I Honour What My Body Is Asking For

I Honour What My Body Is Asking For

This morning I woke up feeling awful. Headache, blocked nose, aching, heavy and completely drained. One of those mornings where your body makes it very clear that it would quite like you to slow down.
I still got up. Ella needed her walk, so we went out, and now I’m back home on the sofa with breakfast on the way and absolutely no intention of pretending I have the energy for a normal day.

And actually, that feels important.

Listening to your body doesn’t always mean staying in bed and doing absolutely nothing. Sometimes there are things that still need doing. Life doesn’t suddenly disappear because we’re tired or unwell. It’s about recognising the difference between doing what genuinely needs to be done and pushing ourselves through everything else simply because we feel like we should.

We talk so much about healing and growth being the things we actively do. Meditation, movement, routines, shadow work, learning, creating and all those little practices we build into our lives. But knowing when to slow down is part of that growth too.

Rest isn’t giving up. One slower day doesn’t undo all the progress we’ve made, and it doesn’t make us lazy or unmotivated. Sometimes our bodies simply need more from us than our to-do lists do.

I’ve spent a lot of my life pushing through because things needed doing, and I think a lot of us have. Eventually, functioning while exhausted becomes so normal that choosing to rest can actually make us feel guilty.

But I’m learning that I don’t need to completely exhaust myself before I’m allowed to stop.
So today’s affirmation is “I honour what my body is asking for.”

Maybe your body is asking for sleep. Maybe it wants movement, proper food, fresh air, water, quiet, a long bath or simply ten minutes where nobody needs anything from you. Whatever it is, perhaps today we can listen instead of immediately overriding it.

Healing isn’t always about doing more. Sometimes it’s knowing what needs doing, doing that, and giving ourselves permission to leave the rest until another day.

Daily Affirmation

Onwards, Nova x