Hi there,
A big and wonderful part of the healing journey is getting to know your body better and learning how to take care of it. A huge focus of my work with clients is about empowering them to do this. You can get a great start on it now by TUNING IN and connecting with your body regularly.
To do this, I’d like you to see things a little differently when it comes to your symptoms. Instead of your symptoms being a sign that something is WRONG with your body, I’d like you to consider them as a way your body is TALKING to you, and asking for SUPPORT. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with your body, it’s just trying to tell you something.
When you see your symptoms as a message, you step into a WAY more exciting place than thinking of your headaches, pain, acne, weight gain, menstrual issues or fatigue as just problems that need to be fixed. Ugh. Instead, they turn into windows of opportunity for learning more about what your body needs.
To give you a couple of examples, instead of your headache being sign that you need painkillers, they could be a message that your body needs more water or a little more sleep. Or, your 3pm slump could be it’s way of letting you know that your blood sugar is low, or your lunch had too many carbs in it rather than needing more caffeine. I won’t go so far as to say that your symptoms are a gift, because I know a lot of them can be painful or stressful. But, they’re important clues about what your body needs to heal.
Of course, it’s helpful to have someone interpret your symptoms and understand what kind of specific support you need to bring in to rebalance your body, but the first step is to connect in and listen to your body so that you can learn more about it.
How to “Listen” To Your Body
1. Pay attention – by actually paying attention to your body, you’ll start to pick up on a lot of things it’s telling you. For instance, you might notice that you feel tired at 9pm but then watch TV, “power through” and get some work done, or go out. That split second where you realized how tired you felt was a really important message from your body that it needed to rest.
There’s no need to do anything spectacular to move ahead on this tip. Just having the intention to pay attention AND being open to receiving information is all you need to get a big start.
2. Breathe – The crux with having a super busy life is that it’s so easy to spend most of the time in your mind and forget what’s going on from your neck down. One of the best tricks to leave your thoughts behind and tune into how you feel is through your breath.
3. Explore possible patterns or connections – taking a look at what you ate, did, or who you were with around the time your symptoms came up could shed some light on what’s triggering your issue. For example, is your PMS worse when you’re stressed? Did your energy levels change at the same time your job changed, or you were under a new stress? Do you feel bloated after some meals but not others? How your body responds to certain situations or foods can shed light on what’s causing your symptoms.
Take Action Now
Take a moment right now and listen to your body for at least one of these short, but super powerful activities.
1) Connect with your breath
Connecting with your breath is a great way to get out of your head and into your body.
- Put one hand on over your bellybutton area and one hand over the middle of your chest.
- Take couple of deep easy breathes.
- Ask yourself this question: is my belly moving in and out when I breathe, or is it tight?
- If your belly’s moving in and out, nice work! .
- If your breath is up in your chest, see if you can move it into your belly so that it moves OUT when you breathe in and IN when you breathe out.
- This is what’s called “diaphragmatic breathing” and is a great tool for tuning into your body AND calming your nervous system down.
2) Explore a symptom
- Pick something about your body that you tend to think of as “broken” or “not working” – it could be anything from your skin, digestion, menstrual cycle, energy, sleep, or even an emotion like anger, sadness or irritability.
- Take a few slow breathes, close your eyes and ask yourself the following questions:
- What is my body trying to tell me?
- What does my body need right now?
- Jot down or journal for a few minutes on what comes up for you. Don’t worry you don’t need to diagnose yourself! This is where a trained specialist like me comes in, just see what comes up from your own inner voice. You know your body better than anyone else and have a lot of wisdom inside you.
Reconnecting with my body was a huge part of my healing journey. Until I had an eye-opening cleanse experience in my 20’s, I actually never thought about what I was eating. Back then, food existed up until it disappeared into my mouth, and that was the end of it. When I took a break from certain foods on the cleanse, it helped me realize how much my diet affected my energy levels and digestion. Reconnecting the link between food, my body, and how I was feeling was truly a life changing experience.
I’d love to help you tune into your body, understand what it needs, and how you can take care of it. To take an easy and insightful step towards this, reach out to me for a complimentary health visioning call at info@drvivianlord.com. We’ll explore the messages your body’s sending you!
All the best,
Vivian