Give Thanks to your Body 

Your body has an innate intelligence, a consciousness that is woven within its very fabric. The wisdom of your body is available when you create the space to listen. This intuitive knowing can be enhanced when we slow down and tune in. Most of us don’t pay attention until the voices of our body have become loud, painful, angry or stressed.

Our body is a living journal of all of our experiences. To support our highest potential, it is of the utmost importance to learn to listen to the voices of your body, and to gain insight and understanding from each part’s unique perspective. Our body speaks to us in the language of sensation. Often the mind is busy interpreting, managing and possibly ignoring these signals.

As you focus on the part that has a rather loud voice, with this part of your body, when you slow down and take time to listen, each part of your body has a voice, a message, insight and intelligence. As you notice you can become curious and inquisitive, you can still yourself and focus your mind to listen.

And when you become receptive to the truth your body speaks, it often has a clear reflection back to you, a message that is plain as day, that knows just what you need to hear. You can begin to mend the breaks in the communication. Begin to understand the needs of your body and study the language it speaks. Listen to the tones and notes. There is wisdom here, and you can learn to listen.

When we have trauma, we hold the memory of that pain. This could be from injury, surgeries, emotional or mental pain, from repetitive movement patterns from working or from neglect. Whatever has happened in the past, we store this experience in our body. Until it is released it will continue to affect us. Our thoughts and emotions affect our physical health, as well as the stories we tell ourselves. Awareness and presence heals.

Many times we can make the body do what we want. Our minds demand and boss the body around, we make the body bend to our will. This works up to a certain point, and it is an old dominant way to live. At this certain point the resistance of the body creates patterns of dysfunction and the body begins to revolt.

The relationship with the body has become one of coercion, reaction and ultimately your body can go on strike. Your body can call the shots and it often presents a multitude of symptoms, like bread crumbs leading you to the places where the communication is blocked. When the communication is restricted the function is altered.

Parts start picking up the slack and doing the job for other parts to compensate for the one in pain or the one in tension. There is less of a community effort, these parts start to isolate and less blood flow happens, less communication means less oxygenation to your tissue, less of the garbage is taken out. Mom and dad are fighting.

This may be when you get the pain in your neck, or your back goes out, you can’t stand with equal weight in the feet, your gait is uneven, there’s torsion in your pelvis, your shoulders are tight and on fire. This is when the pain becomes chronic, or acute. Like someone is screaming, yelling inside, and someone else is giving the silent treatment.

It becomes more challenging to keep up with things, to do the exercise. This is when you need to stop trying to ignore your pain.

When we have a good reciprocal relationship there is a give and take. There is a willingness to listen and to learn what the need is and how to offer something to the body. Giving gratitude to the body and taking time to listen and pay attention is a Thanksgiving that keeps on giving. All aspects of our lives are positively affected when our body feels good.

Time is the most valuable resource along with care. The body has love languages too and when we understand what the body is trying to say to us, it can often be a profound experience. Because the body is always there seeing, feeling and sensing everything. The body has an intuitive sense, it can offer this.

I often visualize the internal as a landscape or garden. I hear the voices of the body as an orchestra, symphony, or choir. As we gain awareness and pay closer attention to the voices of our body, we begin to realize we are in relationship with our body. As we are in relationship to movement—not just our body as a whole but each individual part.

We have a different kind of relationship with each part. As does each part have a different relationship with us. Each part has its own experience and perspective. And there are relationships this part has with the other parts of your body.

The question becomes: what are you bringing to the relationship you have with your body?

Relationships are a give and take. Remember to be in a loving relationship with your body. Give yourself the care you deserve and right your relationship by helping your body to feel connected.

Remember what it feels like to move more fluidly, to be able to do the activities that bring you happiness, to move in an easy relationship with gravity, and with the uplifting Strong Force (a natural force 39 billion times stronger than gravity that causes us to rise).

Myofascial Release is a connective tissue therapy. Myofascial Release is a gentle, safe and effective whole-body treatment approach proven successful in reducing or eliminating acute or chronic pain and restoring motion by releasing restrictions within the body’s fascial system.

Angela Rose has been practicing bodywork and treating the fascial system for over 20 years. She treats clients in Grass Valley with Myofascial Release and Presence Centered Awareness Therapy at Sol Bodyworks.