have been practicing this for years, even though I preach it [laugh] from the rooftops, from the kitchen floors, it is so challenging to actually do. Our social conditioning so privileges mind over body, so privileges action and doing over sensing and being that, always, still, I have to take a moment to remind myself that when I listen to and care for my body, I am strengthening my integrity. I am honoring my wholeness. 

And in so doing, strengthening my integrity, honoring my wholeness, I am investing in my potency. Instead of being scattered and spread thin, I am gathering my selves together, and whatever I do from that place, from that place of integration, of integrity, of potency, of coherence, whatever I do from there will be so much more concentrated and potent. It really always is. 

So here's how it looked for me yesterday. I knew that in the co-working session I wanted to work on the copy for my About page on my website. That is what my mind was very intent on doing. And, at the same time, we are currently getting ready to move house, so there are boxes everywhere. There are closets unfurled. 

Because I'm me, I decided [laugh] that I wanted to have a big sale on my Time Witchery anti-planner, so I also had all of these orders to fulfill. And so I arrived to this co-working call really wanting in my head to work on this About page. But my body was so present to the chaos around me, and especially present to the boxes with the planners that I had just packed up. 

So instead of diving directly into writing, I practiced what I preached, and really it feels important for me to tell you this was not easy. I don't know why it's not easy. But to override my intellectual priority, the copywriting, to override that, and to attend instead to what my body is telling me is most important, like, it always takes me a moment to convince myself to say, no, really, body says what we need first is to take care of these boxes. Or, you know, on other days, body says what we need first is a walk. Body says what we need first is a nap. Body says what we need first is an afternoon to stretch out and be free. Yeah?

It always takes me a moment to pause my human doing, my intellectually driven, goal-oriented human doing, and to attend instead to my human being, my embodied, emotional, inspired human being. So I did. It took me like 20 minutes to finish packing up the boxes, to organize them into neat little bags, to put the bags over by the door, away from my computer, where I was going to write.

And then I grabbed a beverage, and I sat down. And in 30 potent minutes, I wrote the page I wanted to write. This is always how it goes When I take time to honor my human being, when I come to the doing, I come with so much more power, potency, integrity. When I don't—and maybe you know this place I'm about to describe—when I don't come from that place, I find myself distracted, antsy, like, that feeling of itchiness, of disjointedness.

That is how I feel when I'm trying to force myself to do what my mind wants me to do. I am going to be so uncomfortable. And, you know, not for nothing, what I create from that space, that disjointed, uncomfortable space, it just isn't as high quality; of course it isn't. How could it be? 

Really, the best doings, the most efficient doings, the most empowered, potent doings, they come from this more aligned place. And conjuring this aligned place requires listening to our bodies, and honoring what we hear. It is about paying attention to and tending our energy, our vibes, almost like as a prerequisite for whatever task or strategy we want to execute. 

So I mentioned earlier Time Witchery, my anti-planner, and I call it an anti-planner because it really—it isn't so much about planning and managing our day from like a human doing perspective. Rather, it's about tending to all these different aspects of ourselves, our energy, our mindset, our bodies, and, yeah, our to-do's as well. 

But the to-do's in Time Witchery are no more important than the to-be's; no more important than the to-receives; no more important than the to-believes; no more important than the to-appreciates. Right? Like, we are in Time Witchery thinking about all these different aspects of ourselves, and that is where the magic is. The magic is in living in this whole self-honoring way. 

Fascinatingly, almost ironically [laugh], when we aren't so focused on our human doing, when we are rather attending to our human being, what we choose to do is so much more aligned, so much more potent, so much more efficient. 

OK. So how do we do this? It really is as simple as pausing, and checking in, pressing pause on the human doing, and being with ourselves. So that really can look like just sitting, taking a few breaths, paying attention to our bodies, noticing how we're feeling. This is so small and so simple, and yet pausing the momentum of your day, to do this can feel like a Herculean task, really. And, again, pausing to listen and to notice, that's part 1. 

Part 2 is honoring what you find there, honoring the desire, the inclination, the message that you get from your body. Also Herculean to say, OK, I just want to sit in the sun with a bowl of strawberries for 20 minutes, and I'm going to trust that that is the very best, most productive thing I can do. So that is very simple but not easy, and you could do that anytime; multiple times, yeah?

Now, if you would like some support, some scaffolding, if you would like to begin your day in this whole self-honoring way, then maybe Time Witchery, maybe my anti-planner could help. I was Voxing, chatting with a client the other day, and she said, "Oh my gosh, I got to late morning, and I just felt like a top. I just felt like I was spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning. And I paused and I was like, 'What is happening?' And I realized, oh, I didn't do my Time Witchery this morning." [laugh] 

And I have to say, I feel that way too. The mornings where I don't take—I don't know—10 minutes to sit with Time Witchery, to attend to my whole self, those mornings lead to days that are much less grounded. And sometimes that's welcome. Sometimes I do just want to float freely through a day. But when I'm trying to make the most of my one wild and precious, when I'm trying to do all of these things that my heart, mind, guts, spirit want to do in the world, it really, really helps to come at them from a more aligned place. 

So if you would like to check out Time Witchery, there's a link in the Show Notes or, you know, just google Time Witchery. It will pop right up for you. And have a look and see if you might like to give the anti-planner a spin. It comes with an audio course, and the audio course talks about the why and the how of the various components of the anti-planner. And then also I love holdings special gatherings for my Time Witchery peeps also, so you'll be invited to those. Hey, the next one is on the Equinox on March 19th, so come join us for that. 

OK. So however you choose to do it, I super hope that you will join me in this deeply counter-cultural practice of pausing our human doing to attend to, to honor our human being. It is a so much more integrous way of moving through the world, and I know that what we do from that place, what we do from there is good, is evolutionary. 

As always, thank you so much for listening. If you haven't already during this episode taken a moment to pause and check in with yourself, like, now is a great time. All right, my friend, bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world. 

Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time. 

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