Being Body-Grateful
I was at a retreat and met a young woman who was in considerable pain and could not turn her head. She had to move her whole body in order to see something beside her. Being trained in acupressure techniques, I volunteered to do a “shoulder and neck release” as a way of soothing her neck.
As I was holding the acupressure points, I asked her what had happened. She told me about being out in the surf and being caught off guard by a powerful wave. Her head took the brunt of it, resulting in an extremely sore neck.
I commented to her, ‘Wow, you must really feel grateful for your neck.’ She wasn’t sure how to take that comment and asked me what I meant. I said, ‘Well, your neck did a really good job. Sounds like the wave could have broken it. You could have been much more seriously disabled. Instead your neck held strong for you and did what it needed to do.’
We continued to appreciate the strength of her neck and she sent ‘thank you’ energy to it. Ten minutes later she got up and noticed she could turn her head from side to side and the pain had dramatically diminished. She had chosen appreciation over criticism, with amazing results.
….another body-gratitude story
During cancer surgery, my husband Jim had six inches of his fibula bone removed from his leg so that it could be used to reconstruct his jaw. He woke up one night with excruciating pain in his leg. He was moaning and drenched in perspiration. He could not get comfortable, let alone get back to sleep.
After acknowledging his pain, I said, ‘Maybe you need to be really thankful to your fibula for the sacrifice it made so that you could have a new jaw. How would it be to breathe in some gratitude and send it to your leg?’ As he did that, his pain began to subside and disappeared within minutes. Tears of relief ran down each of our faces. It felt like a miracle. We were both able to go back to sleep.
Your body is full of wisdom and information when you take the time to slow down and purposely listen. Your body also needs to be acknowledged and appreciated for the signals it sends.
© 2009 Body Mind Spirit Coaching. All Rights Reserved.
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