SYTB 10: Let's Get Physical

Listen to your body talk!

Some years ago, I was living on my own, and I met a guy who love-bombed me. His name is Jeremy. I don’t see any point in hiding his identity here. Nothing I have to say about him is negative, and like me, Jeremy is an open book. He’d want his stories told particularly if they have a lesson in them. Some of you may know the terminology of “love-bombing.” It’s when someone overwhelms you with compliments and adoration.

Jeremy came in super hot. I was very skeptical of that kind of attention as it did not feel natural to me. We met at karaoke. It’s not completely rare that objectively attractive guys sing karaoke as a hobby. It is rare when that’s the only nerdy thing about them. Jeremy was like that. He had a rough childhood in Jehovah’s Witness church. Both his parents were a hot mess. I think his dad did time for molesting a minor. He had it rough.

When he asked me to see a movie with him, I told him we could go as friends. I was clear that I was not really looking for a relationship. I was, but I felt the impulse to hold him back as long as I could. When we met at the movie theater, he rushed up and paid for my ticket. I said, “You shouldn’t have done that. This wasn’t supposed to be a date.”

He looked at me confidently with a grin and said, “Well, it is now!”

I think I rolled my eyes at him.

We saw a Star Wars movie, one of the prequels. It was the one where Yoda does that awesome light saber fight at the end. We both thought that scene was pretty bad ass. Anyway, we dated way too intensely for two months. I got to know way too much about his past and all of his pain (and he had a lot of it) almost overnight. I quickly transitioned from adored, hot chick from the bar to much needed, Florence Nightingale: bedside psychologist. I got caught up in the emotionality. It was like being in a current and drowning and being ok with it. This feeling is a sign. It’s like those vampire movies where the hypnotized victim bends back her neck to let Dracula feast and her eyes roll in the back of her head in ecstasy. The problem is, it’s an energy transference. I lose. He sucks. I would be high for about 24 hours. Then, typically, I would start shielding myself, hibernating and sleeping in late to recuperate. However, in Jeremy’s case, he would show up again before the lows hit hard, tell me how wonderful I was and how much he needed me, and I’d get my fix and be superficially suspended in this constant euphoria. I convinced myself that I was in love.

Who hasn’t been there?

He was in graphic design school at the time. One night, he had a study group meeting after school so he couldn’t come over. I was glad because I felt like I needed a break. But when I slept that night, I dreamed he met someone. In my dream, he had taken this gal to his brother’s house and was sleeping with her. I drove by his brother’s house in my dream and could see her through the window. When I asked him about her in the dream, he didn’t want to tell me or hurt my feelings. All I wanted in the dream was for him to just tell me the truth.

I woke up thinking the dream was absolutely crazy because I was his Florence Nightingale. He needed me desperately. No one had ever been so super enthusiastically in love with me. I called him later that day, and I said I had the craziest dream. I was laughing at how weird it was. As I explained it to him, he got very quiet. That’s when he told me I was psychic. I hate being psychic. He let me know that he and a gal from art school had gone out as a study group and hit it off. They had gone over to his brother’s place to work on some music and had hooked up. He said, he hadn’t called as usual because didn’t know how to explain to me that he had feelings for her now and not for me anymore. Just like that. One day was all it took. I hadn’t had a chance to come down from the last high, yet. He was so honest about it and expressed such remorse, I felt like I should just be grateful he was so honest with me. In my dream, it was all I had wanted. Now, I had that. It felt like he was just a victim to his emotions, a simpler creature with zero impulse control. I felt bad for him and how pathetic he was. Of course, I felt like I, as a more discerning, intelligent, thoughtful and intuitive person should have somehow seen it coming. I was pretty angry with myself.

Over the next few days, I felt very odd. I was in a trance. People could talk to me, but I didn’t hear their words. I just heard maybe the sound of the blood rushing through my body in my ears. It was like being under water. All my senses seemed dull.

My apartment was a stone’s throw away from a busy street, and at one point, I contemplated walking out in the oblivious daze I was in and stepping off the curb in front of a city bus. That shook me up. It literally jolted me. What is happening to me? This is not me. These can not be my feelings! I can’t feel this way. I woke up the next morning with a slight twinge in my neck. Within a few days, I had maybe 15% mobility left in my neck. It was like I had whiplash, but I didn’t know what I did to get it. Surely, sleeping wrong hadn’t messed me up that bad!

I was a massage therapist at the time, working from my home massage studio. I was struggling to do my work as physical as it was with my sharp neck pains after even the slightest moves. I had a client, Lori, who was/is very intuitive. I told her I had been to the Orange County Fair the night before, and to look up at the Ferris wheel, I had to lean back because I couldn’t tilt my head back to see anything. Lori asked me, “You remember what Louise Hay says about neck pain?”

I had Louise Hay’s book, “You Can Heal Your Life” for several years at that point. I had the body portion nearly memorized as a reference guide for helping my massage clients. I said, “Yes, I know. It means I'm inflexible, and I’m not seeing all perspectives.”

Lori, in her usual way, just made a sigh followed by an affirmative, “mmm hmm.”

I said, “Lori, it’s frustrating because I completely forgive Jeremy. I see his perspective perfectly. I can’t think of a way I could be more open to seeing things from his perspective here!” I was exasperated. It just didn’t make any sense. I was so objective.

Then Lori hits me with the profound truth, “but what about your perspective?”

“Say what?”

“He just dumped you out of the blue after convincing you he was truly in love with you for the last couple months! It took him one night to fall out of blissful love with you and in love with a person he just met. Don’t you think you have a right to be angry at him? I’d be furious. Have you considered that you are blocking out your own feelings and perspective, bending over backwards -literally- trying to see things from his perspective?”

Fuck, she was right. It took me two seconds to start feeling I could be angry at him rather than at myself. And within 20 minutes, the anger I was so afraid of feeling, as it had seemed somehow unfair to him had dissipated and along with it, my neck pain. I’ve never been a very angry person so a little bit for me goes a long way. In a half hour, I had a 100% pain free, fully mobile neck.

That Louise Hay book is a fantastic tool for working with your body and finding the answers almost etched into it. I’m sharing this story because your body has limits. It has its own boundaries. The body, dare I say, is the best teacher of boundaries we have. It can tell you what you want. It can tell you what you don’t want. It can distinguish between want and need. It fully powers our intuition. They don’t call them gut instincts for nothing. It tells you when you are drawing outside the lines of what’s good for you even if your mind, your heart and your emotions haven’t caught up to it yet. In some ways, your body is far more evolved and ready for a fantastic life than your head ever will be.

However, you don’t have to constantly be behind the evolution of the body, and it’s seeming infinite wisdom. Your mind can easily catch all the way up. To align the two, it’s imperative to listen directly to the wisdom of the body and take an inventory. Now, most of the reference materials from “You Can Heal Your Life” are available completely for free online. You can look them up. Remember, this is just a beginner’s guide. It might get you thinking. As with my reading of the book and thinking “perspectives” meant “the perspectives of others,” you may have to stretch a little to decipher the messages from your body. The messages in the book are generalities that apply to most people. But, there may be a more specific correlation between what you are experiencing and the message for you. We use body parts as metaphors in our language all the time. We say, “plain as the nose on your face” or if something is accurate you might say “right on the nose” or even “right between the eyes.” So these linguistic cues can help us find personal meanings for discerning what messages our body is telling us.

I recommend you take an inventory today.

Sit quietly with your eyes closed, take a few deep breaths, and completely relax to the best of your ability. Mentally scan your body from the tips of your toes all the way up to the top of your head. Go slow. Listen to each of your organs and your brain. I’m not asking you to engage your mind. Just ask this: does your brain hurt or feel good anywhere? Scan the entire chunk of meat. How are each of your senses working for you? If you had to give them a score out of 100, what score would you mark them? If anything comes to mind while you are giving your body this attention, mark it down on your journal. Let your body know that you are taking it seriously and giving it the acknowledgement and reverence it deserves. The scriptures refer to the body as the Temple of Christ. It’s important to note if there’s any handwriting, graffiti or posted signs on the walls of your temple.

Always pay particular attention when it warns you about someone to “KEEP OUT!”

And most of all, if you find you mentally over road the signals your body was sending you, it’s ok. As you come into harmony and as you are listening again, taking literal notes on paper and looking up information in your copy of Louise Hay’s book or online and continuing to investigate with a keen discernment what your body is telling you, you have righted whatever wrong was done. In so doing, you are immediately forgiven. Relax and allow your body to give back to you in feelings of peace and comfort to show its gratitude for paying it much due attention. Enjoy and allow those positive sensations. Take note of those, too! Next to them, always write, “Thank you. Yes. More, please.”

You deserve each and every one of them and then some.

Claim it.