The stories you tell yourself and the stories your body tells you either sync or conflict. Is this happening in your body? Do you crave more ease in your daily body? Where do you start? If you have chronic pain or discomfort, if you’ve tried many modalities but keep bumping up against the same restrictions, consider learning the language of the body to discover how to change its story through the plasticity of perception.
In over 20 years of working with clients (through movement education, hands-on treatment of their bodies, working to train their visual and auditory system to coordinate with their whole body, understanding the reflexive patterns that trap their movements), I’ve seen the power of asking the body for answers big and small.
A body tells stories of comfort, safety, and survival. They are generic and universal. A brain tells stories of self-identity, belonging, ancestry. They are personal and unique. Sometimes the brain sacrifices the body to create stories that are more tolerable. Sometimes the body speaks out when the brain can’t make sense of what happened.
These stories together build a narrative that you live in every day. The conversation between your body and your brain are happening whether you pay attention or not. That conversation is accessible to you through your perception. Your brains speaks in words and abstractions, but your body speaks in feelings and sensations. Sensations are by design adaptive. They are your entry into the plasticity of your brain. Feelings are more complex, so it is easier to work with the building blocks of sensations.
How do you start? Here are two key steps to overcoming conflicting stories within you:
- Learn to listen to your body from the inside
- Discover your internal strengths in order to authentically experience your vulnerabilities.
The first step means bringing subtle body cues up into conscious perception. Being able to pay attention to your body signals is a learned skill. In fact, it may work best once your central nervous system is fully matured. We now know that full maturation of the pre-frontal cortex doesn’t happen until the ages of 25–30yrs.
Children speak the body story. You get better at applying the brain story when you have more years of practice digesting or integrating body signals. But the body story cannot be blocked out. Dr. John Sarno was an MD who famously relieved back pain in patients by helping them identify their repressed rage. He became so effective in his approach that people have experienced recovery from back pain by merely reading his book.
We put aside body signals all the time, and we need to in order to get through a normal day. It’s natural. But you need more tools than disconnection in order to manage the ups and downs of a full life.
Discovering where your brain and body are in conflict doesn’t have to be a dramatic process. We all experience some degree of it. You can try measures here and there as you try to keep stress at bay.
Or you can learn a deeper skill: to dynamically center and empower yourself. When you can experience the deep systemic strength you have within a well-organized physical system, you can untie the knots of conflicting stories.
I have been teaching a full body-mind awareness approach that efficiently snaps your attention into the moment. In this approach, I apply a technique to learn the skill of moving from strength to vulnerability. It’s a simple and potent approach. If you want to learn more, feel free to contact me or take this quiz to guide you to a course that suits you.
Originally published at coherentbody.com.
