What does it mean to trust the wisdom of your body? Think about a time when your body stopped functioning normally. Perhaps a body pain arose, or your digestive system had a sudden change, maybe you developed a skin condition or you got sick and never really healed fully from it. When these things occur we often feel concern about what this means for us. Sometimes we think of potential loss or limitation, and experience a general sense of powerlessness to how our body is expressing.

It is typical for us to go into “managing” mode. We try to find a reason why our body is acting this way. We look for a diagnosis, search for specialists to fix the problem, make appointments to get answers to our questions and hopefully solutions to our problem. We may try some procedures or techniques to remedy this problem and sometimes they seem to help and other times not. This can become an exhausting cycle, especially when it turns into a cascade of fixing one problem only to have it arise again after a short time. There is temporary relief, but then we find ourselves in the same or similar conditions down the road.

So how do we change the pattern? How do we discover what our body is trying to teach us so that we can learn the lesson and move on already? The first step is slowing down, getting quiet and starting to listen to your body. Your body has an intelligence of its own called life force. This intelligence is responsible for running all of the basic functions of your body. It is always at work even when symptoms occur. In fact symptoms are messages that contain information from your body’s intelligence. This is how our body talks to us. We have learned that symptoms mean that something is “wrong”. We get scared, go into fear about what is “wrong” with us and don’t trust how our body is expressing and therefore can’t learn from it. Let’s reframe that thinking to what symptoms really mean: 1. Stop, 2. Pay attention (listen), 3. Feel, think or do something differently. Symptoms are wakeup calls to say “Hey, pay attention right here, right now, this is important, don’t ignore me or try to get rid of me but instead listen to me, I am trying to help you”.

I have found that there are themes to symptom expression. In my own personal life symptoms have manifested in connection with something that I needed to change in my life. Wrist and back pain arose for me when I needed to make a change in my work life that I was scared to make. Skin problems developed at times when I felt insecure about my self-image and beauty and I needed to change the way I felt about myself. Severe dental problems occurred at times when there was a large amount of instability in my life and where I needed to create more stability for myself. We have the ability to look at these symptoms as “problems” or look at them as sources of information/energy, that when utilized, help us create the self and life that we want.

Network Spinal Analysis combined with Somato Respiratory Integration (together called Network Care) provide tools and techniques to help you discover your patterns and how your body is uniquely talking to you. The first step is to help you move from “fear mode” also known as fight or flight, into “relaxation mode” in your body. It is nearly impossible to slow down and listen if you are really scared about something being wrong with you. On a neurological level Network care helps your nervous system move from “sympathetic dominance” to “parasympathetic dominance”. From here you can start to listen instead of being hijacked with impending doom that something bad is or might happen to you. This is the starting point for gaining information from symptoms so you can use the energy contained in them to create changes that liberate you into a life of joy, inner freedom, extraordinary health and happiness.

Dr. Amanda Hessel, DC, L.Ac