WHERE IS YOUR FUEL?

BY JC LIPPOLD (HE/HIM)

Take a moment to consider the last 10 minutes of a yoga practice, a workout, a run, or a work week you recently experienced. Close your eyes and think back.

I love reminding people in the final minutes of a yoga practice or workout that they are not automobiles — your body doesn’t start at the beginning of the hour with a full tank and end up with the gas light on, sucking fumes as the final moments wane. Rather, we tap into our intention, we become inspired, we find the zone, then the body lights up, warms up, taps in, digs deep, and keeps going. Even from a physiological perspective, our slow twitch, marathon-style muscle fibers come to life to endure the work at hand. They do what they are designed to do.

In short, our relationship with fuel is not compatible with an automobile analogy. So where is your fuel? To be more precise, what will fuel you right now?

Lots of stuff fuels the human experience: calories, sunlight, love, music, sleep, critical thinking, inspirational magic, tasty noms, deep breaths, indulgence in one-size-doesnot-fit-all moments of self-care, and so on.

When running on empty, make sure you ask yourself which of your tanks is tapped. If your brain hungers for knowledge, sleep won’t fill you up. If physically exhausted, rolling out your mat and perfecting someone else’s fullest expression of asana will not provide tomorrow with a refreshed and rested version of you. If you need sunlight and fresh air, pounding Mountain Dew and those white and pink frosted animal crackers on the couch in the basement watching season 6 of Grey’s Anatomy will not quench your thirst.

Conversely, if you do crave Mountain Dew and those white and pink frosted animal crackers … kale and burpees ain’t going to stop the grumbling. Consider where you feel empty before you start filling up.

You may say, “I am empty. But I don’t know where I am empty.” We exist in a culture often encouraging solely listening to the expert or the influencer, or mimicking the actions of the person leading the yoga practice rather than the powerful and persistent voice inside of you. Listen to it right now. What is it saying?

Your intuition may not have a large following on Instagram, but it has a huge interest in your well-being. I always like to define intuition as the voice that says, “Hey! Do that. That will feel good. That is what we need.” This voice will often say things contradictory to the cultural current, making it easy to write it off as an unreliable, uneducated, inconsistent guide to lead our path. But ask yourself, have you ever found success walking a pathway contrary to what your gut told you didn’t feel right?

What if you listened to that voice? What if you are so incredibly, uniquely designed that the pathway to your magic wasn’t found within someone else’s journey or experience? What if it sat stored within the messages from your intuition right into your body, mind, and soul?

Consider this moment. Where are you running low? What will fill you up? Where can you access that fuel?

One last thought about your intuition. It innately knows what you need because its genesis lies without your mission, purpose, vision, and vocation. You can find your truest fulfillment within, providing yourself the fuel you need in order to accomplish the things you feel called to do and be in this world. Do the things that fuel the incredibly, uniquely designed you. +

Do the things that fuel the incredibly, uniquely designed you.