Learn how to listen to your body

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*Understand

Your Symptoms*

Adapted

from /The Quantum Mind and Healing/, by Arnold Mindell (Hampton

Roads,

2004).

 

*Simple

Solution*

This

renowned psychotherapist believes that physical symptoms are

actually

important messages from our bodies that are deeply wise in the

ways of

the whole self, including our psyches and our souls.

 

When we

learn how to listen to our aches or pains--the illness or

disease

as it manifests in our feeing bodies--then the door to healing

is opened.

What does your symptom want to tell you? Try this fascinating

approach

to becoming mindful of our body-wisdom, here:

 

1.

Consider a difficult symptom to focus on, perhaps one that you felt

in the

past but never understood.

 

2.

Focus on the feeling of that symptom. Try to feel the sensations of

the

symptom so exactly that you could recreate it in or on someone

else?s

body, or on a body made of clay, whichever you are more

comfortable

imagining. Make your description so realistic that anyone

could

experience it. (Ex: one reader described bladder pressure that

felt as

if something were pushing itself out, against and through the

walls

of the bladder.)

 

3.

Focus, not only on the effect the symptom had on you, but on your

imagination

of the energy creating that symptom. (Ex: Say you have a

headache

that is like a sharp pain that makes you feel tired. Don?t

focus

on the tired part that is the effect. Focus instead upon the

initial

energy or the sharpness of the headache.)

 

4.

Unfold the energy behind the symptom by mimicking and expressing its

energy

with one of your hands. This movement may lead you into what the

author

calls the ?symptom creator,? the dreamland predecessor to the

physical

symptom. Feel and move like that symptom creator until an image

emerges

of the movement experience. Make a sound that goes with the

movement.

 

5. Take

courage and determine what your sounds and movement are

expressing.

What is their message? What?s in the mind of the symptom

creator?

Become aware of your experiences. Your own experience is your

inner

reality. (For instance, the reader with the bladder pressure said,

?This

pressure feels like a little demon trying to get free. There is a

wall, a

prison, keeping it in. Some Spirit wants to get free.?

 

6. Now

find the essence of the symptom. Ask yourself to name the essence

of the

symptom creator. (The reader said that he moved his hands up

against

a wall and pressed, but before pressing, before getting so

upset,

the ?demon? was simply a sensitivity to confinement and an urge

to be

free.)

 

7. Once

you have found the essence, make an image out of it. This image

may be

very different from others you have had. This difference should

be

expected since we are now moving from dreamland into the essence

world.

When you can see the essence, move into its world. (The reader

said

the world was one of delicate flowers.)

 

8. What

are the time and space of that essence?s world like? What does

it feel

like to be in that world? Live there now. (The reader said the

world

of flowers had no sense of space, but of freedom, and time was the

sense

of natural changes from day to night, or season to season.)

 

9.

Explore the world of the essence. Let your experience express itself

in

terms of sound, hand movements, perhaps dance-like movements, a quick

sketch,

or all of these methods. Think of yourself as living art, as a

moving

sculpture that the force of silence is creating. (The reader said

that

this world made him write, that flowers, sun, and a gentle wind

caressed

his chin. The flowers said, ?Slow down, man, you will grow more

rapidly.?)

 

10.

When you are ready, ask yourself, ?How might this experience

influence

my daily life, my body, feelings, my posture, my eating, the

way I

use my body?? Imagine experiencing the essence of this symptom at

home,

at work, and in your relationships with others. (For example, the

experience

might make you more sensitive with your body, more aware and

awake

to the posture you use when standing and sitting. The way you eat

might

be changed. If you live in the hyperspace of the symptom, your

life at

home and work will change, and your relationship problems might

become

easier to deal with.)

 

11. How

has this experience already tried to appear in your life? Onto

whom or

what have you projected the experience? (The reader with the

bladder

pressure said that he projected the sensitivity onto flowers--he

loved

to buy flowers--and onto people who were ?like flowers.?)

 

12.

From the world of this experience, feel what is needed to care for

your

body. What is the essence?s ?medicine??? Focus your attention until

you

notice the answer from within your own body. (The reader was clear:

he

needed to spend more time in the world of flowers, and decided to

create

a meditation ritual involving the flowers. Also, he was

overweight

and felt he needed to be lighter and freer.) Sense how the

symptom

contains ?medicine,? not only for itself but also for your life

as a

whole.

 

*Shop

for Supplies*

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*Copyright*:

Adapted from /The Quantum Mind and Healing/, by Arnold

Mindell

(Hampton Roads, 2004). Copyright © 2004 by Arnold Mindell.

Reprinted

by permission of Hampton Roads.

 

 

*Disclaimer*:

Care2.com does not warrant and shall have no liability for

information

provided in this newsletter or on Care2.com. Each individual

person,

fabric, or material may react differently to a particular

suggested

use. It is recommended that before you begin to use any

formula,

you read the directions carefully and test it first. Should you

have

any health care-related questions or concerns, please call or see

your

physician or other health care provider.

 

 

Radiating UNCONDITIONAL LOVE & Truth to all.

May I always be found worthy.

aSoaringHawk

In Gratitude for All of Us!

Look at everything as

though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on

earth will be filled with joy & glory.