Who gets to be an authority in your life?

I’m fascinated by this question, because I think for most of us the answer is everyone but ourselves.

We let magazines and TV shows, movies and porn, dating apps and “experts” selling us snake oil influence how we feel about our bodies, what we eat, who we find attractive, what we want, and more.

We scroll through social media comparing our insides to other people’s carefully curated outsides. We breeze past headlines written for the express purpose of getting us to click and form entire stories about ourselves and others. We let doctors who have never lived a day in our body gaslight us because we’ve been trained over and over again by our hierarchical education system that everyone but us is an expert.

What would change if all that went away? What could be different if the only authority in your life was your lived experience and the influence of those you trusted intimately?

What would you eat if you simply went off of what you were hungry for and what your body asked for? What would you wear if you only put clothes on your body that felt pleasurable to actually wear? What would you do with your time and your tender body and your limited resources if you already knew you were enough and worthy and lovable without ever having to convince anyone or pretend to be something you’re not?

Who gets to be an authority in your life and how does handing over that power diminish your access to your embodied wisdom, to your desires, to you dreams and your pleasure?

And what else might be possible if we did the very scary (and frankly dangerous) work of breaking up with external authority and started learning how to listen and trust ourselves?

Because you deserve to feel good. You deserve pleasure. You deserve to be heard and trusted, not talked over and gaslit.

What is your body asking for today? What would it mean to listen?