Best Self Magazine

Insights From the Heart: Learning to Listen to My Body, Mind & Spirit

Insights From the Heart: Learning to Listen to My Body, Mind & Spirit by Karen Eller. Photograph of a woman looking into her own reflection by Eugenia Maximova.
Photograph by Eugenia Maximova

On a mission to overcome a deeply-rooted anxiety, one woman learned the power of listening to her body to release fear and embrace love.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Actually, the sound from the person banging on my hotel door at 10pm was more like, Pound, Pound, Pound.

I had come for a solitude trip although I wasn’t really trying to get away from anyone. Rather, this one-night trip was to overcome my paralyzing fear of being away from my husband. It would be my first time I was out of town without Don since his heart attack and subsequent bypass surgery. In the two-plus years since, I had been afraid to be more than across town from him. My mind kept reiterating: 

What if something happens again and I’m far

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