What is Your Body Trying to Tell You?

Using the example of Headaches: Joining your Heart and your Head

By Heather Step, BA (Hons) Psychology, Dip Childhood Montessori Education

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When you are healthy, your body is in balance.  Illness happens when your body is out of balance because something is significantly wrong, and your physical body is trying to right itself again.

Thus the presenting symptom is not the enemy; instead it is there to teach us something.  It wants your attention and it will disturb your life to the extent that you have to pay it notice.  This symptom is much like Jung’s shadow - all the unacceptable parts of yourself are shoved away, to be manifest in some physical form.

The real danger of ignoring what your body is saying is:

-Refusing to come to grips with all the parts of ourselves, including the ones we do not want to acknowledge, will ensure that we never get what we hope for.
-Refusing to live this unacceptable part out will mean that it manifests in some way in our being.

How do we figure out what our bodies are saying to us?

Quiet yourself and ask. You can make use of asking the question with your normal writing hand: “What is my body saying to me?” then switch to your non-dominant hand for the answer. Or else close your eyes and try and tune into the message you are getting.
Refer to a reference book for help. “The Healing Power of Illness” is a big help. Another one is: “Your body speaks your mind” by Debbie Shapiro.
No matter what all these books say, however, listening to your intuition and your gut feel will be an overriding help.  Now that you’ve figured out what is wrong, you can use EFT to deal with the problem.

For example with headaches, it seems that the head is our most sensitive alarm system.  It is the quickest to react with pain.  Pain can arise for many reasons unique in each person, but often a headache can arise when you are feeling very pressured and are stretching yourself.  However the key to understanding how the headache is alerting you to an imbalance in your body comes from realigning your head with your body and heart:

The HEAD represents reason and intellect.  It thinks.  If this part is overemphasized we are perfectionists and too rational.  Modern culture often promotes this.  The HEART represents emotion.  It feels.  If this part is overemphasized we lose contact with reality.

Headaches are the result of a “top-heaviness” whereby the head’s thinking pushes on with little respect for what your body and heart can cope with.  This also happens when we worry.  The release of tension often comes with letting go.

Other factors here are unexpressed feelings, overload and a lack of control.  Another thing to think about is posture: if inadequate it physically splits your mind and body.  (Think about how you are sitting in front of the computer right now!)

Keeping a diary is a helpful idea to find what may trigger your headaches.  If your headaches are nutritionally caused you may find that chocolates and caffeine are the culprits.  You can also write down what is upsetting you at the time when your headache strikes.  You may use EFT to deal with the above information:

Even though I haven’t been listening to my body…

Even though this problem has escalated and disrupted my life, and I still didn’t listen…

Even though I wanted to shut out these unacceptable parts of myself…

Positive choices:
Even though I’ve been ignoring my body, I choose to listen to it.

Even though I don’t want to accept what my symptom is saying, I choose to listen and learn from what it is trying to teach me.

Even though I want to keep all the parts of myself separate, I choose to integrate and heal myself.

For headaches
Even though I’ve been stretching my body to the limit…

Even though I’ve allowed my mind to take the lead over my heart and become unbalanced…

Even though I haven’t been expressing myself as I needed to…

Even though I haven’t paid attention to triggers that may set these headaches off…

Positive choices:
Even though I’ve split my head and my heart, I choose to let them work together.

Even though I stretch myself to the limit without care for my body, I choose to slow down.

Even though I eat too many chocolates that cause my headaches, I choose to cut down.

Even though I keep things inside, I choose to deal with these things that are overloading me, one baby step at a time.

In conclusion: LOVE YOUR SYMPTOM!  It is a teacher.  It will disappear when it is of no consequence, and it is loved and accepted.  Resist it and it will get worse.

Heather Step

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Author's Bio:

Heather Step has a certain personality suited to counselling, being a Four on the Enneagram Personality system– drawn to suffering people and having the capacity for compassion for what they are going through.

Her specialties are in the following areas:

-mind/body connection with regard to pain and physical problems, (http://healwithheather.com/body.htm)

-stress and how to handle it (http://healwithheather.com/stresstest.htm)

-infertility (having personal experience of this) (http://healwithheather.com/getpregnant.htm)

-children (being a Grade One teacher at a Montessori school and doing play therapy) (http://healwithheather.com/children.htm)

For more information you can also go to my website: www.healwithheather.com

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Disclaimer: All information on this website is for educational purposes only, and the content is not intended to suggest that it is a substitute for proper medical care or good common sense.

While EFT has produced remarkable clinical results, it must still be considered to be in the experimental stage and thus practitioners and the public must take complete responsibility for their use of it.

In addition, the articles on this site represent the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the founder of EFT, Gary Craig, nor the owner of this web site, Stefan Gonick.