Where do you feel that in your body?

This is my new favorite question. For a million reasons.

I love the way people experience that question as it washes over them. It’s usually met with confusion or discomfort, uncertainty, and something close to appreciation. Because likely that’s not a question they are often asked.

I love the way that it slows the conversation. It creates some Selah in our time together. Often we can get so swept up in our sharing, so overcome by our story and the feelings, that we can’t get off the ride, so to speak. We will spin our wheels in this moment until there is a catalyst to move us out of it.

But likely the biggest reason I love this question is this: sometimes I say things about my feelings and I don’t even believe them. They aren’t even true for me. Or I believe them but don’t believe they are valid.

By noticing and incorporating the way our body is responding to and compensating for our emotional experience, we are validating ourselves. Honoring ourselves. And coming into the present moment. Which is the only frame of time that any healing can take place.

And this is all awesome. But I wanted to share this for a specific reason. When you are seeing me for Spiritual Direction or Reiki and I say “okay, stop. Where are you feeling that in your body?” I am asking because I will bet your bottom dollar that deep feeling you’re experiencing is related to your physical pain. Headaches, stomach trouble, womb pain, shoulder and neck pain, sciatica, joint pain. These pains often come for physical and medical reasons, yes. But sometimes, and often we don’t notice until the dr. tells us that “this might just be your normal” or “might not get better,” those physical pains are there because we are holding negative emotions, negative energy, or trauma in that part of the body.

You see, our bodies are constantly trying to protect us. And if an emotional unsafety is present in our lives, our body will try to protect us from it. First with our nervous system, then with mild things, then with more “legitimate” reasons to avoid that emotional un-safety. You might start to experience migraines on the same days you’re scheduled to step into that emotionally unsafe place. You might get a stomach bug or weird rash. You might simply be overcome with pain in the body. Your body knows that this pain it has manifested is safer than the emotional instability that is looming.

So what do we do?

We heal the pains. We set boundaries. We prioritize emotional safety. We retrain our brains and bodies to trust.

Hard. Work. But that’s how we heal the problem, rather than treat the symptoms. Our body is made up of symptoms. Because we are spiritual beings having a human experience (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin). Remember?