If you have ever experienced mysterious body aches and pains, your body may be trying to tell you something. Are you listening?
Original Post: Fall 2017
I’ve encountered a few instances where my body was trying to talk to me. But I didn't listen. I kept going. I kept going because I wanted to and because I needed to in order to make life happen. Upbringing. Circumstances. Conditioning. Bills. We all have ‘em, yes?
The left side of my body, controlled by the right brain, first surprisingly screeched at me in 2011. An initially severe scenario, it has ebbed and flowed over time. With immense care, I am still working through the final stages of transmuting it today. Awareness, understanding, and practicing the rituals that allow shift to occur are a part of everyday life.
My Rolfing Structural Integration practitioner was first to alert me that my experience was rooted in the psoas. From this place near the center of the body, the pain moved throughout my entire left. Beginning where the psoas is attached near the lower ribs, down into the lower belly, hip flexor, low back, and extending down into my left foot. It also flared up into my left back, shoulder, and neck. Extensive to the point of waking up every morning curled up in fetal position with no desire to move.
I would pry myself open, hot tub/hot shower to better unfurl, and drag myself to yoga. Even though the yoga practice was uncomfortable, it opened my body up further to better get through the workday.
To this mysterious issue, I lost some prime time. No doctor nor practitioner could pinpoint what was going on.
With a hint from a friend at my yoga studio, I narrowed a lot down to adrenal fatigue. Later my M.D. / Functional Medicine Doctor determined I was correct.
To reconcile, I scaled my entire life back. I left the wine business I had begrudgingly gone back to after the Recession of 2008 in favor of more supportive and positive environments. Not the best time for a career change, but part of the root of this issue was being forced back into work that no longer inspired me. I also had to step far outside of the realm of Western medicine to skyrocket the healing process. Another story.
In this particular instance, my face broke out in an incessant rash. I had been soaking up sunshine trail running in Marin County, California during a big year for poison oak growth. I had never before contracted poison ivy or poison oak despite growing up around it. But it was in abundance that year according to the locals. So when I felt the tingle on my chest and two nurse friends labeled it poison oak, I grabbed all of the recommended remedies.
When I realized it had subsided but wasn't fully leaving me, a doctor friend said it could be any number of ailments that often go undiagnosed.
It began on my chest spreading up my neck, face, and forehead, up to my hairline. Blistery. Itchy. Hot.
It went on for weeks, then months. According to doctors, it was no longer poison oak after a few weeks in the system, even if that was what had originally inspired it.
I traveled north to Oregon where the temperature shot up to over 100 degrees adding to the irritation. I took to icing it constantly seeking relief.
By month five, I had seen three different doctors who all put me on different medications without a true diagnosis. None of their guesses at remedies healed the issue. One of the medications was an intense steroid that, just like the doc warned, made me feel crazy.
The dermatologist I consulted once back home said,
“Well, we think this is related to rosacea, and in this mountain town we see this a lot, most often in women your age.”
But he didn’t seem too concerned about why it is so common. Nor why he saw it primarily in women my age.
Turns out, this common skin agitation is directly related to stress. Thankfully, by the time I saw him, I had already been on the self-healing path for weeks.
My conclusion finally came when I became honest with myself about the fact that my nervous system was triggered like crazy from past events. Trauma. Old trauma reactivated by a situation that I knew, logically, could not be reoccurring, but my body was trying to tell me otherwise. The good old “fight or flight” response reactivated because our bodies naturally want to protect us from harm.
On the surface, I was having the best time of my life. But underneath it all, I was severely stressed, worried, and unsure. Once back home, I took to my yoga mat. I took to meditation. I cleaned up my diet to be sure nothing there was the cause. I took to copious amounts of self-care.
I put a microscope on what was going on. I rested.
I spent time laying horizontal and breathing deeply into the base of my belly every day resetting the parasympathetic nervous system, allowing my system to realign.
This was very similar to the processes I employed to rectify my fatigued adrenal glands.
Simple. No pranayama. No fancy breathing practice (derived from pranayama) touted by who’s who. Don’t get me wrong, I back many of these breathing techniques 100%. And initially used the 4-7-8 breath offered by Dr. Andrew Weil to begin this healing process. But eventually, I employed deep breathing all the way to the base of the belly expanding in all directions, slow and sure, for as long as I could make time for, every morning and every night.
Simple. Simple. Simple.
This placing attention on the issue, placing more attention on the breath, clean nutrition, hydration, and self-care, is what it took to resolve the rash.
This, unlike the expensive medications, did not cost a dime.
During stressful times since, I’ve felt a definitive twitch under the skin. And listened.
Every time, using the same simple technique, the tingle has disappeared instead of rearing its ugly head.
When we have not fully resolved past trauma and past stressors, the body holds on to them.
I promise, whatever is going on, no matter how much kale you eat and no matter how much you exercise, any issue we have rooted in the emotional realm might just eventually manifest in the body. It may also manifest in our relationships, our current habits that we cannot kick, our work, and our financial realms. Everything is connected.
The amount of unidentified "dis-ease" out there is rising exponentially. But it is exactly that. Dis-Ease. And so much of it is derived from stress.
My prescription is to clean up the basics, breathe, relax, reset, find gratitude in the smallest of life's pleasures.
Ultimately, this is a call to move from leading with the head to leading with the heart.
Listen to your body, friends.
The body does not lie.
If this hits home, message me today.
Interested in similar stories?
The documentary, HEAL is a great place to start.
We all have beautiful lives awaiting us. Truly our birthright.
