Do I need to learn to trust my body, or do I teach my body to trust me? How? Body scanning? Self-care? Does my body always tell the truth?

I have been asked a lot to help people learn to trust their body again. I always say I don’t teach you to trust your body. I want to help you to teach your body to trust you instead of you trusting your body. Our body does communicate things to us. It tells us it is hungry, tired, thirsty, has to use the bathroom, etc. The important thing to keep in mind is that, while our body does communicate important things to us that we can listen and respond to, the body can be influenced by lies, and we need to keep that in mind. The body may tell us that it is hungry, when you just ate a lot of food. You get to check in, and realize that maybe the body is feeling fear, and wants to eat because in the past, the food has run out and there was fear of provision. If you have been learning to notice your body curiously, and communicate with it, you can notice that you are not truly hungry, and remind yourself that God is your provider. Or maybe that the body is claiming physical hunger, but you check in and realize that you are not actually physically hungry, just emotionally feel alone, and want filling, and you can get that through God instead of food. Let your body know that. The hormone that tells us we are full is significantly influenced by our beliefs about the food and how filling it is, that is just one example of how there can be outside influence on what the body is saying, there are many others.

Pepper participating in a live Somatics class. Learning to care for our body, and teaching it to trust us together.

            Maybe your body is saying that you have to go to the bathroom, but you know you just went recently. If you go, there is barely any pee you can even get out. If you listen to this cue every time you feel an urge to pee, you will develop a bladder that is in charge, and you will not be able to control it. You can gain back control though. You just need to teach your body to trust you, instead of the other way around.

            Perhaps your story is that your body tells you it absolutely cannot handle the cold, and it is going to shut down, and you will lose control of your hands. My body used to do this at work sometimes (many years ago), which made it impossible to work on clients, and I would have to go home early. If instead you have taught your body to trust you, you can notice the feeling of cold. You can notice if it is something that really needs help, that if you don’t it could be dangerous, and you can address it. Or you can notice, that actually, we are safe, and the cold isn’t that extreme, and tell the body it is safe, and if it has learned to trust you, over time, the body can go into rest and digest, and the body temperature will go back up. Then the body knows that you heard, and responded in some way, and wont scream louder by shutting down the use of your hands, etc.

            There are so many more examples. But let’s talk about how to get our body to trust us. I just wanted to sit with one main example today.  

            We are going to compare how a client (patient) develops trust with her physical therapist, or other medical provider. As a physical therapist who worked one on one with people with complex health conditions, and a lot of suffering, I needed to develop trust with people. I used a lot of hands-on techniques, where I needed them to be fully relaxed, so I could move their bodies all around, changing the biomechanics of joints, and soft tissue. Some of the positions I got people into would be quite scary if they didn’t trust me. I know, I’ve had people practice on me, and it is terrifying if they aren’t competent, and if I don’t trust them.

            I found it so simple to develop trust with my clients though, and we can use some of the same information. I started with listening to them. We can notice our body, hear that it is screaming. But truthfully, I didn’t give them long to tell the bad stuff, because with limited time, it always made more sense to me to get to helping them. Why just swim in the stories of how bad it was, when you could step forward and do something about it? But I did at least hear them and look them in the eye. So, you can notice your body. You can touch your neck gently, and say to your body – I feel that, I know there is pain, I’m aware, and I say we are safe. Acknowledge the fear and the symptoms. Don’t dwell in it, don’t swim in the muck, but you are allowed to acknowledge it. Care.

            Then I would take the time to actually look at the problem. Let’s say their low back hurt. I would have them pull their shirt up or remove it, and look at their back, and watch them move, and watch their whole body move. I would touch the area as well. I can’t begin to say how many times as I did this the person was shocked and encouraged. They had often been to so many doctors, who hadn’t taken the time to actually look at the spot where it hurt, or especially to touch it. You could literally feel the person relax when you touched the area that was a problem, as though just that act of caring alone gave them hope. I also told them what we were doing, and that it was all for the purpose of helping them.

            By the time this has happened, I’ve started needing to move them around more, handle that area, maybe hold their torso in my arms while moving their trunk around testing biomechanics. Or if it’s a problem in the knee, holding knee or leg in my hands, and moving it all around. They were so trusting. Now, I know you could argue that that is because I was a medical professional, and they just innately trusted me. But I’ve seen it come out differently. When they are over 30 minutes late to a 45-minute initial meeting, and I know we don’t have time to get to everything I need to… I start with something, and I would rush, maybe don’t hear their story, or touch the problem area through their clothing, and not take them time to address it more carefully. When this happened, there was such a difference in how their body responded. I’ve worked with other providers who were always rushing with their clients, and saw how their clients responded. I worked at a clinic where the receptionist would sometimes convince a person to come back to the clinic for a second visit (after a negative first visit), and promise that I would treat them differently then the other person had. We all had our bad days, but this was a thing that happened enough, and I never asked about it, I just received those clients, and cared for them. They usually came in tense and very resistant, but by the end of the session, they were fully relaxed in my arms. We can turn a fearful tense body, to a trusting one with care and time.

            So how can we do this with ourselves? We can give our bodies, that do so much for us every day, time and attention (being noticed). We so often hear to stop body scanning, that body scanning is bad. Well, I say, body scan away, just do it with a different attitude. Scan your body, as in, notice it. Notice the sensations. The old you did this in fear, feeling like you don’t know what is causing what symptom, but you are scared it is something bad. Or maybe you would body scan and just think about how you couldn’t handle these symptoms, these sensations, they were just too extreme, too uncomfortable, and if they kept going you didn’t know what you were going to do. We would body scan, emphasizing the negative, but more than that, we body scanned with a fear of what we noticed, and an absolute requirement that it go, or I can’t manage.

            Instead, I want you to body scan as a curious observer. Do tune in. Notice your body. What is it saying? Can you describe it? Can you be neutral with it? Can you also throw in gratitude for things? Gratitude for simple things, such as that you have skin, or that you have feet that you stand on, or that you will stand on some day if you are not standing yet. Can you have gratitude to God for designing your rib cage to hold your marvelous lungs and heart? That you have breath in your lungs? Whatever you can come up with.

            You can notice, curiously observe, and check your thoughts. Are they on fear? Can you redirect them? We are not in a fix-it mentality, in that… we are not thinking, I’m broken, and I need fixing, right now, or else. However, we can redirect, and be helpful to ourselves, for the rest of our lives. Not because we are broken, but because it is kind to be redirected, and trained up, to be helped on the right path. It is kind to be corrected, and not left to walk into a burning building.

            Can you notice that there are negative sensations, yet you still are alive? Can you check your body and see if there is some way you are reacting to thoughts or sensations that you can gently change? Maybe you sit down at the computer, scan your body, and realize that your quads have completely tensed up, and your shoulders have been slightly elevated. Notice it, and then just let your body know it can relax. Maybe it doesn’t respond or change right now, because it doesn’t trust you yet. However, if you calmly give the command or permission to relax, and still are kindly aware of your body, and are taking time to care for it, the body starts to notice that, and over time it will respond to your feedback. You can gently rub your thighs, do some gentle skin stretch. Just remind them that you are in the here and now, bring some awareness there, or to your shoulders. You can actually slowly contract and relax them, bring your brain online to that area, and let the body know it can relax.

            Maybe you notice that there are negative sensation and your thoughts about them are going to everything that google said in the negative, or words a doctor spoke over you that were not hopeful. Can you redirect your thoughts to something truthful and hopeful? Can you start praising God, because He isn’t causing the negative sensation, and His report is the report that we believe anyway.

            Perhaps you notice a negative sensation, and the fear associated with it is encouraging your chest to tighten right up. You don’t need to have any reason for it, or any awareness of a past reason for it, just know that you don’t need to be sitting around with your chest all tightened. Start speaking life, and then touch your body, care for it. That is actually giving it gentle attention and time. You are teaching it to trust you. Let it know you are in the here and now. Move in a way that tells your body that you actually believe you are safe. Move your eyes calmly around, orient to your space. If you are in fear, you would not do that, so you are telling your body you aren’t in fear, and choosing to communicate in the senses in a way the body understands. Getting your body to trust you. Just like I communicate with the clients by hearing them, touching them, and explaining what I am doing.

            All of this demonstrates that we can indeed get our body to trust us and respond to us. We are spirit, we have a soul, we live in a body, and we get to let the spirit be in charge, align our soul (mind, will and emotions) to our spirit, and have our body follow, rather than have our body be in charge. And when the body knows you are calmly caring for it, not in fear of the symptoms, but just because your body is an amazing gift, it can respond.

If you would like to join our somatics classes, and/or self-lymph classes to care for our body kindly and gently, and teach your body to trust you, join us! The Align Membership is the best, as you can get live, and streaming options, there is tons in the streaming, and unlimited live! Join HERE