Have you had enough of being sick? Time to connect with your body! Part 2

Sickness, contrary to popular opinion rarely begins in the body, occasionally there is a psychic over spill from a previous incarnation that can place one in a genetically damaged body or parental stresses affecting one in the womb, over all the template for illness may be inherited from a previous incarnation but to make it come true will be the result of interactions of internal conflict in the present.

By adding the dimension of previous lifetimes to our existence it does not imply that we have to be/remain sick, for illness can be a means of helping us to wake up to the truth and power of who we truly are, this being quite different from what Western culture teaches.

There are many reasons why people get sick, the implication being that we are victims, i.e. it happens to us. Nothing ever happens to us, we continuously create and co-create our perceived reality, but this is another discussion, for now, let’s focus on the battleground where all sicknesses ultimately manifest as a result of internal mental and emotional conflicts.

  Imagine if you would Flanders during WW1, Germans on one side France, the UK on the other, the scorched earth, mangled, potholed and poisoned between. 

In no particular order, imagine one side is the mind and the other the emotions with the battleground, i.e. the physical body -in between. They called it ‘No Man’s Land’ and that is pretty much what happens to our bodies as a result of the tug of war between our emotions and our beliefs, indoctrinations, and suppression of our inner freedoms.

To ‘behave’ is a word much bandied about from early childhood by parents, teachers and later on by those in power who would ‘control us’. I have nothing against manners or courtesy for it is the grease that smooths all manner of relationships and without which chaos would no doubt ensue. My concern is for the unfortunate suppression that occurs in our psyche as our indoctrinated minds deal with unwelcomed emotions and urges.

The process begins early on in our childhood when, emotions we are encouraged not to display, manifest within us and, as our (pre-conditioned) mind attempts to suppress and contain them, are experienced in us as uncomfortable and in time, painful body muscle spasms that lead to structural distortion.

To be healthy -The breath of life

Most children quickly learn the process of suppression of holding our natural breath by tightening our abdominal muscles, which in turn, forces us to breathe from the upper part of our chests.

The human body is amazing, with multiple redundant systems, so it can take an awful lot of damage and punishment as we crawl through life to the exit gate.

But we are discussing health, not ‘bare-bones survival’. Over time, the centre of our breathing moves from our abdomen to our upper chest, and our abdomen no longer expands and contracts with the breathing; Our internal organs, bereft of the gentle wave-like movement that massages them and moves fluids through all the little tubes of which our internal organs are composed, begin to block with debris as we gradually rigidify internally.

Proper breathing alone would help to restore a great deal of health to a great many people. You can read and learn the process on how to breathe properly once again here, as well as download a .pdf with instructions.

Internal rigidity begins with the mind, which then attempts to control the emotions as well as natural physical exuberance, these suppressed emotions have not gone anywhere, they are in our muscles, and in our subconscious, so our mind will then suppress our imagination (the language of our subconscious which desperately tries to process them), we call these -nightmares.  As we gradually rigidify, our bodies filled with muscular cramps in the involuntary muscles become too painful to inhabit, and our self-awareness escapes the sinking ship that is our bodies.

Our ‘feeling’ of self is a quality of being that is with us from very early on in childhood. It is a measure of expansion that extends to our surroundings, (will talk more about this in a future article when I share about the nature of feelings). Gradually, over many, many years, we are locked out of our painful and uncomfortable physical body, and our feeling of self is gone, to be left with a fractured and limited awareness of our emotions, or in our thinking heads. Con-currently we may also have been poisoning and damaging our bodies with non-foods, non thirst-quenching liquids, and drugs to get us out of our heads or the regular onslaught of our negative and suppressed (with the occasional explosion) emotions.

I hate my body- ‘it’ makes me sick

            There is a sect of Catholicism called Opus Dei who have a long history of self-flagellation as well as painful spiked straps on their thighs, as part of their devotion to ‘god’ and punishment as sinners

Our whole culture is based on the idea of punishment and boy do we punish our bodies.

Here is a link to an article with gory pictures in the daily mail of Muslims in a procession hitting their heads rhythmically and bleeding, including young teens self-harming themselves in a religious frenzy. Of course, it is not just religions; There are many sadomasochists in our society and many others that to experience something other than numbness will self-harm.

Most of us, at one time or another, have had accidents where we have bruised, cut, or broken something on our bodies. Were you to reflect at the time of the accident, it is more than likely that sometime during a previous couple of days you had some sort of intense unresolved emotional conflict -our bodies are always the victim!

Our whole culture encourages dislike, dissatisfaction and even hate of our bodies, and there I say it? Our sexuality. Too long too short, not enough, bum too much bum, not enough breast too much breast, Too many pimples, etc., and if I am furious I will hit my head or fist on the wall. What is wrong with us??? Way too much self-loathing of our poor innocent bodies that are dutifully doing the best they can with the poisons we ingest, as well as the involuntary muscle spasms from all that internal conflict, that distorts our physical structures and squeeze our internal organs out of alignment; lower backache? Neck pain? Chest tightness? Etc.

Imagine treating your horse like that and seeing how far you would go. To be fair it is no one’s fault, the pack of cards has been stacked against us, the game is rigged, and it takes a lot of determination, observation, and persistence, to scrutinize ourselves and the world of humanity as it truly is. Ahhrrgg.. Enough of the depressing observations, let me suggest ways to aid you in finding a way out of this nightmare?

The road to health – love, acceptance, and compassion for our bodies

The traumas of our childhood and indoctrinations have separated us from our capacity to ‘feel’, reduced us to the experience of negative emotions and, mostly disassociated us from our physical bodies

By and large, we are unaware that all muscular problems i.e. bad backs, neck, chest, migraines, hips etc., begin as a result of unresolved stresses that get tucked out of the way in our bodies.

Our brains (supercomputer) via the nervous system maintain relaxation of all muscle systems via opposing forces; To stop itself from being overloaded, it will disconnect persistent signals. Say you smell something pungent, then after perhaps 10 seconds? Our brain switches off the signal coming from the nose. When we get a muscle spasm, the brain will send a signal to the opposing muscle to contract and so relax the cramped muscle. If, because of emotional energetic dumping, the muscle continues to contract, the brain will stop sending a signal to the opposing muscle, and you will experience an acute, painful, muscular contraction that could last days to weeks or turn chronic -whilst we dis-associate from our bodies to cope.

Imagine you are a house, you haven’t been disposing of your refuse, as you accumulate black bags of rubbish you dump them in a room, eventually, the room fills up, you close the door and fill up another room before you know it you are living in the attic! The house out of bounds.

In my last article, I shared how we collectively create our external reality as a reflection of our internal world, and in the external world, rubbish is everywhere! Don’t see it? That is because we do exactly the same in the outer world as in the inner. WE tuck it away out of sight into poorer Countries as well as the Oceans.

We don’t love ourselves, and we don’t respect our world. Time to change that? Then we will start with body awareness to lay the foundations for change.

Suggestions :

• Learn to breathe properly as previously discussed.

• Go for walks where you focus on your feet and breathing. Sense your heel as it touches the ground, and follow the sensation to your toes as they all grab the ground. How is your posture? Shoulders dropped and relaxed. Note your hips, are they seized up? Will they lead the forward movement of your legs? Or are they static? So much to be connected to.

• When you speak with others, be attentive to your posture. Are you crossing your arms and legs? Are you doing this to mirror someone else, or is it your own sense of uncomfortable ness?

• Meditate on your body, be aware of your pains and discomforts, place ethereal hands over the areas (kinaesthetic sensing), and relax into them, you are alerting your brain to reconnect with that nervous signal that got waylaid. You will be amazed how quickly you will, with practice, release subconscious tensions from your body. A while back, I did a guided meditation .mp3 to help with focussing on the body-find it here

• Pain – cultivate experiencing physical pain – this sounds a little odd; it is not a masochistic endeavour.  When you hurt yourself, have a migraine, or headache, discover a new arisen muscle pain in neck, shoulders, back etc., stop your activity, and focus on the location and sensation of the pain. When we put the body pain out of our mind with distractions we are reducing our connection even more, not only that, we are also adding a mental layer of heightened pain anticipation that will make us recoil from physical pain even more in the future.

I find it useful to imagine one or both of my hands gently touching the area of tension as I immerse myself with curiosity in the pain, I change nothing, simply be there with the pain, this alerts my brain to the present imbalance, and it sends signals to the nerves to activate the relevant muscles and, or, mobilize the healing response from the body.

• Lastly, do exercises that aid body awareness like Yoga and Tai Qi.

Well, the above sections were an attempt to bring a flavour of bodily harms by the interaction of the mental and emotional conflicts that abound in most people, some of this conflict finds its way to the foods that we ingest and with which we also make ourselves sick, if you look at this link on nutrition and healthy eating and read the various articles you will become better informed.

By and large, we have stopped listening to our bodies. We are conditioned to ignore the instincts of our bodies and learnt to stuff ourselves with what poisons and congests our system. Our parents \out of their own indoctrinated concern and subsequent anxiety on our behalf will force / cajole us to eat foods when young that we instinctively do not want.

There is so much more I need to say with regard to sickness and healing, so I will add more articles, the next one Have you had enough of being sick? Time to connect with our emotions, part 3 I will focus on the emotional dimension to do with health and illness.