You deserve to feel good! Everyone around you wants you to feel good too, because your happiness affects them. This is why putting your happiness and energy above anything else is the most responsible thing you can do.
Putting your own needs, happiness and fulfilment ahead of all responsibilities is the least selfish and most intelligent response to overwhelm.
If you find yourself overwhelmed and wanting more energy instead, then answer these questions that I ask all of my clients when we first start talking about energy:
Heart rate variability (HRV) is the measurement of the space between your heart beats, it can help you understand the state of your nervous system, when to train, when to rest and can be used to help us work out what is and isn’t working for you on your healing journey. Most wearable devices now come with the ability to monitor and record your HRV so you can use this tool at home as a way to navigate your healing - directly reading your nervous system.
Most of us have forgotten how to truly pause. In a world that rewards ‘busyness’, many find it challenging to fall comfortably into the safety of true rest. If we do not rest, we do not reach deep, restorative, nourishing sleep.
Sleep quality can completely change your experience of pain. The better quality sleep we have, the less your body expects to experience pain (known as perceived pain) especially if this sleep is consistent. So regaining your sleep power can make you feel powerful in owning how much comfort you feel in your body too.
Tension is your body (or your nervous system controlling your body) adapting to your life.
Tension is created by the body because it doesn’t feel safe, supported, grounded in some way. There is usually a lack of stability and or strength, caused by movement avoidance. Your body avoids certain pathways of movement due to a past injury, emotional holding or other stressor.
Your nervous system wants you to be healed and healthy. It doesn’t want you to have any damage and so in simple terms it is limiting the possibility of damage by limiting your movement. It is often stress hormones that signal to the brain to create this spasm in the first place and so adding any sort of additional stress will exacerbate the issue. In contrast, reducing stress in any way can bring almost immediate relief.
New Year's resolutions may have not quite started to fall into place yet or are beginning to wane. I cannot stress how important it is to be okay with that. When we make new year's resolutions in the middle of a time, when energetically we aren't ready to begin (because we should be 'hibernating'), we often jump to something that doesn't quite feel right or we don't feel ready for.
Our bodies are constantly adapting. They adapt to the forces we put upon them.
If we spend an extended period of time in one position, the body will literally adapt to that position. Muscles can become weak and tight and connective tissue becomes a bit sticky, which gives you stiffness and can pull on other areas above and below causing real discomfort.
We all have wear and tear on the spine, it is part of the ageing process. But not all wear and tear will cause pain or discomfort.
If we looked at an MRI of a 27 year old spine and that of a 50 year old spine, they can look very similar, with wear and tear showing in the same places. Yet only one of these people may feel back pain and it isn’t necessarily going to be the 50 year old.
Bone is considered ‘living tissue’ and all living tissue is under a constant cycle of breakdown and regeneration. Osteopenia and Osteoporosis occur when the natural breakdown of the bone tissue is either faster or more efficient than the bodies ability to rebuild bone.
Just like a muscle, the bone can be strengthened. There are certain things we can do to encourage our bodies to build bone and reverse Osteoporosis.
The work I do its initially with the physical body, people come to me with a bad back, a frozen shoulder, a disability or just an inability to get their body feeling as healthy as they would like. But 9 times out of 10, we fall into emotional healing to reach physical success.
Feelings and emotions were previously linked together and described as reactions in the brain but until very recently, we missed the importance of understanding the physical side of ‘feeling emotions’ as sensations because although they are recognised by the mind, we can’t argue that they are felt in the physical body.
There is a difference between pain and discomfort. Pain should absolutely be avoided, in fact your body will do it’s best to avoid pain. It will respond automatically and will ‘jump’ you out of a movement that brings you pain (think of picking up a hot pan). Discomfort however, is recognised by the mind first and can be a wonderful place where our inner strength is discovered and developed.
Our bodies are always giving us signals, cues and information. It’s time we re-learnt that the body and the mind are connected and draw all the benefits of creating a relationship with our bodies and understanding this empowering communication channel.
Listening to the body when it talks.
There’s a well known saying that goes: “If you don’t listen to your body when it whispers, you will have to hear it scream”. Well, discomfort is your body whispering to you.
