What we are thinking directly affects our body, our entire body, all the way down to the tiniest atom we are made of. The mind/body are connected as one. In other words, a direct inner and outer feedback loop exists between the mind/body. So what we think, actually affects us on a physical level. It affects our health, what our body looks and feels like-inside and out.
When you are thinking a stressful thought in your mind, your body will react to that thought no matter if the stressful situation is happening(real) or just being imagined in your mind.(not real) There is no difference between the mind/body so both the 'real' stress and 'not real' stress will still affect your body in the same way.
That is why staying in the present moment is so important. Because in the now..the mind/body can be more aware of what is actually happening and what is just a fear of the future happening. In the moment, it is easier to stay at peace and relaxed in your mind and thus your body will then feel more relaxed and at peace.
I first learned of this mind/body medicine years ago by reading about a field of scientific study called Psychoneuroimmunology. In this field of medicine studies show how our thinking affects our entire body, by breaking the processes down in the brain and the link between disease and thought patterns. This is mind/body medicine study of our human nature. Deepak Chopra is one pioneer in this field of medicine and a pioneer in helping people heal and stay healthy.
I was really intrigued and started studying it more deeply. I began to learn how thoughts are broken down into chemical processes and deeply linked to how our body operates. Those chemical processed break down into what our mind/body is made of pure divine energy. This opened my eyes and my heart.
For some people studying the physiology of the body is boring. For me it is heaven because I have come to learn about what amazing creations we all are down to the tiniest little atom.
Some chemical processes(thoughts) are healthy for our entire mind/body system and some are not. The unhappy emotional states, or negative thoughts like stress, fear, depression, anger, resentment and sorrow produce more pain in the body because they activate chemical processes within us that break our mind/body down.
It can be a cycle of stress/pain looping around on itself all the time. These emotional states also produce weakened immune system. This is where we are more open to disease, disorders and sickness. Plus our muscles are just more tight and tense too.
The other side of this is that happy emotional states or positive thoughts like, gratitude, love, acceptance, compassion peace produce more relaxed states of the body. States of the mind/body like relaxed muscles, healthier immune systems...and healing from disease or sickness. Or never getting sick at all. It is easy to
notice people like this because they seem to have a healthier glow about them.
Like I said there is scientific evidence for all this. Plus I have had direct experience of this in my own mind/body. Also, I have seen it in my clients during the many years I have been a mind/body medicine practitioner. I bet if you really started to look in your life and feel deeply into your own body, you could start to notice how your thoughts affect what your body is looking like and feeling like all the time.
When I initially became more aware I would begin to notice how my own body was deeply affected by my thought processes. How my being angry made my heart hurt or shoulders hurt. How when I was stressing out, my neck would hurt. As I started practicing yoga and meditation and becoming more calm, my body started to change and I was in pain much less. But the real shift in me came when I became aware of my thoughts being directly linked to my body, my muscles, my tissues on a moment to moment basis. So I started combining this awareness with watching my thoughts to see how just a thought w0uld affect tightness in my body. I began focusing more on creating positive thoughts in my mind all the time, not just during my yoga class or meditations.
If I was stressing I would become even more focused on a positive, happy thought in the moment. As I did this I would notice almost instantly how my tense muscles would relax, my breath would become easier and I would just feel better. I also noticed how my mind/body was shifting into an almost constant state of ease and comfort. The mind/body loop in full effect!
As I was noticing in my own life I was also noticing it in the mind and bodies my clients. As a massage therapist/bodyworker/yoga teacher it was truly amazing to witness and feel into as I was massaging my clients.
I was beginning to see how my clients bodies held muscular patterns in directly relation to what their mind states where. Clients that came in that were more stressed, angry, unhappy and sad had almost similar body patterns. They almost always had tighter muscles, more injuries and just reported more pain in themselves. The clients who were happier, calmer and more peaceful, guess what? They almost always had a body pattern of muscles that were relaxed, flexible and easier to massage. It has taken me many years to really start to see all the patterning that goes on the mind/body and it is pretty amazing.
The thought patterns we have about ourselves turn into(manifest) as a real, organic 3 dimensional full body representation of what we are thinking most of the time.
A huge link to this patterning is about what our thoughts are moment to moment.
Plenty of people 'do' yoga and meditation and get positive results during their class for the few hours a week their connecting to themselves. Yet then they go right back out 'into the world' to being unconscious of what their mind flow is and how it deeply affects their body. People take a break from their chaotic life to do yoga and meditation without realizing that yoga and meditation are a life path focus of being aware all the time. We can become even more aware in the moment of the thoughts that cause our mind/body stress. We can learn to let those go in the moment, for the good our bodies, our minds and our lives. This is learning to re-train ourselves moment to moment, not just during the 1 1/2 hours we go sit on a mat in a yoga class.
There is a deeper internal shift that can happen so that we can be in a constant state of awareness. A deeper focus, a presence and an intent to be more aware all the time.
Thoughts become the 'things' of our bodies, or our issues are in our tissues. So I teach people to pay attention to what they are telling themselves all the time, all the time.
It can become easy to go into autopilot and go down an automatic path of stress and negativity. That stress and negativity affects how the body looks, feels and heals. Always.
It takes practice once we start to notice our automatic thoughts more. We can ask ourselves whether we are telling ourselves that we are healthy, beautiful, cared for and loved. It is at that level of thinking we are start to train our mind/body to be healthier, happy and more at peace. All from a place of conscious choice.
This article may seem like an alternative form of healing to some...yet if you take to heart what is written..you will come to learn how there is no alternative healing other than the wisdom that already resides in you as your body/mind always wants to return to natural health.
Namaste,
Cheri
Different levels of healing and awareness.
Physical
Emotional
Spiritual.
Each depends on how deep you wish to go in your own healing process.
You may just want to be rubbed without any thought to your emotional emotional life and how that may be affecting your muscles.
You may wish to combine a physical massage with an emotional inner dialogue to get to a deeper level of healing in yourself.
Or you may wish to dive deeper into your soul to come up with why you aren’t healing…this level of healing is taking you to the deepest level inside of yourself…to heal soul wounds…wounds that occurred from deep trauma..in this life and/or past lives.
There is no separation between mind and body. The mind is running through or occurring through the whole body..the body itself and the mind.. are one. Science now is starting to catch onto this way of thinking.
There are different reasons why we are tight in the body.
The most obvious are the physical reasons….I gardened today and my back muscles are tight..or I sit at a computer all day…and my neck and upper shoulders are tight. These are mechanical reasons we are tight.
There are also emotional reasons. Anger that has not been expressed can lead to tight muscles. Holding sorrow and sadness in the body can also lead to tight muscles.
In both of these notice the cyclical effect. Tight muscles=pain, frustration, even anger.
And vice versa…notice how your chest/upper back feel the next time you are sad. Or how your shoulders feel when you are angry or someone is yelling at you.
The spiritual level of healing…is the deepest level and it is more subtle…it encompasses mind/body and the spiritual energy we exist as. We are vibrations of energy. This level of existence is possible to experience within yourself. And there can be damage or trauma to this energy body.
When you heal on this level you are taking yourself to the deepest chasms of your soul to learn to allow the life force energy within you to flow freely. Here is the eternal fountain of love. When you allow yourself to access this love within yourself. Pain-physical, emotional, and spiritual just seem dissipate.
Each level of this healing process can take on different levels of discomfort.
This is because to experience this level in yourself you have to be willing to first experience and let go of all the pain you have held in you body for so long.
Read on to discover how your level of awareness can impact the ability of the mind/body ability to heal itself.
Just like there being different levels of healing…there are also different levels of existence or awareness.
There is the physical awareness of life. I am here in my body…typing on the computer..my fingers are pressing the keys. Or I am bending over my flowers and touching them with my hands.
The is also the emotional awareness of life. I am feeling content right. I feel love. Or I am frustrated.
Then there is the spiritual existence/awareness of this life. And it only takes opening the mind slightly..to begin to see that there is more to our existence than meets the eye.
There is an energy that runs through the entire universe. That energy is conscious..meaning awake and aware of itself. When you look at a flower or sunset. You may get a different feeling. You may be able to experience this subtle opening..as just a knowing inside of something deeper. Or an inner experience that you are bigger or more expansive than you can imagine. Sometimes it helps to look into outer space and imagine yourself expanding into it.
Some people exist their whole lives dominated by one level.
The mostly physical people who don’t have a balance in their emotional…the balance of checking in with how your emotions are today. A dog dying for instance to a person in a more physical realm would look more like simple heaviness in the shoulders. There wouldn’t be a deeper honoring of emotions. I am devastated that my dog died.
The mostly emotional person..would not have balance with their body. They would be so lost in the sadness or the anger that the dog died that they would forget to take time to nourish their body with good food, exercise. Sleep. Love.
The spiritual people are the ones who sometimes seems a bit otherworldly. Maybe sometimes the ‘crazy’ people get lumped here too. Yet the spiritual person understand the connection to something bigger than themselves in the universe. Albeit, God, Allah, Spirit, Jehovah. Etc….
These people can sometime lose touch with the physical and emotional realm of life..ignoring the fact that not all people are balanced in the spiritual side of life.
Massage and bodywork can help to balance all three of these areas within oneself. It just depends on where one is ready to go in their healing experience.
Therapeutic Massage for CouplesIn the Massage and Yoga Sanctuary in Redding where I have a massage office, both men and women come into buy massages for their significant others. The intent of these gifts are wonderful. The significant others are always grateful. However, there are times in massage sessions where a client will say, “I wish my husband or wife could massage me the way you do“ . They say, “you have this way of connecting to my body that my partner does not“. Those comments illustrate what is often times missing between many couples- a deeper, loving, physical connection.
Because they want that level of connection with each other, many couples are requesting that I teach them how to massage each other. There is a deeper message that is being communicated to me from couples, not just male and females couples either, all variation of couples, gay or straight. Women tend to receive massage more, so for their men I teach them that one of the greatest gifts they can give their woman is the magic of being a man who gives touch and massage with the intent of having her feel good, all without wanting sex after wards. This intent can apply to any variation of couple. It’s simply genuine intent and open heart space that people wish to feel, whether they are consciously aware of it or not. This is why professional massage feels so good. Many of us massage therapists have trained ourselves with that level of intention and presence. I teach clients that giving your partner loving, therapeutic touch is much less expensive(and more fun) than buying “things” like an expensive dinner or flowers, especially if funds are limited.
Lately, stress levels for so many are higher than ever. For couples though, during high stress times, the physical, intimate connection is what often times gets neglected first. Luckily now in society it is becoming widely accepted that therapeutic massage and touch are ways to decrease stress levels. Loving, therapeutic touch can always be available between two people. The benefits of massage are infinite; physiological, emotional, and physical. In addition the boundless loving energy that can be exchanged between two people is amazing. Everything is linked. The mind/body are one, when you affect one area, you always affect the others. Here are just a few of the benefits of massage; A physiological benefit is that touch releases serotonin in the body, and serotonin is the “feel good” chemical. This connects right to the emotional benefit of touch, it feels good, it brings happiness. The physical benefit when the body is touched, is that muscles will relax, thus decreasing tightness. This decreases pain in the body. It’s always a cyclical effect.
Clients will say to me, "I can’t massage my partner because I don’t have strong hands or my partner just doesn’t know how to get to those tight spots." There are ways to train oneself so those problems do not affect the level of connection between a couple. The real goal is staying connected with the intent of love and presence, because energy goes where thoughts(intent) flows. You can have tiny hands and still give an excellent massage.
Like I mentioned above, nothing beats getting a high quality therapeutic massage. You get presence, experience, plus the breadth of knowledge of a professional massage therapist. All this, without having to give back. You lay on the massage table and drift off into dream land, trusting that the massage therapist will attune to you, your body and give you the love and focus you need. If you have a truly skilled massage therapist, then he or she will know the power of giving massage from an open heart. You can sense in anyone’s touch what their intent is. The warmth of their heart will flow through their hands.
Imagine that you and your partner have all those qualities. It is possible. This is where intent comes into play. In your mind’s eye imagine how wonderful it feels receiving loving, therapeutic touch from a trusted partner. You can still drift into dream land. Trust that your partner is giving to you because they want to make you feel good and you don’t have to give back. Then practice giving touch to them the same way.
There are many skills and techniques one can learn to give excellent therapeutic touch for helping each other de-stress and relax. First though it really comes down to heart space with the ebb and flow of giving and receiving. Like I said, energy flows where intent goes. If you want to make your partner feel good, then your partner will feel good. This open heart space coupled with communication are keys for navigating the art of giving and receiving.
Especially during stressful times, staying lovingly connected is one of the most important things we can do for each other. This loving connection replaces material things. Plus that abundant energy is returned to us in profound ways. Next time you are stressed, maybe just let that stress go. Focus with your partner on giving and receiving therapeutic touch. You might be surprised at how it can relax both of you.Please check out my website for more information!
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