Happy Holidays my beautiful friends,
Thursday is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, the official beginning of winter, and a week and a half until 2024. Starting January 1st, you’ll be inundated with messages telling you all the things that are wrong with your body. How you need to buy this and that product to become skinnier, prettier, and more desirable - all of it is absolute BS! We’ve been handed so many lies! Our bodies are so good, worthy, and beautiful and need more love, care, compassion, and presence over anything else.
We live in a mind-over-matter culture. However, everything I’ve learned, studied, and experienced along my journey has shown how little this way of being serves us. Our bodies are so wise, sending us messages throughout the day, informing us of how they truly feel. But we’ve learned how to override these messages, falling into the trappings of what our culture tells us is the standard of beauty and we’re paying, majorly, for it. It’s leading to more sickness, chronic pain, and prescription drugs that keep us from actually feeling our feelings and getting to the root cause of our problems.
Our bodies are screaming louder and louder every day. As my dear sister, Jamie Lee Finch, likes to say, “Loud bodies are such loving bodies”. They’re yelling in pain (emotionally and physically) because we’re not inside of them. We’re not listening to them. This has been and continues to be my daily work. I left my body at a very young age because of the trauma I experienced in my childhood, after dying in a car accident in my teens and dealing with debilitating chronic pain for over 20 years.
I’ve come to realize how I was never truly in my body. I’ve done everything possible to deny, numb, avoid, and shame my emotions, and I believed my body hated me, so I hated my body right back - which only made my pain worse. But when I learned to listen, the pain sent me on the holiest journey of coming back into my body - giving me the opportunity to honor and love this beautiful vessel I get to embody in this lifetime.
I’ve been thinking about how heartbreaking this conditioning is, as I’ve been on my own journey of unlearning these limiting stories for many years now. So as my own little form of resistance to the capitalist standard of beauty, I decided to create a BodyLove 10-day Challenge.
Here’s the thing, all our brain wants is to be proven right. If we’ve been conditioned to believe we need to look a certain way to be desirable or lovable, then all of the marketing, commercials, and Instagram posts that we’re bombarded with, telling us we need to use this cream, this makeup, this diet, this exercise plan, and this surgery, will feel so true. Because you’ve already been conditioned to believe it. Your brain will see all this messaging and will use it to “prove” that something’s wrong with you and your body. This is so heartbreaking to me.
For this challenge, I’ve invited 9 incredible embodiment teachers, healers, and movement specialists to share their journeys and practices of embodiment with you. Each day, for 10 days, you’ll receive an email featuring one of these teachers and they will share their inspiration, stories, and practices with you as a way to help you connect deeper with your beautiful body. Each email will also include a short Q&A for you to learn more about them and their work, and to receive practical tools to help support you on your journey of returning back to the body. This is a completely free offering, with no invitation to buy anything at the end. It’s truly my own small way of combating all the lies we’re inundated with day in and day out, especially in the new year.
I believe this is such holy work, and hope you’ll join us for these sweet 10 days of BODY LOVE! My hope and intention with this challenge is that it’ll be a way to start your day filled with the truth of how good and holy your body is, with practices that help you embody that truth. A gift to you for this new year.
You and your incredible body are so deserving of that deep remembering. I love you, I love us!
Happy holidays, beautiful friends!
With so much love, Ruthie Lindsey
You can find these beautiful humans at their Instagram links below!
Sophie Strand - @comogyny
Chetna Mehta - @mosaiceye
Maggie Hayes - @itsmaggiehayes
Rachel Sims - @rachelsimsliving
Angell Deer - @thesanctuary.angelldeer
Mirirai Sithole - @mi.ri.rai
Tejal Patel - @tejal__p
Nurjahan Boulden - @nurjahanboulden
Juliana Luna - @julianaluna
To learn more about the challenge, the amazing embodiment teachers who will be joining us, and to register, click below:
Keep reading for:
The Sacred Rebel Retreat - April 2024
The Sacred Rebel Retreat
April 12-14th 2024
Learning to Love Every Part of Yourself
Prepare to embark on an extraordinary voyage of self-discovery and healing, where you’ll reconnect with the radiant, whole, and divine essence that is your birthright. Guided by the esteemed author, coach, and soul midwife, Ruthie Lindsey, this transformative retreat promises an experience that transcends the confines of societal norms.
Throughout this empowering weekend:
Discover liberation through expression, find radical self-love, reconnect with your body, unlearn and remember through the power of evocative writing prompts, meditation, and the support of a nurturing community, learn integration practices, and gain tools for self-love.
By the conclusion of this weekend, you will possess a profound comprehension of the conditioning that led you to believe something was wrong with you and the tools and wisdom required to unlearn these stories and fully embrace the radiant being that resides within.
This retreat is open to all, regardless of your background or experience. No matter where you are on your journey, you are welcome here.
Thank you for your generosity, Ruthie. I'm in!
So excited for this challenge Ruthie. Thank you for the thoughtful offering, and I can't wait to learn more about the teachers and their practices in 2024!