How aware are you of your body? Right now, as you read these words, do you have an awareness of what is really going on in your body and what it might be saying to you? Even if you think, “Yes I know how my body feels,” I invite you now to bring your awareness to your body and really listen to what it is saying to you.
“Why?” I hear you cry! My invitation to do this is because I have a belief that our bodies are powerful intuitive vessels that are constantly communicating and letting us know exactly what we need for our lives every second of the day but so many of us simply do not know how to or that it is possible to connect to this wisdom.
Over many thousands of years we have moved away from truly listening to our bodies and from accessing this amazing instinctive knowing that it is available to us at all times.
It is time to reclaim this wisdom.
Through dis-ease and dis-harmony, our bodies reflect back messages and information that can provide a catalyst to make significant changes to the way we perceive ourselves, our lives and each other. We all have this ability, and I believe wholeheartedly that everyone, including you, has the right to know this and remember how to access it. After all, your body is with you everywhere you go!
By listening to the messages, wisdom and language of our bodies we can raise the awareness of ourselves, our needs and our beliefs and give ourselves the choice to make changes to transform our personal and professional lives.
As a trained massage therapist, reflexologist and transformational coach I have, over the years, experienced at first-hand how the body communicates to us in a very simple, effective and powerful way. And, if we listen to it, how we can radically change our perspective and our lives by letting go of the stories and emotions that reside within.
A few years ago I remember one of my clients arriving at my therapy rooms with immense pain in their shoulder. During their treatment I could visibly see and feel the tension that rippled across their back and up into their neck. I gently asked the client to relax their shoulders. “I have”, they replied. This time I moved in further to their shoulder girdle to gently move it away and lengthen their neck, I encouraged them to take three long deep breaths.
As the stretch deepened, I paused, allowed them to settle and then asked “what are you holding on to”. After a few moments, their emotion was palpable. I could feel their shoulder relax and fall deep into my forearm as I continued to lengthen the stretch. They had let go. They lifted their head and turned to me with tears in their eyes and spoke, “I had no idea I have been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders”. In this moment, their body had spoken to them. They were carrying an immense responsibility on behalf of a loved one. A secret that had been entrusted to them. They were carrying this burden and weight in their shoulders. By listening to the wisdom of their body they were able to access information that was not available to them consciously in that moment.
Wake Up And Smell The Coffee
We have become so switched off from ourselves that many of us have no idea that all the information we need for our lives is right there within us. Our bodies are amazing vessels and a part of our Self that we don’t give enough credit for. Yes we know we have a body, and yes we know that it moves and sometimes we aren’t happy by the way it looks or feels. But there is so much more to our bodies than that. It is the connection between the mind and the body that we often dismiss, overlook or give a wave of the hand in an “I can hear you, but I am not listening” kind of way.
The relationship between our mind and our bodies and the possibility that this connection might have a direct effect on the state of our health and our ability to heal and lead lives that are full of potential, possibility and opportunities, is crucial to understand when considering the idea that there is more to us than just our physical presence and the thoughts and feelings in our head.
When we take the time to ponder and explore the extraordinary interaction of energies between the many aspects of our ‘selves’, and by that I mean our beliefs, our stories, our needs, our unconscious reactions, our suppressed emotions, our aspirations and our fears within our physical body and its capacity to sustain itself, we realise how very wise and amazing the body really is. It is so much more than just flesh and bones and all its physical aspects. Our body is made up of an intricate system which represents unlimited intelligence and compassion.
What I find amazing is that our body is constantly communicating with us and giving us the means to understand ourselves further, to confront issues we are not looking at, and to go beyond that which is holding us back. For as much as our bodies manifest our conscious thoughts and feelings, so too they manifest the unconscious energies which underlie our every action. Did you know that we live in an unconscious automatic state for 95% of our waking day? Yes science has proved this and it is completely mind-boggling that we are only properly awake and conscious for 5% of our day! It is time to wake up! Our bodies really are rather wise and rather wonderful and they can give us all the information we need to go beyond the realms of what we thought possible for our lives.
The Body-Mind Connection
To understand what is dubbed as the body-mind connection, we first have to recognise that the mind and body are one. They are not separate. Our physical body does not operate independently to the way we feel. And the way we feel does not operate independently from all the experiences we have had and behaviour modelled to us in our past or in our present. Most often we regard the body as something we carry about with us; something that is easily damaged, that needs exercise, food, water and sleep. In some cases we consider the body to be a nuisance or in the extreme we may go some lengths to actually hate it.
In any or some of these situations, when the body is considered to be damaged or broken we take it along to the doctor in the belief that they will mend and repair it. We want instant gratification so that we can quickly get back on with our lives. We have a mindset that when something in our body is broken we need to fix it. We treat it like an inanimate object, a thing that sits external to us and is devoid of any sense of intelligence, feeling or knowing. When our bodies are working well, we feel good about ourselves. We feel happy, life is good and we can achieve anything. When it isn’t working properly, perhaps when we have a cough or a cold, or we have sprained an ankle or hurt our arm, we become irritated, frustrated and depressed with it. In some cases we become full of self-pity and we blame, judge and loathe our body. I don’t know about you, but I have done this A LOT in my life time!
The overall view of our body and what it represents in my experience feels quite limited. But hopefully after you have read this, it won’t be anymore! For this limitation denies the complexity of all the energies that make up our entire and whole self. These are energies that are constantly communicating and flowing between our thoughts, feelings and the physical makeup of our bodies. There is no separation between what is happening in our minds and what is happening in our bodies.
Linguistically if you consider how we use language in reference to our bodies, we think of someone of importance in our lives as a ‘somebody’ but a person with little significance we consider to be a ‘nobody’. Already we are identifying that our body plays an integral part in who we are and how we exist.
Our bodies are us, they are a direct result of the communication between the numerous aspects of our existence and by that I mean, what we are constantly thinking, feeling, assuming, worrying about, considering, pondering because of what we believe and have experienced in our past, and if your belief system stretches further than that, our experience in the womb, our stories we take on from the many generations before us or the past lives we have lived.
If you say “I have hurt my arm” then you are actually saying that it is “a hurt from my past that lives on inside me, that is making my arm hurt”. What the hurt arm is expressing is no different from a verbal expression of an emotion such as anger or frustration. To say that there is a difference is to ignore the fact that you are the sum of all your parts, that you are a whole being that is entirely connected to the expression of your body.
To treat the arm on its own, disconnected from self, is to disregard the source of the pain that the arm is manifesting. Denying this body-mind relationship is ignoring the opportunity that the body gives us to look at, accept and resolve our inner pain, conflict and the stories and self-limiting beliefs that currently define us and to which we hold on to so tightly.
We know that when we are feeling anxious or nervous about something it can cause an upset stomach, constipation or even a headache. Sometimes when we are feeling this way we can become more accident-prone too. We also know that stress can lead to heart attacks and stomach aches. Depression and loneliness can make our bodies feel slow and lacklustre and we feel like we have very little energy. We might lose our appetite or to the other extreme, eat excessively. All in all, our energy is heavy and downbeat. Meanwhile, when we feel joyful and happy it increases our vitality and energy and we feel more alive. In this state we are less likely to get an infection as our bodies are stronger and therefore have greater resistance. With this awareness we can begin to understand that what happens to us physically is something we do have control over and that we are not a victim of this dis-ease of our body and we do not have to suffer until it all passes. What we experience within our body is an integral part of our being.
How well we are or are not, is an indication of what is going on beneath the surface. We are more than just skin deep. For example illness or accidents often come at a time of great change such as moving house, changing jobs, getting married or getting divorced. At these times in our lives the body is pushed through an incredible amount of emotion, resistance, frustration, worry, hard work…you name it. And alongside all of this it has to work hard to try and resist all the negative thoughts, assumptions, perceptions and limiting beliefs that want to rear their ugly heads and sadly often do. The body basically has to work really hard and in doing so leaves itself open and vulnerable.
Ultimately our bodies reflect the events and experiences that we have been subjected to in the way they move, function and operate on a daily basis. We are the sum total of all that has happened to us. The body retains everything it has ever experienced within its cells, its core and its functionality. To believe that our body is a completely separate entity is to deny ourselves a great source of wisdom that is available to us at all times. If you listened to your body and knew what that persistent headache really represented for your life, you have the opportunity to not only heal your physical body but your emotional and mindful one too.
The wisdom and language the body uses is simple to understand. Ultimately if we listen to our bodies, even when it is merely whispering to us, we can shine a light on our inner conflict, expose our stories and bring a great awareness to our limiting beliefs. In this moment we can change and transform these experiences from conflict to resolution and from discord to peace. Through its unique and powerful language it can help us to change our lives and realise our extraordinary limitless potential.
So in this moment, I invite you to begin to access the wisdom of your body.
Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. As you do, check-in with your body and notice what you notice. Perhaps you notice that the right side of your body feels a little different to your left side? Or maybe just now you have noticed a dull headache that you didn’t realise you had before. Perhaps as you work your way down your body you are noticing a sense of unease or that your tummy is griping suddenly – a feeling that certainly wasn’t there before? Maybe your tongue feels heavy in your mouth or your nose is a little blocked. However your body is communicating. Listen.
Pause for a moment and consider what does this information mean for me? What message is my body giving me? What action can I take that make a difference and transform how I am feeling?
Listening to your body and accessing the wisdom it holds isn’t always easy, often it will share messages with you that you don’t want to hear or hold a perceived sense of fear. With every message your body gives you, you have a choice to listen to it or not. The more you listen, the more your will have the opportunity to change your life and your reality.
Much love,
Rebecca x
PS if any aspects of this blog has piqued your interest you, I would love to invite you to consider our Transformational Coaching with Body Wisdom Course, a coaching qualification that will support you to access the wisdom of your body to create change and transformation.
