Last weekend I spent my first nights away from my son since his birth. After 21 months, I took a mini mama sabbatical, and it was such a good experience for our little family.

My husband had the opportunity to create a beautiful bond with Ocean without any interference or influence from me. Ocean had the opportunity to spread and test his wings as a growing, independent little boy. And I had the opportunity to rest, nap, sleep and rest some more. It was exactly what each of us needed.

I decided before I left that I was going to listen to and honor the healthy urges and nudges from my body. I purposefully did very little and deliberately unplugged from many things that could have been distractions from myself. But as the weekend unfolded I became aware of a powerful pattern that I believe you might be able to relate to.

I recognized how easy it was to override the messages that my body was giving me.

I watched in awe at how quick I was to judge and dismiss my body as being needy, unruly, inconvenient and high maintenance. In slowing down, paying close attention, and committing to really listening and honoring my body, I saw how almost automatic my responses were to my body, and how those responses reflected a lack of respect, love and trust.

The body communicates through sensation and feeling – two things that we, as a culture, don’t place a lot of value on. My mind was lightning quick to jump in and immediately judge my body’s needs for not fitting into a neat, orderly, and organized formula for self care.

I even watched in utter curiosity when I had the urge to pee and kept putting it off because it felt inconvenient!! (OMGoodness, did I really just write that?!?)

I noticed that when my body was tired I’d go into thinking about what I could do to push the fatigue away – and this was during a 3-day weekend when I’d specifically set aside the time and space to rest. I realized this was an unconscious pattern that had been operating in my productive and creative life, and here it was showing itself when achievement and goals weren’t even part of the equation.

And then it dawned on me that, as a culture, this is what we do all of the time.

We’ve been taught to be wary and judgmental of our bodies, to question trusting something that seems inferior to our minds, and to instead place our faith in the things that we can control and place into some kind of logical, hierarchical, goal oriented order.

You’ve been taught to trust your intellect and your theories and philosophies about how your body is supposed to behave and function, and how to control yourself and your environment to try and fulfill those ideals to the best of your ability.

But in the end, where does this lead you?

I believe this kind of living leads to self-judgment, self-criticism, self-hatred, a whole lot of confusion, and ultimately I believe it leads you away from yourself – especially when you fall short of your ideals. This isn’t just about holding unreasonably high standards for yourself, or a lack of self-control. I believe this dynamic stems from a far more subtle and unconscious dynamic within each of us, and in our culture at large.

It’s easy to ignore and even deny the parts of yourself that are associated with feminine energy or feminine strength in our world today, and to instead rely upon and trust those things that are associated with the masculine strengths and energy that we prize and rely upon every day.

I generalize masculine energies as those things that are related to “being in your head”. They include: thinking, analytical abilities, competition, discernment, judgments, creating order, having hierarchy, being linear and all things goal oriented. As a culture, we all tend to lean more on these masculine strengths because we get more rewarded in the culture for doing so.

In contrast, feminine energy, or feminine strengths, can often be generalized as relating to “being in your body.” They include: feeling, emotions, collaboration, connecting, movement and change, being cyclical, sensuality, and intuition. As a culture we tend to mistrust or feel uncertain about feminine energy because it feels unpredictable and unstable. If we can’t control something, we deem it as being inherently less valuable.

But the truth is that we all have all of these inside of us – both the masculine and feminine energies.

My question for you is what do you trust?

Do you trust your logical thinking mind over the power of your emotional response or your intuition?

Do you trust hierarchy and competition over collaboration and connection with others?

Do you trust the linear journey that’s been mapped out by your goal oriented mind over the cyclical nature of the moon, the seasons, your body, and the organic and natural unfolding that is the creation process itself?

Do you feel uneasy at the idea of allowing your feminine energy and strengths to lead the way?

Do you place more trust in your mind than your body?

I believe we are entering into a time in history when feminine energy and feminine strengths are being elevated for what they are – the balancing force in an overly masculine world.

The time of believing feminine energy is inferior (or superior, as some might argue) to its masculine counterpart is coming to an end, and instead a new paradigm that honors both the feminine and the masculine as two sides of the same coin is emerging in the world.

As I invited my body to be an essential consideration in my day, rather than relating to it as a nuisance or impediment to what I thought needed to or should happen, I created an opportunity for my masculine and feminine energies to unite and work together instead of against one another.

When both of your feminine and masculine energies and strengths are present and operating in unison, no matter who you are or where you find yourself, you will have access to all of yourself. And from that place of internal harmony and wholeness you will access an entirely new level of grace, power and ease.

You’ll feel like you’re in the flow of life, and that you can honor all of who you are without compromise. You won’t have to choose productivity over health, logic over intuition, or analytical thinking over your body. Instead, you’ll be respecting both and all of who you are.

The next time you find yourself ignoring the messages of your body because you have a deadline, or you notice that you’ve been talking yourself out nourishing your body with food, drink or a bathroom break, remember that you can trust your body, your emotions and your intuitive nature. Remember that when you do trust and lean into your feminine energy, you’ll only enhance and elevate your masculine energies to new and unprecedented heights.

I left my mini mama sabbatical with a deeper understanding and connection to myself, and with a more powerful desire to bring all of who I am to both my personal and professional lives. I settled into a more powerful relationship with my miraculous, wise, pleasure-loving body… and it continues to amaze me!

I believe it’s time to trust all of who you are, and to recognize that operating from a place of wholeness in your life, no matter your role, is what will yield a true experience of fulfillment, freedom, lasting pleasure and peace.

Now those are some powerful reasons to trust all of yourself, don’t you think?