Body Speak

Body Speak

Body Speak is a method which can be used to look into and better understand what your body is telling you.

What do you usually do when your body is sick or hurting? Do you take medicine to make the pain go away? Distract yourself from it? Try not to feel it or self medicate it away? Lets face it, most of us have done some or all of these at some time, but we’re missing the point!

How else is the body going to communicate with us if we don’t listen to its subtler whispers? Those subtler whispers are the ones which we often feel but pay no attention to. They’re those thoughts and feelings that tell you something’s not feeling right but you do it anyway. They can be what we call ‘intuitions’. Now I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t take pain killers or other medicines as they all have their place but if you must, then also give your body and feelings the opportunity to be understood. Sit with them. Listen, feel and notice if there are any secondary areas of the body where pain/emotions can be felt.

Lets look at this in a little more detail.

Your feelings are there to guide you. They’re not a sign of weakness or over sensitivity. We are meant to feel. Our feelings help us to make better decisions otherwise how else would be grow? When you take time to listen to them, fully feel them and maybe even speak with them, you give your body an avenue of communication that it will love you for.

You may start to notice that the cause of your pain is elsewhere and not the obvious place/area in your body/life that you may have originally assumed.

Pain and discomfort can move around in the body so that pain that you are feeling in a certain location in the body may have been transferred from a different part of your body/mind where it originated.  Even if the pain has moved around there is still important information or messages encoded in the pain that it is important for you to be able to receive and understand. You see if you had the solutions to your problems and pains, they wouldn’t be there would they?

Pains and body symptoms of all types carry messages that once received and understood and after you make appropriate changes in your life, the pain-message no longer needs to be sent out and so the pain goes away.

So as you go deeper with the following exercise, it not only starts to give you a ground map of your life and how it all fits together, but it also becomes your teacher. We can access everything through our bodies.

Below is a simple exercise that you can use to start developing rapport with your body.

Gems and crystals for healing

Clear quartz – Clears and cleanses energy

Rose quartz – Connects with unconditional love

Amethyst – known as the ‘all purpose stone’

Exercise 7 – Body Speak

Sit comfortably, quieting your mind with your eyes closed. Breathe slowly and deeply. Relax the muscles of your body from the top of your head down to the tips of your fingers and toes. Remember to relax the face. Imagine that your internal organs are taking a deep sigh of relief as they relax back against the spine.  

Scan your body from the top of your head downwards, feeling what is going on in each area.  In some places you will feel nothing while in others you may feel tension, pain, sadness, anxiety, heat, cold, emptiness, heaviness or something similar.

Even if you feel nothing, this is a recognition of something: space. You can go into it and notice how it feels.

These are the areas where your body is communicating with you. One of these areas will stand out more than the others (but should a few areas feel the same then just pick one and start there). It doesn’t matter where you start. What matters is that you do start somewhere.

Once you’ve located the area of the sensation, ask yourself the following questions. Wait a few moments after each question until you recognize something, but make sure you work with the first thing that comes to mind. Do not attempt to change it, overlook, control or mistrust it.

1 When I think of XYW, where in my body do I feel it?

2 If it had a shape, what would it be?

3 If it had a colour, what would it be?

4 If it had an emotion, what would it be

5 If it could speak, what would it say?

Wait for the answers of each. You may have to practice this a few times while you get used to it, but once you grasp it, it is something that you can use for many years to come. This is a technique which I still sometimes use, as life continues to present me with the unexpected.

Should you draw a blank with any of these questions, ask them again, adding, ‘just if I knew’. Something will come. Remember that some people find it easy to visualize whilst others feel more, some hear, and others just know. You may also have a selection of these senses that you use all at once.

Now that you have recognized these few simple points, you are communicating with your body and have something to go with. You may want to record yourself asking the questions so that you can play it back while you are meditating. Remember to leave ample time for the answers to come up during the recording.

Whether spoken words or an emotion come through, the key thing to remember is to first ask it what it does or what its purpose is. If what it is doing is working against where you intend to be going in your life, explain to this aspect why it is at odds with what you are wanting to now create for yourself.

If, it needs your attention, then give it to it. Ask it what it needs in order to join you in your mission and if it is within reason, give it to it. You will get a response of some kind even if it’s just a feeling.

Remember that feeling is the easiest way for your body to communicate with you. Sometimes all that’s required is for you to pay attention to it, then go into a place of observation and allowing. This alone can be enough for something to shift.

Sometimes the body may need to release something like an emotion or toxins. Other times it may need love, to be heard or nourished, for you to stop eating something that does not agree with it, or simply to play.

The list is endless, and as you become used to this method it may take you much further and deeper than you could ever have imagined.

One good thing to remember is that your life is your teacher as well as a gift. Treat the hard times as your teachers. Hardship and obstacles are opportunities for growth which hold great potential.

You may at first, find it hard to trust what your body tells you because you are so used to thinking, rather than sensing or using your feelings as a guide. Your feelings are an accurate guide to what is a healthy or unhealthy choice in life and you can always make better conscious choices if you allow yourself to stay more and more tuned to and true to your feelings and genuinely want to make use of the valuable guidance that is available from your emotional body.