The new website is finally complete!  Check out the new digs and take a look around!

Here’s what I’m excited about: all the new stuff!

Let me take you on a tour…

In the Online Store, you can easily purchase a variety of helpful products, from the complete Healthy Mind Toolbox Course (which includes everything you need to utilize a mind-body approach) to the Mind-Body Coaching in Action recording (which lets you eavesdrop on a coaching session).  I LOVE the new products page because it’s so easy for you to get what you need, instantly!

You can also get a clear, detailed idea of what coaching entails on the fully updated Coaching page.  Keep your eyes out for upcoming telecourses on the Coaching page as well.  If you need the support of a complete, organized program, that is easily accessible on the Programs page.

If you want to see what clients have to say, you can stop in at the Success Stories page, and if you have questions you can check out the various informational pages such as FAQ, Resources, TMS/Mind Body Syndrome, Is This You, and Vulvodynia/IC.

The best part is that the new site makes it so easy for me to offer up more resources, classes, helpful tools, and more!  The blog posts are just the foundation for the variety of exciting happenings around here.  I’ll be offering all kinds of new things – the idea bank is completely full and I’m super inspired to create lots of great resources!

Since we’re celebrating, I think this is a great time to hear from you!  Tell me what’s going on with you – is there something you would find useful?  Something you wish was available?  Something you want more of?  I love hearing your ideas/wishes, so I’m all ears!

I have avoided emotions for much of my life, most of the time not even realizing I was doing so.  I did not realize that much of the anxiety I was feeling was actually a by-product of me trying like mad NOT to feel some other emotion.  I was living life with “don’t go there” as my mantra.

Now, I live my life with quite the opposite mantra:  GO THERE NOW!

Physical pain is not the dilemma our minds like to tell us it is.  Our thoughts come roaring into our awareness:

This is the worst pain I’ve ever felt.

The old pain is back, oh no!

I can’t stand this!

And on and on…

The key to moving forward is to NOT GIVE YOUR MIND ANY CREDIT.  Treat it like you would a young child – lovingly, with compassion, but don’t take it seriously.  If you believed everything your three-year-old told you, your life would look much different.  You’d be feeding her ice cream because she said she couldn’t live without it.  You’d be letting her stay up late because she said she didn’t want to go to bed.

Respectfully decline to believe your own mind.

Pain is just there to let you know that you need to turn and focus on your emotions and what’s been shoved down, pushed aside, or stuffed away for later.  It’s the steam escaping from the pot right before it boils over.  It’s just a signal, a message, or an alert.  Beep, beep, says your pain!  You must GO THERE NOW!  To the emotional stuff you don’t want to face!

Can’t find that emotional stuff?  Don’t know what it is?  That’s okay.  All you need to do is focus your awareness on your emotional inner world (use last week’s post to help you do so).  Let the pain be – it’s there, and that’s okay.  There’s no denying, no arguing, no fighting against it.  See it for what it is – just a signal – and then follow the directions it’s trying to give you.  Go toward all those things that haven’t been dealt with, faced, or felt.

That’s the journey.

When you just feel an emotion as nature intended, it is not overwhelming.  It might feel uncomfortable, but it passes from your body, usually within about 20 minutes.  To get started, you’ll need to pay attention to your body, which holds all the keys to emotional wisdom.

It’s easy to spot emotional suppression.  It shows up as physical tension somewhere in your body.  If you are hoping and trying to access emotions but don’t know where to start, here’s a formula for you:

1)   Scan your body, starting with your hands and feet.  Spend a few minutes really focusing on them.  Describe them to yourself.  You might use temperature words, descriptive words, or sensation words.
2)   Finish scanning the rest of your body.  Where do you notice the most tension?  What does it feel like?  Describe it to yourself.
3)   Ask yourself what emotion is being held in this place of physical tension.  Sit with that question as you pay attention to the physical tension, and just wait.  If no answer comes, no big deal.  Try again later.  Just check in with that tension and be present with it.  Eventually, you will discover an emotion rising up within you.  The only way to keep an emotion out of your awareness is to tense or tighten muscles in your body (which we do without even realizing, so no worries!).  Therefore, it makes perfect sense that paying attention to that place of tension will help you access the emotion.

Stay tuned for more about emotions next week.  In the meantime, keep practicing these steps toward emotional awareness, as you’ll need this skill daily on your journey to health.

Got questions?  Comment away!

• Breathwork 1 – Basic diaphragmatic breathing taught by a yoga instructor or voice instructor.  (One-on-one instruction is best.)  I would recommend this to every single person.  I think it is the most important thing you can learn – and this is saying a lot, because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE coaching.

• Breathwork  2 – Someone who works with breath to facilitate emotional release.  You might need this if, for example, you worked with a therapist or coach and did basic breath-work, read about mind-body approaches such as Sarno’s, even took a program like Dr. Schubiner’s, and still have persistent pain.  In other words, don’t blame yourself, don’t blame the programs, information, or humans.  You just might need to release some serious suppressed emotion that can be regarded as basically stuck energy in your body.  (Remember, more coming in future posts.) (My favorite breathwork resource is www.barrattbreathworks.com.)

• Other body-based emotional release techniques, such as EMDR, EFT, or bioenergetic psychotherapy if you don’t have a breath-work specialist in your area.

• Traditional Western psychotherapy – If you have past traumas that you have yet to share with anyone, and if you hate talking about feelings or your personal inner life, you may need to start here.

• Energy healing – such as acupuncture, Healing Touch, or bioenergetic healing.  This comes in as a close second behind coaching and breath-work in my book.  It rocks.  No other way to say it.  It will speed up everything else you’re doing.

• Nutritional guidance of the non-scary kind (someone who can teach you balanced nutrition rather than an overly limited/restrictive diet).  It’s always helpful to support your body in its healing process.  This also means knowing that food alone may not be enough to cure you, and may not be the root cause of your issue.  You can just aid yourself and speed things up by giving your body what it needs.  If you’re prone to thinking your diet causes your pain, you might want to hold off on this one.

• A spiritual guide/teacher – Nothing is more reassuring than a spiritual connection.  My own personal journey to health was a spiritual unfolding within myself.  It may not be the norm to talk about this, or to even talk about its importance in a healing process, but I am not going to hold back anything from you.  I think it’s hugely important.  I will be sharing more about this in the future.  If you don’t work with someone in person, reading spiritual resources that feel right to you can be immensely comforting.  Follow your inner guidance.

• Yoga, t’ai chi, qigong, stretching, massage, and physical therapy – These can all have their place in your healing process – if you find instructors who know what they’re doing and therapists who are supportive.  While these may not heal you alone, they can be immensely effective in moving and releasing emotion and energy.  It can be easy to focus too much on the physical aspect of this kind of work and not enough on the emotional/mental release it stimulates, so be careful.  Make this a compliment, not the main focus.  As long as you’re not hanging all your hope on these things, you’ll find them fantastic supportive pieces of the puzzle – IF YOU ENJOY THEM.  Doing something you don’t like or that doesn’t feel right to you is never helpful.

• A physician you trust – I am a little bossy when it comes to my health, so I like a physician who will listen to me, take me seriously, and be willing to look beyond Western medicine and to the outer reaches of Western medicine.  Yes, I did find one!  I see him about once a year for a pap smear, but I like knowing I can trust him.  Mind-body healing does not mean throwing out Western medicine.  It’s about integration.

• Last but not least: COACHING! Yes, yes, I know I’m biased.  Seriously, though, NOTHING has helped me more than coaching.  It is the fastest way to relax your body, surprisingly enough, because it helps release thoughts and emotions that are causing the fight or flight response within your body.  And I didn’t even know about it when I was struggling through my initial healing process!  So you get to benefit from my experience, here!  Mind body (especially Martha Beck style) coaching is unique, straightforward, and immensely freeing.   As a spoke in the wheel for my clients, I also serve, due to my personal experience, as a sort of Mind-Body CEO, helping them see what works for them, what they can do for themselves, and how they can listen to their own inner guidance both to build their Healing Team and to learn to coach themselves.  I offer my own experience and knowledge as a guide and jumping-off point.  (In upcoming posts – much more about my personal application of coaching in my current life, so that you can see it in action and understand how it helps.)  If you integrate coaching with some of the traditional Sarno work, you get a hugely powerful mix.  If you put it together with body-based activities like yoga, breathing, and energy work, you’d have to work hard to stay in pain or ill!

If you’re struggling with mind-body healing and improvement is not happening for you, there’s no reason to give up, throw in the towel, or decide it’s a hoax.  I want you to know that nothing is wrong with you, you’re not doing anything wrong, and whatever you’ve tried probably isn’t wrong either.  It’s just a personalized, sometimes complicated process.  Breathe deeply, allow yourself some compassion, don’t be in a big rush, and explore.  Put together a Healing Team that works for you.  If you need only one person, great.  If you need ten people, great.  (If you read my blog regularly, I consider myself to be an honorary member of your Team, because it’s fun to think of you and your healing process (even if I don’t know you personally)!  Don’t forget to join my email list because there’s SO MUCH COMING (really soon!) that you might find helpful, and I always tell my email list first about exciting stuff.)

So what do I do now, in my life?  Who’s on my current Health Team?  Here’s my weekly practice: meditation, breath-work, mindfulness, journaling, self-coaching, yoga, visualization, reading, enough sleep, and PLAY.  I don’t do hours of everything – sometimes it’s just minutes here and there, depending on the day.  But I do these things because I love them and because they bring me peace, happiness, and health.  There is no sense of “should.”  I will be writing more about the lifestyle of mind-body health, so that you can learn from my “mistakes” and personal life lessons.

My Health Team consists of: my physician, my coach buddies, my energy healer (a nurse who uses Healing Touch), my yoga instructor (not for “fixing” my body, but because yoga enhances my mind-body-spirit connection and brings up emotions to be processed), my nutritionist (don’t use her as much anymore, but pop in and out here and there), and a great massage therapist (but that is not directed toward pain, it’s because I love getting massaged more than anything – I am a massage addict), and, last but not least – ME.

So anytime something is amiss within my mental/emotional world, I coach myself first.  Then I reach out to my support system and work with whomever is appropriate.  I get coached and take yoga classes weekly, and I consistently book energy healing appointments.  These three things, for me, are preventative, joyful medicine.  They are joy-enhancers.  When I want to treat myself, I get a massage.  The main point is, though, that when I think of my Health Team, I smile.  They all have great compassionate, kind personalities and positive energy.  So yes, sometimes it takes a village, but the village is there for you, waiting to help you return to health.