What do our beliefs have to do with health and wellness? Do you see yourself as “healthy?” Or do you fear your body breaking down, becoming weak or in pain from illness? Do you feel fearful when you hear about flu epidemics, or how everyone on the 4th floor has that terrible cold? Maybe you believe that you get sick all the time from the germs that your kids bring home from pre-school. The allopathic community says our immune system is at the heart of most illness, so we start doing what we can to keep it strong--better food, more rest, more exercise, etc. These are all physical approaches to being “healthy.” Do you believe that the body has to break down or age in the way we see around us? What if it doesn't? What if our bodies are just another manifestation of our beliefs?
As a child, I had asthma. The feelings that often go with asthma are those of feeling either “smothered” or like “you can't breathe.” For me, it was harder to breathe out than to breathe in, and the tightness was around my trachea more than in my lungs. When I let myself feel the sensations of not being able to breathe out, the belief came up that I couldn't fully be all the way here. Being completely “here” was too risky because I couldn't keep up with the adults around me in order to get the love I needed. Until I allowed the feelings to be fully felt and expressed, anytime it felt risky to be “here,” or that I couldn't keep up, my asthma would flare up. Now that I know it's safe to be here and that there is nothing to keep up with except honoring what feels good to me in the moment, I rarely experience asthma anymore. A huge relief.
What if illness is our body's way of telling us to pay attention and tend to emotions that may have not have been completely expressed yet? I've found that when I pay attention to and express my feelings around the “small stuff,” I don't get the “big stuff.” My health seems to balance out, and I stay healthy.
What if we paid attention to our aches and pains, colds, and sprained ankles in a different way? What if we allowed ourselves to just be present with the experience and say yes to it inside? If we asked the feelings in our bodies what they are trying to tell us, we may just get some answers. Louise Hay's book, You Can Heal Your Life, provides a wonderful list of common beliefs that are tied to different illnesses.
I would get a cold every time work got overwhelmingly busy. I finally realized that my body would get a cold to help make me rest--which is what I really needed. Once I said yes to the cold, and allowed myself to hear its message for me, I recovered very quickly. By focusing on what I did want (to have a useful relationship to my illness), and not what I didn't want (continuing to feel ill), the universe responded with circumstances that matched where I focused my attention and what I expected to feel.
The Universe will respond to our feelings about our illness with more circumstances that match. The longer we resist our dis-ease (e.g., we want it to be other than it is), the longer it hangs around. When we can relax and allow ourselves to get curious about the message our bodies are trying to give us, the faster our bodies can come back to their natural state of balance and well-being.
What message is your body trying to give you today?
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