There is nothing honourable about self-abandonment

Dear wild-hearted wanderer,

I am writing this letter to you under the Leo New Moon. There’s something new I’m trying out—actually, it’s something old that I’m returning to. It’s a remaking of a bond I once held close that has wanted to come back out to play. Who am I do deny that?

You may or may not remember my Moonthly Letters from way back when. It’s gone through different iterations over the years but this new format feels the most true version of it—a living record of what it actually takes to walk an untrodden path. I’m excited to create space for this cyclical unravelling and spiralic unfolding.

Honestly, this is the quiet work of embodied deconditioning. There are no bells or whistles, no daily, weekly or monthly big breakthroughs—although they do happen too. But far more often, it is the quiet self-reflections in ritual with myself that add up to something big and cumulative. It is the relational nature of witnessing all your parts and allowing them to be. These moonthly letters will hopefully make you feel less alone on your own non-linear path through life.

So here we are, at the Leo New Moon, and I want to share what’s been moving underneath the surface this past month—from Cancer New Moon to now. After all, one of the channels defined in my bodygraph, the 46-29, the Channel of Discovery, can only get to the truth of a cycle in hindsight. And I’m quietly learning to honour the process of slowing down and feeling into what it was all about.

If there was one thread that wove the last lunar cycle together for me, it was this: learning to honour my no. Learning to honour its sacredness and its depth. Learning to honour it without apology because that people-pleaser part of me still struggles with the idea that “no” is a complete sentence. Or that silence is also acceptable as a no.

This Cancer season asked me to root into that truth not just intellectually but more so in practice.

When I look back, I can see how it showed up everywhere:
– in an unexpected food poisoning that asked me to fully switch off and transpired a reset;
– in moments at work when I chose not to overextend even though guilt felt very present;
– in invitations and opportunities that didn’t spark my sacral but sounded great on paper;
– in relational spaces where saying yes was expected and would have been the easy route;
– in trying to create a template for an offering that can’t be tamed within it.

You know what saying all these no’s felt like? Empowering as fuck!

Because here’s the thing: I have said yes and pushed through in similar circumstances in the past only to fall flat on my face. Whether it was a discomfort in my body after an experience or an activity that demanded energy I actually didn’t have. I’d often enter into things that were driven by either the fear of missing out or a social expectation of a yes. I’d often attach my own expectations to things that sounded great on paper. But the experiences themselves ended up being fuelled by low-level frustration and resentment.

And the biggest lesson?

When self-abandonment feels like safety, it’s easier for the mind to override the body’s no. It’s a survival pattern. It means it’s felt safer to go along with things and meet those expectations in order to maintain harmony. It often means abandoning yourself before someone else could.

Because here’s the thing: it’s easy to put this pattern down as a people-pleasing tendency or indecisiveness but in reality it means that our nervous system has learned to attune to survival. Dishonouring our true answer has come to mean that we can avoid conflict and rupture. We can prevent what our body’s become to perceive as danger, whether it’s emotional discomfort or perceived rejection. We’ve learned that it’s safer to abandon ourselves than risk the disconnection, the conflict or the emotional intensity.

And it doesn’t necessarily need to be a big decision. This pattern shows up in all sorts of subtle ways:

• Smiling and agreeing to something even though your body’s already contracted.

• Mentally justifying the yes because it’s a “good” opportunity.

• Over-explaining or over-apologising for your no.

• Focusing on other people’s feelings instead of your own truth.

• Saying yes to prove your generosity, kindness or helpfulness even though your Sacral hasn’t responded.

• Saying no energetically but acting as if it’s a yes, so you show up and act as if it’s all fine but underneath you’re feeling the bubbling frustration.

One of the big ones for me is saying yes in the moment, but feeling drained and resentful later because I either didn’t have enough info to begin with or I attached an expectation to it. For example, few years ago, I was asked to collaborate with someone on a specific topic. And it felt good in that initial moment. I was fired up about the topic itself and I did want to go deeper into it with that person. But ultimately what happened was a simple article swap that felt more like a self-promotion than a real discussion on what we initially agreed on.

So what went wrong?

In my mind, I kept thinking that this was not quite what I’d signed up for. When my body felt that initial yes, it had felt that yes for the possible discussion we were going to have. And my mind had created an expectation as to how this thing was going to happen. My mind also saw it as a great opportunity to prove my worth, broaden my reach and bring some new people into my space.

So, you see, it was very easy for my body to keep going along with it. My mind had hijacked my body’s emerging no and kept telling me all the whys I should follow this thing through. It kept telling me about all the potential gains.

It’s not that the mind is the bad guy here. The mind isn’t necessarily trying to betray us. It’s also doing what it’s learned to do: keep us safe based on what worked in the past. It often tells a compelling story as to why we should go along. But the body holds a different story. And that’s the one we’re learning to slowly trust.

At the time I was way too afraid to cause a fuss and bring up the doubts that had emerged. So I went along with it and ended up getting a bitter taste in my mouth for the whole experience. And honestly, I kept feeling how the whole thing was very orchestrated toward external metric gains rather than a true connection and collaboration. And I can now see the part that I played in it.

Because I was afraid to speak my truth in the name of keeping the peace and not coming across as difficult or ungrateful, I noticed I had built up a low-level resentment towards that person and the experience. And it taught me to check in with my whole body before I said yes to something. It also taught me that details matter to me.

I remember another specific time after I’d had the above experience, when I did say an initial yes and changed it to a no later on. Someone showed interest in wanting to work with me and that made me feel excited. But the more it sat in my body and the more we communicated, it became clear to me that this person was simply looking for quick answers. It took me a lot of courage to finally say no to them. I cancelled our initial call and I referred them to someone else. And that felt so good and liberating in my body.

Maybe you’ve experienced something similar.
A moment where your body whispered no,
but your mind had already committed.
How did that feel later?
What was the experience of going through with it like?

The thing about these embodied safety strategies is that they start to erode our self-trust and a sense of alignment within us. Through the Human Design lens, this is the work around our open or undefined Solar Plexus. Someone with an undefined Solar Plexus might have some consistent ways of managing emotional energy, and that’s usually through their gate activations. A completely open Solar Plexus, however has no consistent filter at all so this pattern often runs deep.

And that’s why a completely open Solar Plexus often feels more overwhelm around the emotional energy. It can show up as a complete shutdown or a major eruption. There is no built-in filter that tells us how to process emotions. An open or an undefined Solar Plexus often picks up on energy and tension that’s unspoken. And it fears confrontation because it doesn’t know how to process it safely. It doesn’t even necessarily know how to discern between what’s theirs and what’s not so it can easily start to identify with what they’re feeling as their own.

This avoidance comes from a deep cellular memory that emotional disturbance equates to danger. When an open Solar Plexus feels someone else’s frustration, anger or disappointment, it can often feel as if it’s a risk to their own survival. Remember, an open Solar Plexus feels this frustration or disappointment through an amplification which makes the experience even more intense than the person the original emotion comes from.

So an open Solar Plexus tries to keep the peace. It senses the danger and tries to prevent it from unfolding, or it self-abandons as a pre-emptive strategy to stay safe. For someone with a defined Sacral who feels the no in their body but lacks the safety to follow through with it, the fear of emotional disruption simply overrides the truth.

And this is where it can get confusing—both the Sacral no and the protective yes live in the body. The difference is that one emerges from your truth and the other from the survival pattern that helps you stay safe. The real journey is learning to feel the difference. And that is an individual process.

This is where Human Design combined with nervous system repair work complement each other so beautifully. Slowly, we don’t just learn to feel our yes’s and no’s, we also learn to honour what our Sacral is saying, even when it has the potential for emotional disruption. We also learn the sneaky ways our body has learned to protect us from perceived danger and risk, and with the help of Human Design, we can clearly pinpoint to the underlying pattern that’s playing out.

We get to learn to discern what emotions are ours and what are someone else’s. We get to learn to allow others’ emotions to simply move through us instead of letting them get stuck in our bodies and ruin our day. We get to learn that it’s not worth betraying ourselves for someone else’s comfort.

Ultimately, that’s what Your Living Body Map aims to do. It’s not a guidebook that tells you what to do, rather, it’s a sanctuary for remembering how to feel your truth and rebuild the capacity to honour it.

Honestly, there hasn’t been one big practice that’s helped me honour my no’s. Rather, there have been a lot of small daily steps of deep self-reflection, being with the discomfort and sitting with the parts of me that still resort to self-abandonment, and letting them all be seen without shame and judgement.

That’s the real work. That’s where we cultivate deep-rooted self-trust: in our own presence, in the quiet backyard moments with our own breath and body.

And then taking it all out into the world, into the relational fields, and allowing the shifts to emerge and re-emerge, again and again. Until one day we notice in a real-time setting that our capacity and flexibility is allowing us to honour our truth, and we survive to tell the story.

This is what I want these letters to be. I don’t think of them as polished teachings, rather, it’s a place to tell the truth about what this path actually feels like. What it takes to stay close to the body when the world keeps asking you to abandon it.

Thank you for being here and walking your own untrodden path, however it’s unfolding.
I’ll meet you in the next moonthly letter. And may your body remain your most trusted companion.

A Breath Practice for Sacral Clarity

I know I said there has been no one particular practice that’s helped me on my journey, but a deep and grounding breath has definitely been one of my go-to’s. Try this when a decision feels foggy or a part of you still wants to people-please:

1. Place your hands on your lower belly.

2. Inhale deeply through your nose for 4 counts, feeling your belly expand.

3. Exhale through the mouth for 6 counts, softening your jaw and shoulders.

4. Repeat for a few rounds, slowing down your internal pace.

5. Then ask your body: “What is true for me here?” and “Is there a yes, a no, or a not yet?”

There is no need to rush. Let the answer emerge from your body. And even if there is no clear answer, that still holds valuable data. Perhaps it simply means “Not yet.” What really matters is the pausing and listening. For it is here we cultivate the practice of self-trust.

Reflections to Explore

• Where in your life did you recently override your body’s quiet no? How did it feel?

• What does a sacral no feel like in your body before your mind kicks in with the stories?

• When was the last time you said no without explaining yourself? How did it land?

• What happens in your body when you honour your no without filling the space that follows?

• What if you allowed your body’s capacity to lead instead of your or others’ expectations?

• How can I honour each state I am in and allow it to move through me? How can I honour the transitoriness of each state?

• What part of me is afraid to express my truth for fear or conflict, rejection, or emotional disconnection?

• Where did I learn that it’s not safe to express my truth? Who taught me to abandon my truth for a sense of safety? What does this version of me need from me today?

I hope this letter serves you in whatever way is needed right now. I hope it encourages you to explore and feel into your no’s and honour them because, ultimately, on the other side of that no is a yes that’s waiting to happen.

And if you know someone who’d benefit from these living records, please forward it to them. Sharing is caring!

Sending you a deep and nourishing breath,

Silvia

Your Living Body Map is a permission slip
for the deep feelers, the tired hustlers,
the wild-hearted wanderers and the slow-laners
to take a breath and say “I can do this my way.”

It’s an invitation to move at the pace of your truth.

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