Reuniting With Your Body
As we grow up we tend to become less connected to our bodies and depend more and more on what runs through our heads and brains, for better or worse. Western society and medicine teaches us to trust our thoughts more than to trust the sensations and feelings from our flesh. Through time we can begin to feel like our brains have lost touch with our bodies, much like we often lose touch with childhood friends. Luckily we can each get to know or improve the relationship we have with our body and its many parts.
Reunite With Your Old Friend
I often tell my clients that getting to know their bodies again is similar to reconnecting with a childhood friend, especially since that is often the last period of our lives when we were better acquainted. I recommend our cerebral and conscious selves approach and get to know our bodies and physical selves in a similar manner. Imagine calling up a childhood friend out of the blue. Would you assume you already know everything about them and who they are after 20 years? Hopefully not. We would respectfully approach them and begin asking questions to get to know them. The same goes for reconnecting to our physical selves. We must approach gently and with respect, kindness, and love. Will all of our body parts instantly embrace this new energy we are throwing their way? Nope! But in time everything should open up and trust can resume. Much like with an old friendship, it takes time and effort. Ask questions to reconnect and even bring up old memories. We could bring up past shared events (even traumas, losses, and sad things) to see what they remember and get their perspective on the event. We can laugh, cry, get heated, apologize, or anything really that helps us re-establish a closer bond.
For example, let’s say we broke our ankle a few years ago. Bring it up to your body. There may be parts of you that experienced trauma, both physically and emotionally, which never got to express their experience. Opening up that channel of communication can bring healing to parts of your body that didn’t get the memo from your brain that you have healed and are okay. It also works in the opposite direction.
I have a friend whose knee blew out when he was sideswiped by a child on a bicycle. It took over 6 months for the knee to physically heal and get back to normal. His brain however had decided that the knee would never be the same. He told himself the narrative that he would never run again, never hike again, and this knee was forever maimed. His brain believed it. It was not until I helped him to connect his actual knee and his brain and got them communicating again that his brain realized things were healed and back to normal. Now he goes hiking, biking, and hits the gym without any issues or pain in that knee. Our body parts are built to heal and it is often our brains, plus past memories, that keep us “injured.”
Reconnecting and establishing a healthy relationship between our brains and bodies can work miracles in our lives. Letting go of our pasts and moving healthily forward in our present can make for a future full of healthy possibilities.
Be Gentle on Yourself
Another thing to keep in mind when working with our own organs, systems, and body parts is how we touch or work with ourselves. Most of us have a gentle touch when approaching people outside of ourselves, yet we tend to be quite heavy-handed with our own tissues. Be gentle on your body/organs as though you are handling a baby bird or kitten. When trying to ease tension or pain in a body part, try to approach with hands of gentleness and caring. We intuitively understand this concept when touching someone else’s injured tissues. How many of us experiencing a headache often begin to try to self-relieve the pain by firmly squeezing and rubbing our heads? Starting with a gentle touch can often be more effective. Our tissues can respond to gentle touches, often better than if it has to react to a hard touch.
Keep in mind that our body parts will communicate back and they will request a deeper or heavier pressure when that is what is needed. As I often say, understand and get to know how your body communicates with you. Becoming fluent in talking with your own body will vastly improve your life!
One of the greatest joys in this life is reconnecting with another human being who has shared a lot of similar experiences and with whom you can be your raw, unfiltered self. Many of us have thought about how awesome life could be if we were born with a twin, someone you grew up with and shared a majority of things with. Someone who just gets you. Your body can be that friend and twin. Think about it! You both have experienced everything together. You may have different perspectives on what you have experienced and those things can help bring understanding and acceptance in this life. Any effort you put into getting better connected with your whole self is a valuable investment in your present and future. You will have each other’s backs and can rest assured that together you can work through anything.
