Your Body Is Trying to Tell You Something!
Filed Under Natural Goddess |
I think we can all agree that our bodies are marvellous biological machines! It amazes me how incredibly my body works to allow me to eat, talk, feel, and move. However, our bodies are not only skin and bone; our bodies have this wonderful inner intelligence that can give us signals that what we are doing, thinking or feeling is not conducive to our overall health and well-being.
These signals can take many forms, and most of us tend to ignore them on a regular basis. Frequent aching of muscles and joints, neck and back pain, elevated heart rate, cracked skin, etc., can all be signals that we are not treating our bodies with respect and/or that we are not dealing with important emotional issues. Yet if we can learn to truly listen to our bodies, it is amazing what we can learn about how our activities, emotions, and thinking patterns are affecting our bodies, either positively or negatively.
One of the best examples I can give you about the consequences of ignoring our bodies’ signals is what happened when I did just that! I was a dedicated tri-athlete and runner for over 10 years, training dozens of hours each week with little rest. A few months after my first Half Ironman, I began to notice a tightness and weakness in my right hip. So I stretched more and got more physio. Soon I was having trouble running and biking as my hip tightened up even more and became weaker. The more frustrated and angry I got, the worse my body felt and performed.
My big lesson—I wasn’t listening for a long time and I paid for it! Looking back I see what was wrong: I was a raging perfectionist who was restricting my eating beyond healthy levels, over-exercising, and berating my body daily every time I looked in the mirror. I wasn’t giving my body the rest or respect it deserved, and I also wasn’t dealing with some emotional issues that I had let fester inside me over time!
Jane Large
