Self-Healing Secret: Your Body Is Not Against You
Knowing what I'm going share now can improve how you relate to your body and enable you to experience a sense of calm that helps healing and is not dependent upon how your body happens to currently be.
Due to the immaculate mind–body interconnectedness, your body is constantly responding and adapting to the mental and emotional climate in which it exists. With the prime objective of surviving, it does everything it can to sustain life.
Now I accept this may not always appear to be the case, especially if it looks like your body is malfunctioning, feels faulty or is heading in the direction of its own demise. However, if you take on board that your body is not against you, then you can be in a better position to understand why it’s doing what it’s doing and help it to function how you want.
Assume that your body has your back
Think of your body, as your life-long friend who’s doing its best to keep you safe and encourage you to live fully and completely. Knowing your body is on your side, you ask better questions. Instead of feeling a victim you know your body is on your side and ask: What is my body trying to tell me with this physical condition?’ What in my life is causing my body to adapt to help keep me safe? How might my body be mirroring something in my mind or life right now?
To help you move into a more inquisitive mind-set for understanding the different ways the body adapts to survive, let’s explore some examples that have come from my observations during clinical practice:
Psoriasis - The body is creating an extra thick skin. The skin is the external line of defence. Commonly, people I meet with symptoms of psoriasis are feeling under attack, bullied or have unresolved past events that have caused them to fear for their survival. To explore this, you could ask: Why might my body believe it needs to create a thicker skin? Who have I felt, or do I feel, bullied by? Where in my life do I feel threatened or under attack?
Constipation - The body is holding on and/or not letting go. Very often people who want my help to heal constipation are attached to someone or something in their life and/or resisting letting go. A loved one may have died and the person is still mentally and emotionally attached to them. Or they are scared about or resistant towards losing someone or something important to them. For instance, this may also include worrying about losing a pet, a home or a job. Or they may have concerns around not having enough money for example, which is making them hold on to the limited funds they’ve got. Overall, their body is reflecting the tendency to hold on and/or not let go. To investigate this, ask: What am I holding onto? What am I not willing to let go of? What am I worried about losing? What’s happening in my mind or life that would make my body hold on?
Fatigue - The body is lowering its energy levels. It is common for people presenting fatigue to have a situation in their life that they feel they have failed to fight or can’t stand up to. They’ve also tried to ‘flight’ by running away, but feel stuck and unable to get away. So the body has turned to the third way of protecting itself by freezing i.e. playing dead. One way it does this is by reducing energy levels. Retreating to rest with the intention of getting away from the past or present person or situation is therefore a common cause of fatigue. To explore this, ask: What have I been struggling against in my life over a prolonged period? What in my life have I not faced up to or got away from? What stressful situation(s) do I feel stuck with?