I’ve spent a few weeks talking about one of the messages your body is trying to send you via pain: nurture yourself instead of push yourself.  Today, I’m going to talk about another request from your body:

Love yourself unconditionally.

Love is the most connective, life-giving energy you can possibly generate within yourself.  It is a healing force.  When you are disconnected from your body, angry at yourself, derogatory toward yourself, even mean to yourself, you cut yourself off from this powerful force.  Pain is the message that lets you know you’ve fallen into this pattern.  So is physical tension, and even extra weight.  The body experiences physical imbalance when the energy of love is absent.

Most of us learn this strange way of motivating ourselves that is a mixture of browbeating and scaring ourselves silly.  We think that if we can just whip ourselves into shape and get things accomplished, whatever we don’t like about ourselves will finally be squelched.  We think that then we will succeed, because we’ll be perfect, at last.

I certainly thought that, for many years.  In print, it now looks ridiculous.  After all those years of pushing, forcing, browbeating, flagellating, and scaring myself, I see that all I wanted was a sense of safety and peace within myself.

Safety and peace within yourself does not come from a “soldier on” state of mind.  It comes from repeatedly accessing that powerful energy of love, and turning that source of strength and energy inward.  It’s akin to trying to force a plant to stay alive in a dark closet.  Imagine yelling at the plant, watering it like mad, giving it fresh soil, fertilizer, and everything else you can think of.  Yet, the plant withers more with each passing day.  Without sunlight, it simply can’t live.

Love is our sunlight.  Without it, we simply can’t live.  Our health fails, our bodies wither, our souls slip away.

Sometimes it’s hard to love yourself.  I’m not asking you to be perfect at it.  I’m just pointing out the importance of leaning in that direction more and more, practicing bit by bit.  If you can learn to reward yourself with love even when you make colossal mistakes, even when you aren’t at your best, and even when you are spiraling down in a spectacular, flaming crash, then you will finally know the meaning of loving unconditionally.  Don’t mete out love only when you cross off to-do’s, accomplish amazing things, and serve others gracefully.  Your inner self knows this is fair-weather friendship, and in loving yourself only because of what you do well, you put a subtle but intense pressure on yourself all the time.

How do you generate love for yourself?  Start here: imagine someone you love.  Maybe a pet, if there are too many tangled relationships in your life right now.  Bring that love into your awareness, and allow it to grow inside you.  Feel what it feels like, physically, in your body, to feel this love.  Without even knowing all the science, the names of all the “good” hormones that are now flooding your body, you can sense that this is a place of healing.  Your body knows it, and it is asking you to purposefully bask in this flood of life force energy.

When you feel the sensation of love grow stronger inside you, direct it mentally toward yourself.  Allow yourself to receive your own love.  If, right now, this is too hard, then simply enjoy the feeling of loving others, knowing that as you practice, it will become easier and easier to love you.

We don’t often think about practicing love.  We expect it to come to us.  We expect to just feel it, randomly.  Love on purpose today.  Decide to feel love, and practice focusing on it each day.  Heed this most important request from your body.

Don’t miss the Do Less, Be More telecourse series, in which fellow Master Coach Susan Hyatt and I give you serious self-loving tools to take into regular, everyday life.

Come hang out with me on Facebook!  I just finished creating my Healthy Life Facebook page, so you’re invited to stop by and chat!

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When you’re in pain, it can be difficult to think about anything else.  Pain becomes the boss, dictating what activities you choose, how much you enjoy or don’t enjoy life, and how you feel mentally each moment of the day.  It’s no wonder that chronic pain sufferers tend to end up depressed, unhappy, or hopeless, because pain overshadows every moment of their lives.

Most pain sufferers focus their thoughts on what it would be like to live without pain.  I remember this clearly from my own battle with chronic pain.  I spent much of every day thinking about how happy I would be without pain.  I dreamed of living normally, of just doing activities without even having to consider pain.  I imagined myself living a fulfilling, joy-filled life, all because pain was not present.  Now, I have that life.  I live it every single day – day after day of no pain.  Do I relish the joy of living without pain?  Do I think often about how wonderful it is to live without pain?  Truthfully, no.  Every so often, I feel immense gratitude for the life I have now, but other than that, I think very little of physical pain or how it used to feel in my body.  I am too focused in the present, living my current life, to remember the pain.

Ask any mother to remember the physical pain of childbirth, and she’ll pause, think, and tell you she’s forgotten what it felt like.  It’s difficult to remember the physical sensation of pain once it has left your body, for which we can all be thankful.  However, if you take a minute to really consider pain from this perspective, it can be extremely enlightening.  Though pain is felt in the body, it actually exists in the mind.  Without the mind to tell me I am in pain, I would experience pain as only another sensation – like a breeze against my skin or the tickle of sweat between my shoulder blades. 

When I was dealing with vulvodynia and IC, I felt a rotation of symptoms including burning, sharp pain, dull aching internal pain, and itching.  My doctors would often request that I rate my pain on a scale of one to ten, and after a while, I automatically rated my pain throughout the day.  My attention was completely focused on my pain all the time.  After months of this, I began to notice that when I was distracted and not paying any attention to my symptoms, I couldn’t rate them.  I couldn’t put my finger on a number from one to ten because I wasn’t paying attention. 

Which begs the question:  If I didn’t notice the pain because I was distracted, was I feeling any pain?  The answer was no.  When my attention truly left my pain, when I allowed myself to let go of the rating system and not check in with my pain, it simply didn’t exist.  Why not?  Because pain is actually experienced in the mind.  It is a complex, fascinating, and absolutely freeing concept. 

I wasn’t able to completely let go of all my pain.  Often, it would intrude into my distracted state and bring me back to a pain-focused state.  Simply realizing that my focus made the pain stronger, however, was a very helpful idea.  I let down my vigilant guard whenever I felt safe and let myself focus on other aspects of my life.  I let myself stop wishing for a happy future and brought my attention to happiness available to me in the current moment.  I let myself experience distraction from pain as often as I could.  The less I focused on the pain, the less I felt pain.  The less I felt pain, the happier I felt.  It was the opposite of the other cycle, in which the more I focused on pain, the worse I felt, both mentally and physically. 

Playing this mind-game with pain helps open your experience up to include more happiness, more joy, and more pain-free moments.  There is no need to look to the future for hope – find the good feelings now and bring the future into the present, one moment at a time.  Recognize that pain is simply a sensation.  It does not have to become the boss and take over your life.  You are still in charge. 

I’ve been sick this week, and it has reminded me of an important idea I’ve been meaning to share.  A few days ago, I woke up with a sore throat that progressed rapidly to laryngitis, a sinus infection, and bronchitis.  The only problem was I didn’t have time to be sick.  I had two exciting coaching workshops to present, clients to coach, and a million other little things scheduled.  I barreled onward, because, as you may have noticed from other posts, I am quite capable of feeling fine emotionally while feeling sick.  I gave the workshops, even though my voice was just above a whisper, and enjoyed every minute.  I kept up with my clients, croaking my way through sessions.  I did not alter my schedule one bit, other than to skip my morning run a couple days because it was adversely affecting my vocal cords. 

After a few days of this, I noticed something.  I noticed a feeling of extreme exhaustion taking over my body.  I noticed a deep ache in my bones.  I noticed my voice was not returning.  I noticed my Inner Healer asking me to please, please, just rest.  I remembered writing post after post about the messages from our bodies, and finally, I crawled into bed and slept.  And slept.  And slept.  Whenever I begin to forget what I have learned, my Inner Healer reminds me.  Gently, but firmly.  This time, she literally stole my voice, and I know she won’t give it back until I have listened to her message.  She knows I’ve been moving at top speed, not heeding her soft reminders to care for myself.  She pulled the emergency brake by taking the one thing I need for my job: my voice.

How many of use don’t have time to be sick?  How many of us, dealing with one chronic issue or another, plow forward with our lives, never stopping to listen to our Inner Healer?  We hate our symptoms, we resist our experience, and we try our hardest to ignore it.  And then we wonder why it won’t leave.  We rage against it, fight it, try to escape it – we do everything but stop and turn inward.

Today, I am giving you the same assignment I gave myself this week.  I think of it as Feeling the Healing.  When you’re dealing with chronic health issues, Feeling the Healing is a most enjoyable, relaxing, helpful experience.  It’s the best gift you can give yourself, and I recommend you give it to yourself daily, or even twice daily.

Feeling the Healing:

Find a comfortable place to rest, and assume a comfortable position.  Start with deep breathing (see my earlier posts for detailed directions), making sure to feel your ribs expanding outward and sideways.  Do this for several minutes, breathing in and out through your nose, letting the air fill your lungs and even your entire torso.  Now, send your breath to any area of pain or discomfort, and as you exhale, imagine the breath taking that discomfort from your body.  Do this as long as you would like.  When you feel relaxed and at ease, move your focus inward.  Imagine you can feel the inside of your body, just underneath your skin, all over.  See if you can feel an inner presence moving within you, circling throughout your body.  This is the physical form of your Inner Healer – often it will feel like a slight tingling sensation all over your body.  If it helps to imagine a warm, glowing light within you, you can do that as well.  Let yourself be carried away into the focus of feeling this inner healing power.  Watch it move through your body, let it go wherever it needs to go, and just know that it is healing you, right now.  If your mind throws up a blockade, such as “this is silly,” or “I’m not healing,” just notice the thoughts and redirect your attention to the sensation underneath your skin.  Notice what it feels like.  Is it warm?  Is it glowing?  Is it soft, heavy, light, syrupy, smooth?  Where is it traveling?  You can also say to yourself, “I know healing takes time, but it is beginning right now.”  This helps alleviate mental doubts and fears. 

Stay in this state for as long as you’d like, and simply enjoy the sensations within your body.  Feel the power of your own body to heal itself, feel your cells regenerating and the healing flow of oxygen to every part of your body.  If you fall asleep, allow it.  You obviously needed it.  Rest.  Take the time to heal, just like you take the time to do everything else.  Schedule in healing time and make it a priority.  Your body is always trying to heal, even as you are living in anxiety and stress mode, running here and there, working, and berating your body for not healing.  Give it a fighting chance to succeed by making time for healing. 

Don’t forget to visit Fighting Fatigue, where blogger Sandy Robinson has been posting my blog posts.  Her site is a great resource!