Listening to Your Body's Wisdom with Goddess Benita J

Promo video:

I love being able to introduce you to inspiring women each month who are living their dream, whatever that dream may be, because the more people I meet who are fully alive living their purpose, the more others see just how possible it is! And what the world needs is more people who have come alive and are living their purpose.

Benita Jacqueline tickles me pink in the abundant way she lives her life as a yoga instructor. She travels the world doing teacher trainings and teaching classes, and guess what? She didn’t even discover yoga for herself until she was 40 years old! In this video you will hear how she learned to put herself in conditions in which she could thrive, not just survive and that comes from finding your inherent love, truth and wisdom. Her philosophy is that the physical practice of yoga connects us to our truth and awakens us to our greater power. We had only just met and it was simply from the magnetic energy between us that I decided to feature her as a goddess of the month, so her answers were new to me and I was delighted to discover another soul sister.

In review of the video, I noticed I mention how sad it is that women so often cut themselves off from their bodies and live in their heads. It may appear as though I was talking about “other” women and I wanted to set the record straight that it includes me and part of my journey to greater happiness. I seldom give specifics to my life except to friends and coaching client’s I think can benefit from my story. However, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to explain what I mean by living in your head. In my 30’s I was happily married, two beautiful children, a well paying job I loved, a solid network of true blue friends, good health, in fact, on the surface, it looked as though I had everything one could ask for. There was only one tinsy-whinsy issue that kept me in the state of constant stress and that was that my husband’s business was failing. And it had been failing for the entire 15 years of our marriage. When I could block out the threat of going bankrupt (which I could do with overindulging), everything was fine. The scene that flashed before my eyes when Benita and I were talking about disconnecting from our bodies was the time he asked me for a substantial cash advance on my credit card to pay the 40 employees salaries that week (this was not the first time nor the last). I can still remember my knees buckling and hand shaking while I tried to smile handing my card over to the very nice bank teller wondering if she believed I was cool with the whole thing. I felt nauseous and my whole body was screaming at me not to do it, yet my head was doing battle on another ground. I was recounting all of my blessings, how fortunate I was to have a loving husband, the before-mentioned beautiful children, a roof over our heads, friends and family who would do anything for me, etc, etc. In fact, I became quite self -abusive that I would even consider saying no to yet another business loan, after all, it was only money, was I that shallow that I would put money before the people I loved in my life?? To put a close on this long story of my life, the marriage ended after yet another loan he gave the business without my permission. In fact, it was after I had drawn the line in the sand. No more money. Or else. I didn’t even know what or else meant, but my body did. I couldn’t do it anymore, I was depressed, fatigued and excessively stressed out. I tell this story not to paint the picture of a bad guy, in fact, he is a good guy, that is why he was always paying employees before himself, rather I tell you this story because if either one of us had only listened to our bodies and the inner wisdom we each hold, we would not have blindly kept moving forward, spending the money when we both knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, it wasn’t going to change anything. I know his body was trying to get his attention also because he suffered from migraines and even blacked out due to stress and they classified him as epileptic and prescribed meds for the rest of his life. He wasn’t epileptic, years later when he was no longer in business for himself, he simply quit taking his meds and that was the end of that. It wasn’t until I was well into my 40s that I started doing yoga and meditation and learned for me, their life saving benefits.

So enough about me, I introduce you to the beautiful, soulful and wise Benita Jacqueline…