Each of us at times in our lives will experience some form of physical pain or an emotional or mental block that will be difficult to shift.
This pain tends to be in the foreground of our lives and won’t budge until we do something about it. What we choose to do will determine what will happen in our future, so it’s important to pay attention.
I am going to walk you through 5 steps to help this process by connecting and becoming more aware of what your body is trying to tell you.
Pain is just a signal that is trying to tell you something. Something that means your body can’t keep going in that direction or building that much tension anymore.
Pain is normally created by a pattern in your body, a behaviour around the way you do something in your life or how you build tensions and what stresses you out. This pain is a signal that something needs to change, that the way you have been operating is not efficient anymore. It’s a sign to pay attention.
Most people would opt for a method to get someone or something to remove the pain so they can return to the life they had before. Sometimes this is successful but more often than not the pain will eventually return at a future date and that person will find themselves in the same predicament once again. Usually, by the time someone experiences the pain or problem, it’s at a point where there is so much going on in the body that it requires you to have a complete overhaul of your life and the way you do things. So, I completely understand why someone would want to solicit another individual to remove the pain, as its clearly the easier choice and requires no effort.
In my experience, this only brings about a temporary state of relief and when the pain does eventually return it comes back much worse than before and it has the potential to do quite a bit of damage.
1) Listen
How much time do you spend checking in with your body? How do you hold yourself? Are parts of you are held tightly in suspense where other areas feel loose?
I’m willing to bet you do not spend much time, if any, detecting whether there is tension in your body. In our busy lives, it seems irrelevant to most people to take the time and tune in with your body and to see what’s going on.
I’m sure that some of you meditate but meditation is about quietening the mind rather than tuning in with how your body feels and then taking action on those feels.
Every day before bed just focus on your body and where you are holding tension and where you feel more at ease. This should only take 5 minutes. Feel it not only in your spine but shoulders, arms, head, hips, knees, legs and feet. Scan all areas in your body where you feel the tension and just focus on allowing that part of your body to relax. This will help the brain connect with where you are holding tension so the body can do something about it.
I choose to do this before bedtime because it’s right before you are asking your body to regenerate during sleep, so this will help prime your body for what you want it to do for you.
2) Get your hands involved
Put your hands on where you feel tension or pain. Or if you feel like you have a mental block or emotional block, then either put your hands on your head or if there is a part of your body that speaks to you when you think of that emotion then put your hands there. Bring some breath and attention to that part of yourself and expand the area. This will bring more focused energy here so that your mind is focused on where feels stuck in your body.
3) Increase the pain
This seems counter-intuitive, as this article is about making the painless. But think about it, how much energy are you putting into making the pain go away? Have you ever noticed what seems to happen – it gets more or worse! If you focus on the pain, put your hands there, and move your body in some way that makes the pain worse. Use breath and energy directed into that area whilst you hold the position that brings the pain about more. After a few breaths or a minute or so, you will start to find the pain ease off. This is because you have brought the attention deeper to the area, and the body will start to work through this discomfort.
4) Say what you are feeling and thinking out loud, or make a sound
Put words or sounds to the feelings and thoughts that you are connecting with. This is such a great strategy and tool. When your mind hears the sound or word associated with the energetic vibration of what you are connecting with the energy will start to dissipate and become something else. This will deepen your connection to yourself on a whole new level.
Use phrases such as “sometimes I find it hard to feel”’ “sometimes I don’t want to connect”, “sometimes I don’t know how to connect”, “it feels like the pain will never end”, “I feel angry… sad… frustrated…(whatever you feel)”, “I don’t know how to express my feelings”, “the tension is always around”.
These phrases could be anything, so say things that are relevant to what is going on right now, with you and with your body.
5) Connect with yourself in another dimension
Some of us find it incredibly difficult to connect with our bodies. If this is you then listen up. This might sound wacky but trust me. I want you to visualize a version of you that is in another universe or another dimension. Sitting as you are sitting now but a long, long way away. Focus on that version of you and connect in with your body but in that universe/dimension. You might find it so much easier to focus on the external you, rather than trying to find connect inside of you. If you find this much easier to visualize then go through points 1- 4 but using this external way of connecting and see how much easier it is to create changes you want to see.
Connecting with yourself should be a daily practice. As I mentioned this is something that I like to do before a drift off to sleep. When I’m lying horizontal, I scan through my body and feel into what’s been going on that day, and how my body is at the end of the day.
I look at releasing and relaxing various areas. If there is tension in any area I place my hands over that area. I look to increase the tension with movement and if there are words or a sound that comes up then I feel free to make that noise. I find it so much easier to drift off into a nice peaceful restful state after I have done this work.
Give it a try and do let me know about your experiences.
Guided Meditation to Shift your Perception