When I tell people that my body talks to me and tells me things, most of the time they get a gleam in their eye that feels like they're thinking, "Oh, you're a little bit on the crazy side. Okay." But Carsten, my friend at Hufeland Klinik in Germany that I wrote about here, was very intrigued and asked me, "How do you do this?" with what felt like the implication of how he could also hear what his body says. I explained that my body does it a few different ways.
Several years ago (maybe around 2006?), my friend Adrienne introduced to the work that Louise L. Hay does through her book, You Can Heal Your Life. Basically, Louise says that "physical symptoms are merely tangible evidence of what is going on in your unconscious mind and how you are REALLY feeling deep inside. [...] If feelings are ignored, your subconscious mind must find another way to get its message across and help you see that your deeper needs are being ignored. Symptoms are the way your body alerts you to to this" (Enlightened Feelings).
For the last ten years, I've used the list towards the back of the book to see if there was an emotional reason behind physical issues I was experiencing. Sometimes there isn't a connection, sometimes I take it with a grain of salt, and other times it is beyond accurate. You can browse the full list at The Alchemy of Healing. So for example, when my jaw was locked for 3 days a few years ago, I looked up "Jaw Problems: Anger. Resentment. Desire for revenge" and "Lockjaw: Anger. A desire to control. A refusal to express feelings" and knew right away who I wanted to get revenge at. I talked about all of this with a close friend, and then the next morning my jaw was fine. Pretty cool.
In a previous post, I talk about how in 2006 I found the first of many lumps in my breasts. And I waged an all-out war on that benign tumor. By 2008 it had gotten so big that surgery was required. After that surgery, I welcomed each new cyst and lump for whatever purpose it was serving; they could stay as long as was necessary as love is always the way. I also incorporated into my self-care routine what Louise L. Hay says about breast issues. "Breast: Represents mothering and nurturing and nourishment. – Cysts, Lumps: A refusal to nourish the self. Putting everyone else first. Over-mothering. Over-protection. Over-bearing attitudes."
Sometimes very early in the morning when I'm half-asleep and half-awake, I will feel/hear dream-like messages. The first time this happened was halfway through my first round of treatment at Hufeland in September 2015. I felt and heard the right side of my body and the left side of my body align... connect... like two large, metal puzzle pieces finally locking in together. When this happened I thought, "Oh. Now my immune system is finally locked into place. It's not confused or fighting with itself or weak." Because I was still half-asleep, I forgot about it when I finally woke up. At breakfast Josh said to me, "So you've been here for 3 weeks of treatment so far. Do you notice any difference?" And I lit up, "Yes! Yes! This morning, my immune system locked into place!"
The second time this type of experience happened was in the middle of February 2016. I was again half-asleep and half-awake when I felt/heard my body say, "We need to go to a hospital with IVs in order to get all better." I remember responding and half-laughing, "But hospitals don't make people 'all better' and the IVs they give there certainly won't." Then my body clarified, "Right. We need to go to a hospital like the one in Germany where the IVs will make you better." At this point I woke up, thought about it, and then emailed the doctors at Hufeland that day to see what their recommendation would be for me to return based on my health status and test results.
The third time this type of experience happened is still somewhat going on. On Friday, May 27, 2016, my third day of being at Hufeland for the second time, I was in that half-asleep and half-awake state. It seemed that for about 30 minutes I experienced this buzzing/pulsing of pleasurable electricity. How to describe it... hmmm... it was a warm vibration that would ........oooooooOOOOOOOooooooo........ throughout my arms, legs, fingers, toes, everywhere... it would start out gentle, increase to the max, and then dissipate to nothing... then the next wave would come... maybe they'd last 2 or 3 seconds??? When I was finally awake I asked myself, "Did that really just happen? Were you feeling some sort of energy?" I was pretty excited and looking forward to feeling that each morning. But it never happened again at Hufeland. I've been back in Colorado for 2 months and it's been happening again, but not quite as intense. There were five days in a row last week at the end of July that I felt it each morning... super-cool... I have no idea what it means.
I do know that all of this it is not my mind or just in my mind. How can I tell? My mind is a Drama Queen! It attaches onto the most benign piece of information and will spin a web so intricate and negative and complicated I wonder where on earth did this come from?! My body (or maybe it's God or my higher self or my intuition or none of that or all of it) is calmer. There isn't the high energy spinning out of control that I feel like my mind loves to do.
"Her right shoulder?!? What the...???"
I know... right?!? Just stay with me for a minute.
Just a month-and-a-half ago in the middle of July 2016, I was at a Restorative Yoga (or Yin Yoga) class and I heard an answer to a question I had been asking. I had been very tired recently and was wondering aloud to a friend while we were walking why I am always so tired. I rest; I do excellent self-care; I eat amazing food; I take a bunch of supplements; I express my creativity; I work through my emotions; and on and on and on. I talked about that I've been tired my whole life! I remember my mother taking me to the Pediatrician's office when I was 4, when I was 8, when I was 12, when I was 16... always complaining of headaches and being so tired. A little bit of fear started creeping up and saying, "You will always be tired. Your body has and will always struggle to be healthy and vibrant." At least I recognized it as the Drama Queen showing up and just noticed what it was doing.
"Do you know how much energy it takes to protect your heart and your soul from all of the lies in the world? I am so tired. It's only been in the last few months or year that your heart and your soul have stepped into the role they are supposed to fulfill. I was doing that for you and for them for 35 years! It's totally fine... it's what needed to happen so that your heart and your soul would not believe the lie that they are not inherently good. But... I need a little time to catch up and recuperate. That's why you're so tired. Maybe you will always struggle with feeling tired and achey every so often, but we'll work toward getting everything in balance. Do not worry. You are at the exact right place on your journey."
Of course at this point I was crying and the teacher compassionately watched these emotions as they released.
As I shared my thoughts and experiencing with Carsten, I said that there are lots of different ways that work for different people to hear what their body has to say... or their listening to their body's wisdom... or seeing what their intuition has to offer. I suggested that perhaps others feel their "gut" telling them something. Or they use their dominant hand to write down questions and their non-dominant hand to answer the questions. Or they write down the conversation they have between themselves and their body/God/intuition/higher self/etc. I know that some people before they go to bed will ask their subconscious/unconscious mind or God for answers to their questions in their dreams and then have a pen and paper by their bed to write their dreams down as soon as they wake up.
What about you? I'd love to hear in the comments below what other people do to tap into their body's wisdom or their own intuition to get information!