Listen to the Feeling

There was a spell of dizziness going around this week. Patients and staff and friends in surprising numbers found themselves to be experiencing some mild vertigo, lightheaded ness and sinus issues. Although allergies get worse with the turning years and we all know as we get older our systems develop sensitivities that they might not have had when they were young, I think there's something else "in the air". 

We do see cycles come through the office. One day most of our clients will be coming in with hip trouble and the next it will be the neck. There is no logical and boring reason why this might occur but I have a theory. I am a woo-y person and I like the magical moments in life just as much as I love the science that can at times reason an event into a beaker or test tube. With patterns like what we see in the office I can only suspect that there is an "energy" going around that people are subconsciously picking up on and it shows up in their bodies. A good example of this phenomena occurs in late January when most people are getting the Visa bill from Christmas time. We are wrought with patients complaining of lower back pain and it's generally local to the low back instead of the typical sciatic symptoms we see associated with this condition. This area of the body has been known to harbor financial woes. Concerns about income and debt happily rest just above the sacrum in the lumbar spine, which coincidentally hover over support and security which reside in the hips of an individual. There are other seasonal patterns that seem to mimick the usual concerns we carry throughout the year. And then there are the more personal patterns specific to the individual and what's going on in their lives.

I have a patient, we'll call her Rose, who does not like her living arrangement. After years of compromising her own comfort for economy sake her body is becoming more than she can deal with. Here is how I assessed the progression of her condition: six months after she and her partner moved into their current location Rose began to have pain in her back. It started as lower back pain, and as I mentioned that is commonly related to finances. It progressed over time to the whole back and began to lock up the upper ribs. The ribs in particular were telling considering they were the ones protecting the heart. Getting my fingers in between them to open them up was nearly impossible. This past winter she and her partner discussed moving in which he vetoed the idea. Shortly after the conversation Rose began feeling worse and the pain spread to the neck and the left shoulder. In constant pain and unable to sit anywhere but her car she has become hopeless that this condition will ever let up. Desperate for answers she asked me what she could possibly be doing to cause all of this agony. I repeated back to her the last three years of her life and explained that the body will take on that which we are unable or unaware of handling consciously. Her body is speaking her pain loud and clear to me. Financial worry in the lower back running up our foundation in life (the spine), closing the heart out of protection, cramping up and choking the truth she feels in the neck and debilitating her feminine strength as represented in the left shoulder. I said simply it's time to move, I would be very interested to see what happens when you can come home to a place you feel safe and happy about. We will see but she was better the next time we worked together.

It's easy to keep the body and the mind, not the mention the emotions and our personal spiritualities separate from each other, believing that one has absolutely nothing to do with the others. In reality most people believe it all starts on the physical level; my leg started hurting and then I became irritated and it got worse and so on. In my reality most things start on a spiritual emotional level and when we refuse to deal with it or deal with it poorly it drops down into the body and an imprint waits to be discovered. It's the bodies way of communicating what the mind is hanging on to but isn't forthright about. And it's worth listening to because the majority of our intuition resides in the body.

So, beloved, when there is discomfort, pain, sharpness, achiness and so on and so on, listen to your body and pay attention to your own patterns. You have all the answers, you just need to learn the language.