Bulletproof Coffee rocked my world today.

It totally brought me to a new level of body-soul connection. Mind you, the last time I had it was many months ago, and then it was only not even a whole handful of times.

Let me explain.

I just watched this video from Authority Nutrition, a team of health + nutrition experts that I trust not just because their name tells me I should, but because of their evidence-based approach and the way they break down their research clearly, simply, and objectively. (Props to my mom for introducing me to them.)

The video was about BP coffee and why they don’t think it’s good for you. It reflects how I’ve intuitively and quietly felt about BP coffee from the start. But I had told myself that I must be wrong. I mean, so many people think it’s the second coming, who am I to disagree?

Sound familiar?

Who, indeed, am I – are you – to disagree?

I’ll be honest. Most of the time, I don’t actually relate to that feeling very much. I generally understand that just because a lot of people believe something doesn’t make it true, and just because I’m not an “expert” on a topic doesn’t mean I don’t have valuable insight to offer. In fact I usually hold my thoughts and opinions in quite high regard, if you must know.

But when the focus is on facts and figures as opposed to ideas and reflections, I tend to clam up and bow out. That wasn’t always the case, by the way. It happened slowly, over time, in adulthood. When it becomes clear that the game is played in rights and wrongs, if you don’t call out who’s wrong, you’re it. And if you’re not down with absolutes, it can be a challenge to hang when the conventional wisdom is that the only answer IS absolute.

I tried to speak my peace and participate anyway, across all sorts of arenas. But it always felt like so much swimming upstream, like my willingness to see more than one side to a topic was considered by the person disagreeing with me to be a flaw to fix or fight, through ever more rigid insistence on some singular truth they deemed obviously indisputable. And frankly, I wasn’t interested in putting myself out there in energetically unsafe space when it didn’t feel like it would make any difference anyway.

Foolish, naive, ignorant, stupid. There was only so much actual or implied name-calling I could stomach.

Irrelevant, unfounded, impractical, untrue. So many criticisms veiled as allegiance to fact, hurled with a force meant to put you in your place on the wrong side of right, lobbed with a conviction meant to keep you there.

It was so disheartening to me how often this happened, in how many spaces, in so many ways, and by so many people who I loved, or respected, and hoped loved or respected me.

So instead of getting roped into the type of competition and headspace I had purposely and carefully clearcut from my life, I abstained – not agreeing where I didn’t agree, but not speaking up there either. Some might call it tacit agreement. That’s not what it felt like, until all of a sudden it did.

I mean, as far as BP coffee goes, it was no big deal.

Just because something doesn’t work for me doesn’t mean it doesn’t work at all. If people felt energized and weren’t concerned about the things that concerned me, then good for them and I was glad it was all working out.

But alas, there’s a fine line between acceptance, detachment, and spiritual bypassing.

[If you’re not familiar with the term, check out Elizabeth DiAlto’s podcast with Jen Blackstock, below. The whole thing is amazing, but if you don’t have an hour, hop to minute 5:33 and listen for at least 3 minutes and ideally 9!]

Somewhere along the way, what I was actually doing went beyond being accepting of other people’s truths and holding a to-each-his-own mindset, to bypassing the discussion of my own beliefs and the uncomfortable conversations that I thought would follow. And in doing that, I was undermining my faith in myself and my own inner wisdom. Even as I was building up my connection to that deep intuitive knowing, I had also been blocking it in places.

It’s important to note here that this was, indeed, something I did to myself. Just because there were reasons that stemmed from ways other people had treated me does NOT mean that THEY did this to ME. The choices I made were mine, the choices we all make are ours, and owning that is a necessary step on the path to busting through them. This doesn’t excuse those people. It just ceases to be about them at this stage of the game.

So like I said, that it was happening wasn’t such a big deal regarding the whole BP coffee thing. But it was happening in other areas of my life too. It had started to become a thing, and it had started to feel uncomfortable, like a mis-fit had been created between who I was and who I was being in the world. And that’s contrary to everything I stand for and believe in.

The most notable way I’ve experienced this was around social issues and political debates. I used to not speak up much in those areas, for all the reasons I detailed above. And over the course of this last year, it had became a problem. Last summer and fall especially, I felt compelled to find the words and ways to speak up authentically around racial injustice, Black Lives Matter, women’s rights, and the pre- as well as post-election climate in the U.S. As an educator, an auntie, a soul-driven energy worker, and a facilitator of spiritual connection, it no longer felt in alignment to keep quiet here. So I started speaking up in ways that felt right, which developed my confidence that I could. I started allowing myself to speak from my truth with conviction, honoring it and also supplementing it where needed with research, without getting subsumed by needing to absorb it all. When I consciously spoke from my deep soul core, I wasn’t so susceptible to being hurt by the same old ways others sometimes responded. It’s been a journey and it’s felt great. It was a process of definite upleveling in terms of who I am and how I express myself in this world.

And now this video about the BP coffee is helping me boost up another level. It’s helped me see where I was selling myself short. It’s helped me articulate the whole rest of this post, which was something that’s been bubbling and brewing for me for some time now. And it’s helping me own that I have wisdom and insight around the body, health, and nutrition that goes beyond what I’ve allowed myself to claim. I’ve been voraciously reading, studying, exploring and experimenting on my own since middle school. I’ve seen fads come and go, and I’ve developed a strong foundation of nutritional knowledge. A slimmer body isn’t a prerequisite for having a belief that’s true, and neither is a certification (though I do intend to attain both on my path.) Just because I have to pause to recollect the right word or look up a specific stat, that doesn’t devalue what I know, what I’ve learned, and what I believe. And that is something I’ve been needing to own.

So why am I sharing all of this? What’s it got to do with you?

Here are the bottom line thoughts that I’d love for you to walk away with:

• No one can take your faith in yourself away from you but you.

• Every time you give your power away brings you further from who you want to be.

• We are all human, so you will do this sometimes. Don’t beat yourself up. Do be willing to pivot and carry on.

• Recognizing when you had an intuitive insight and IGNORED it or BELITTLED it, and it turned out to be SPOT ON, is how you remind yourself to do better next time.

• When you choose to honor yourself and your truth on your terms, there’s nothing you can’t do.

• While the ultimate goal is to source your affirmation from within, it doesn’t hurt to have respected experts corroborate your beliefs!

There you have it, Fruit Cup.

I’d love to hear what rang true (or false!) for you.

xxoo, cc