Feel Good Lab : Meet Anna Guest-Jelley and bring feeling good into the everyday

I believe in the beauty of curves.

I believe that women with curvy bodies shouldn’t be left out of yoga — that there is a clear, wonderful and safe way to practice for every body. And that it’s high time that information becomes more accessible.

I believe that the world transforms from the inside out — one person at a time.

I believe that yoga can be a powerful tool for self-acceptance. And that, really, that’s something we could all use a little (or a lot) more of.

I believe that our worth is measured by trusting our gut, not reducing it.

I believe that there is little in this world that is more powerful than a tribe of women coming together. And that’s why I’m so honored and thrilled to be here with you this season.

I believe in change that is radical in the dictionary sense of the word — getting to the root. And that’s why I couldn’t be prouder to be part of Roots of She.

As a Body Empowerment Educator and the Founder of Curvy Yoga, I can’t wait to connect with you more. Curvy Yoga is an inspiration and training portal for women of all shapes and sizes. Come learn more and hang with us at any of these places: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Free Updates

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How to Make Feeling Good a Priority

One of my dear friends and I have undertaken an experiment for the past year.

Our experiment doesn’t involve many beakers, but it does have more stops and starts than you might expect. What is it?

It’s an experiment in feeling good.

We meet most weeks to practice yoga and check in about how it’s going. We call our time together the Feel Good Lab, and yeah — our time together, practicing slow, stretchy yoga, does feel really good.

But here’s what I’ve recently discovered: while I’ve definitely increased my capacity for feeling good, it’s shocking how hard it is to stay with it — and especially to expand it.

Why Feeling Good

Before we get more into this, I just want to pause for a moment to say that when we first started this, I wasn’t convinced that feeling good was a good idea. I mean, it sounded fine, but with everything there is available today about transformation and change and becoming a millionaire overnight, I wasn’t sure that feeling good was a helpful priority.

It felt a little, well, small. I thought I should either be past it or be able to skip over it.

That is, until I realized just how much I had never given it its due.

Stages

I definitely don’t have the best track record in feeling good. Maybe you can relate? It almost always seems easier to choose working those extra hours even though I know I’m burnt out, keeping that social obligation I really don’t want to rather than having one (potentially) awkward conversation, joining that committee even though I know it takes time from my family.

This is going with the flow — but not of my own true choosing.

So what happens when you begin to turn against that tide?

It requires a complete reframe.

At first, prioritizing a yoga practice that felt really good instead of one that was about forcing and achieving felt huge. Feeling good one time/week felt like the biggest breakthrough in the world.

And if I then practiced it on my own at home, too? Holy feel good delight, Batman!

But after doing this for several months, my eyes opened to a new reality — this was just the beginning.

Allowing

What I realized is that feeling good once a week, or even three times/week, isn’t enough. There were SO many other areas where I wasn’t allowing myself to feel really good.

Here’s an example: I’m gluten intolerant. But sometimes I get the idea that I want to eat that pizza, cake, whatever gluteny thing anyway. So I take some digestive enzymes and eat it. And yes, the first bite is usually pretty darn good. But after that, the experience rapidly goes downhill. Because even with the enzymes, I still end up with a face that feels swollen, a tingly tongue, digestive issues and a really sniffly nose.

And in case you were wondering, none of those things feel good. At all.

I realized that I’d been willing to choose going with the flow (in this case, what everyone else was eating) over actually feeling good.

And that’s when I realized that my feel good capacity was really quite small.

Because it’s one thing to feel good while you’re practicing yoga with your bestie. But it’s another to make it a priority for your life.

What Feeling Good Isn’t

Now, before the feel-good police come for me (not that they really exist), I should clarify that, to me, feeling good isn’t about being fed grapes while relaxing on a chaise lounge in Fiji. (Although I wouldn’t exactly turn that opportunity down, don’t get me wrong.)

Instead, feeling good is about the everyday. And it’s also about my choices in relationship to others. In other words, it’s not only about self-interest but about community. Because the love of a supportive community is one thing that feels really good.

So while it might feel good on some level for me to skip my night of washing the dishes, it wouldn’t feel good for me to leave my husband with more to do on his night. So I wash the dishes. Or I take a pass but make the next night my night, taking responsibility for them a bit later because I wanted or needed a break.

How to Give This a Try

If you’re interested in seeing where you could feel good in your life, I invite you to bring the question into your consciousness. You might like to journal about it, meditate on it, talk with a friend/partner/mentor/therapist about it or whatever you use to process things like this.

From there, I encourage you to find one thing during your day that you might be able to shift into the feel-good realm. It may be surprising how difficult this is, but that’s part of the fun. Because once this question becomes part of your day, it’s amazing what unfolds – all the ways you both do and do not make feeling good a priority.

Welcome to the Feel Good Lab.