Body Wise

In the past I’ve spoken often about our bodies as powerful teachers. They are our guides, our informants. This last week or so, my teacher is my stomach. The informant is sharing with me information, of that which is transforming in regards to my relationship with my sense of self, with the Third Chakra. The center of personal power.

Flash Back Decades:  In my early 30’s, at the end of a 5 year relationship with a fellow alcoholic, I was just beginning to figure out this internal system of communication. He wasn’t working at that time, desperately focusing on his art, which meant he was home all day, sipping his beer. He had relapsed in the last months and was thus far controlling his intake. With one addiction enlivened, many other co-addictions arose as well, which were much harder to tame. Me? Well, I was around 5 years sober, my co-dependency now triggered immensely by the entire life I was living, yet not quite ready to admit this to myself.

I loved my job working at an outdoor flower stand in downtown Portland. Loved the people I connected with all day. And yet, every day when I got on the bus to go home, my stomach began to feel sick, as if I needed to throw up. Of course now, it’s completely obvious what was eating away at me. But back then I’d begin to wonder, as the city-scape passed by the window, “I wonder if I’m eating something for lunch that isn’t agreeing with me?”  “Maybe I drank too much coffee again.”  And as I got off the bus, walking toward our building, the feeling of a need to vomit, both strengthened, while simultaneously became numb. My whole being would go numb.

There came the moments when I began to connect the dots. This was prompted by the mysterious disappearance of my engagement ring from my finger. I searched high and low, with no recollection of removing it. Then one day while cleaning, I stood on the toilet seat to reach up and clean a high shelf, and there it sat! The lost ring. My mind spun for a moment. Did it some how fall off my hand, and he found it and hid it from me? That didn’t fit any dynamic of our relationship. Could I have put it up there? As much as I imagined all sorts of far out things, I had an inkling that some hidden part of me was attempting to send me a message.  

Not long after, as I was taking off my jeans one evening, I found a crumpled piece of paper. It was a slip torn off from a poster advertising an apartment for rent. Whoa! How did this get in my pants?! I was honestly quite shaken from the find, but what was really shaking me up was consciousness was shifting within me, soul was sending messages which were now breaking through my denial system, that the life I was living would continue. I was shaking because these mysterious instances broke through and I received the message. It was time to leave. It was time to transform myself and my life.

My life choices were making me sick, literally. My body was communicating messages from down deep within my being, asking that I acknowledge the truth, “The jig’s up.” With this acknowledgment, also came the responsibility of decision making. I was guided to choose to love myself, to choose me. Once I saw the light, I couldn’t put the blinders back on. Goodness knows a part of me wanted to, but Soul had other plans. Thankfully.

Everything in your life shifts when you come into harmony with yourself.  

Panache Desai

Back to the Future~Present: Decades have passed and this body of mine is the first place I ‘listen into’ when change is amiss. It has never led me astray. And here I am again, guts churning. Feelings like I’m going to burst at the seams. Anxiousness free-floating. Weepy. And the guts still churn. This time not from a disconnect from personal power, nor because the life I’m living isn’t wonderful. Instead, it’s from a new level of empowerment taking place within.

I’m grateful for all the life experiences that have taught me previously how to ride these very uncomfortable waves of an inner dying process. It’s taken a couple of days of surrendering into all of the feelings, which can be labeled as depression, I suppose. However, I’m aware it’s in fact energies and consciousness being transformed.

So I rest. I allow all the feelings to rise from within, to bring forth new light.

There are traits of personality that I have worn most of my life. Some have served me in the past and have been burnt in the fire. Some are still serving me. Others are ready to be to be transformed. As some are now dying they are simultaneously  birthing a new me. Rebirth can often be as challenging as the death. Because it calls for embodiment of the new. This time it is felt in my gut.

At this juncture there is a brighter, stronger, more powerful self forming. She feels fierce and protective, like a Mama Bear watching out for her baby. Except, I am both. She is determined to play by new rules. Old rules will no longer serve the me who is becoming. And now aspects which have not been ready to be shown, or I have not been ready to don them, are now readying to burst forth.  A new sense of personal power, a deeper truth, is no longer afraid to rock the boat.

Can you ‘hear’ when your body is stepping-up in the role of Teacher?

Can you feel the messages it speaks?

Do you believe in the ‘symptoms’ you experience in the body, as purely physical?

Are you ready to see the ‘symptoms’ as a call to heal and transform your life?  

My experience has been that soul speaks through our physical being. Our physiology . . . biology . . . emotions . . . subconscious. Our being is interconnected on gross and subtle levels; along a thread of past, present, and future; from our conscious self to our Highest, Divine Self. We live in a body-vehicle.  We are embodied, and the messages come through this vehicle to guide us.

Like many things in life, we cruise along until we hit a snag of discomfort. This gets our attention and we can then inquire and make the changes necessary.  Well, when it’s time to move through a death and re-birthing process, this happens inside of us. We are guided to the inner messages being delivered.

If you don’t connect to this inner knowing already, your soulsong guidance, here are a few steps which you’re invited to practice, if you feel so called:

Stop & Listen.

Enter into Stillness & Silence & Allow space for whatever rises.  

Do not judge & Inquire within.

Get Radically Honest & Let go of what no longer serves you.

Love yourself through the growing pains of Rebirth & Take the next step into your Light.

For assistance & support along your awakening journey, click here.

Blessings & Love ~

Lotus