To understand what your body is trying to tell you via physical pain, you need one major tool: awareness.  Notice what is happening within your body and mind and you will get clarity.  I’ll help you speed up the process.  This week, I’ll focus on self-nurturing versus self-pushing, one of the major reasons your body might be speaking to you.  (For the full list, check out the The Messages in Physical Pain post.)

There are several reasons we push ourselves beyond our body’s guidance.  The first is simply this:  we forget to stay aware of our physical bodies. If you shine the light of awareness on your body throughout the day, you’ll discover it is constantly giving you feedback.  While your mind might be telling you to finish that project, plan that Girl Scout meeting, or get that last chore done, a quick check-in with your body may reveal important information.  Think about the thing you think you must do.  What is your body’s response?

Tight muscles?  A headache?  An increase in any current pain?  A slightly sick sensation in your stomach?

Those messages are all saying – WHOA!  Time out.  This is not the path to health and happiness.

Maybe your body feels energized, light, and free to take a deep breath.  That’s the message to do what you planned, as this is the right time and your energy reserves are available.

Sometimes, your message will take a little decoding.  Your body might give you a tension response around a project not because the project itself is too much, but because the way you’re going about it – what you’re thinking about it – is stressful.   This is why awareness truly is your best friend.  Knowing what you are thinking immediately allows you to gauge just how helpful your perception really is.

For example, yesterday I was brainstorming some notes for an upcoming project.  Suddenly, I noticed tension in my upper back.  Checking in, I discovered that I was thinking this:

I have to get all these ideas written and organized by tomorrow.

My body disagreed.  Voicing its opinion through a slight tension response, it gave me the message to evaluate my thinking.  It wasn’t against the whole project – it just didn’t want me to push myself yesterday.

Being very used to this mind-body relationship, I heeded my body’s advice.  I stopped the brainstorming, saved the file, and asked my body for advice on what to do next.  I always get amazing, satisfying results when I do this.  Sure enough, this morning several ideas popped unbidden into my mind – right before the scheduled project meeting.  By listening to my body, I got to feel good yesterday, not push myself, and have the great ideas come at the perfect time.  It takes a lot of trust to allow this process to unfold, but as you start trying it, you’ll gather evidence of its brilliance.

Step One: Check in with your body
Step Two: Check in with your mind
Step Three: Evaluate whether the two agree
Step Four: Decide on your action step based on the body’s input

If you’re currently flat on your back due to pain, you can be sure you weren’t listening to your body before you arrived at this point.  You can still start now, practicing this technique, even if your days aren’t jam-packed anymore.  It will help to learn it for the future, and it will help you arrive at the future you want – fabulous health and lots of happiness.

Before you get angry at your body for sending such a strong message, realize that it’s been trying to speak to you in gentler ways.   It nudges you with emotions, physical tension, and sensations.  If you’re not listening, it has no other recourse besides pain and illness.

For me, even after I understood this concept, the hardest part was decoding the message.  I would fume, arms crossed, as I tried to find a way to glare at my body.  I even yelled at my own body, saying “I’m listening!  I hear you!  But what the hell are you saying?  Don’t you speak English?”

As a coach, my primary job is to help others decode the messages held within the pain.  Generally, this involves quieting the mind chatter and learning to tune into the physical sensations happening in the body at any given moment.  After a short stint of stillness, you’ll find that yes, the body does speak English.

In the quiet stillness, aha moments and revelations happen.

After much of this work, I can tell you the common body message themes.  Most people’s bodies are sending messages about the following:

1. Learning to nurture yourself instead of push yourself
2. Learning to love yourself – unconditionally
3. Learning to release the constant pressure you’re putting on yourself
4. Learning to be gentler with yourself
5. Learning to consistently check in with the body so it doesn’t have to shout
6. Learning to honor and feel emotions
7. Learning to recognize the power of thought and begin to think intentionally
8. Learning to focus your awareness on yourself first – only then are you truly effective and helpful to others
9. Learning to access inner joy

It’s so easy to just ignore these messages, but take a moment to ponder this idea:  The body/wise inner guide finds these concepts so vital that it sends a strong message you cannot possibly ignore.

Indeed, if you were to take the messages above to heart and focus on studying them daily, you would find every aspect of your life unfolding in new, easier, more joyful ways.  You would be astonished at the good, loving experiences you would begin having.  Just ask any of my clients, for they are all doing the homework from this same lesson plan.  The small, personal details in each body’s message may be different, but the general class outline is definitely the same.

These lessons are a life’s work, but I’ve never studied a more interesting curriculum.  It’s a fun life’s work, and it doesn’t take long before the benefits arrive.  And it just keeps getting better.

In the following weeks, I’ll be talking about each of the messages/lessons in turn.  Stay tuned!