“The body doesn’t lie” has become one of my favorite things to say to clients.  Why?  Well, because our bodies are continuously speaking to us. Through our senses, but also through other signals like pain, intuition, emotions, etc.  Take a moment, think about all the ways your body speaks to you; hot cold, fear, sorrow, laughter, pain, sweet, salty, nervous, scents, and more.  We all can recall a time when we were with someone and felt like withdrawing from their touch.  Why?  Your body was giving you signals to let you know it didn’t feel comfortable and safe.

With the Industrial Revolution the mind became elevated as the source of all intelligence.  We began to discard intuition and spirituality as invalid or less so. Learning how to listen to our bodies has become a lost art, especially in the west. In more recent years, with the popularity of yoga, meditation and mindfulness and scientific research about the mind-body connection, we are once again embracing the importance of listening to our bodies and becoming “body aware”.  “It is through alignment of the body that I discovered the alignment of the mind, self and intelligence.” BKS Iyengar, renowned yogi.

As a massage therapist, Reiki practitioner and yogi, I find that the more I grow in body awareness the more in tune I am with my health, my life, with others and the world around me.

To try and explain this is like unraveling the mystery of why everything is connected.  So follow me down the rabbit hole as I do my best to explain it as I have come to understand.  I find it easiest to explain something if we start at the beginning.  Conception.  We all begin at the same place, conception.  A fertilized egg cell begins dividing rapidly into other cells.  A mere 16 days after conception your neural plate forms (think of this as the foundation of your brain and spinal cord). At the same time, special neural cells form and migrate throughout the embryo to form the very beginnings of nerves. From our beginning all things are connected, there is no separation.  Separation is an illusion born of giving names and definitions to parts of our bodies as a means to learn and understand ourselves.  It is necessary for us to do so of course, but in doing so it creates a false sense of separation.  The brain is not separate from our nervous system.  Where does the brain end and the spinal cord begin?  Where does the spinal cord end and the nerves start?  We are a bio-mechanisms, so to speak.  Our parts grew organically from within a cell, the cell multiplied and multiplied.  There is intelligence within the cells.  They communicate with one another.  We are one whole organism.  There is no separating the mind from the body; it is within the body.  Our egos don’t like us to think about such things. Understanding this is important because we often elevate our minds. We elevate them to the point of ignoring the signals our bodies send us.  We also ignore the impact that our thoughts and emotions have on our body and vice versa.

If I had a dollar for every client who said, “I carry all my stress in my neck and shoulders” I would be slightly wealthy.  Study after study has shown the physical ramifications of long term stress on the body. Stress is the number one cause of health problems in the United States and indeed it seems to cause tense neck and shoulder muscles.  How about the physical effect of long term depression? What about childhood traumas that we have not dealt with?  Have you ever heard of someone who was cheated on say, “I got physically sick to my stomach” when they found out?  Subconsciously we know that our emotions and experiences can have a physical manifestation over time.  As a massage therapist my hands are my eyes.  I feel, it’s what I do.  I feel my clients knots, adhesions, tension, muscles, fascia, joints and more.

Over the years my fingers have become more and more discerning.  Sometimes, I feel my clients tension, not just in the muscles, but throughout the body, I encourage these clients to begin some form of mindfulness to deal with stress.  Their bodies are speaking to me.  Their bodies are speaking to them, but aren’t being fully heard. Often people come to see me once they are in pain. Pain is the body’s way of shouting.  Something is wrong.  Something is out of balance.  Something needs attention.  Our bodies want to be in balance.  It is called homeostasis, the body works toward balance on a cellular level.  It is always trying to achieve a healthy state of being.

When I talk with my clients they often tell me that they have been living with this pain for some amount of time.  Obviously, we all realize that we live in a hectic society with busy lives causing us to often ignore our body’s communication until it is shouting, “help me” through pain.  Often we don’t notice the nuances of sensation which our body speaks.  It is like a foreign language.  We only know a few words. ” Donde esta el bano?”,  In English, “Where is the bathroom?”,  It is what we always learn first when traveling.  Pain is the body’s bold words that we all know and listen to most often.

When I became a massage therapist I was introduced to the world of anatomy and physiology.  I began to learn that people’s bodies are sending messages.  I began to listen more intently to my own body as a result.  Through massage I began to practice yoga and meditation.  These practices taught me how to quiet myself and listen.  Overtime I learned to bring awareness to my body, to observe.  I began to hear and understand my body’s messages more clearly.

My clients who do yoga, get regular massage, acupuncture, exercise, meditation, are aware of their nutrition, any of the aforementioned; are the ones who come to me quickly at the slightest change. Why? Because they are doing activities that make them more body aware.  They are learning to listen to their bodies.  They slow down, they get quiet, they notice slight changes and they understand that the body is a bio-mechanism that must be well maintained.

Why don’t we listen to what our body is saying?