Tension In The Body

Do you ever doubt just how powerful stress is in the body?  I know we all know that stress affects the body, but all too often we are mind numbed robots living on a busy schedule, eating ourselves to death, taking pain pills, or just ignoring what is going on.  We are masters at it in our world and its taught from a little baby on through our lives.

It happens so frequently and so unconsciously that we barely notice (if ever).  We go through our days smiling and acting as if everything is okay.  We convince the world that we have no pains, ills, or discontentment.  Even if we realize something is amiss in our body, we tend to employ many different ways of boiling water, rather than cooking something in the kitchen, so to speak. 

I've had those moments when I'm going 16 hours a day nonstop and in those moments, I rarely feel pain in my body.  It isn't until I stop that all of the sudden, I notice it.  My mind is preoccupied in running from the pain to do what I have to do, rather than stopping to embrace it.  While this may be necessary in the short term, if we continue this way over time, the buildup of the stress and pain leads to chronic pain and other health conditions.


One area where I've been noticing it lately is in my mouth.  I wake myself up in the middle of the night with mouth pain, only to realize I am clenching my jaw.  There is no other reason I'm doing this then from the anger that is sitting beneath the surface in my body.  The stress has been high and I'm recovering from a rash that got very bad for a couple of weeks.

Even as I know how to release stuff stored up in my body and I've done some major release work lately, there is still a lot left to get rid of.  This is my difficult time of year where past moments usually surface and cause me a lot of difficulty.  Its there and its showing up in many ways.  And no, just thinking some mantra or happy thought isn't going to get rid of it.  That's more of the numbing that I'm talking about in this post.

We all have our past moments and our current buildup of stress.  The thing is, most of us hold it in and we don't even realize we're doing it until some much more major health issue arises.  Then, instead of going for the source, we treat the symptoms and once the symptoms die down, we go on as if it never happened - until the next time.

The best thing that you can do when physical health issues arise in your life, is ask the following question.   What has been happening in my life in the moments and days leading up to this point?  List all of these things and I think you will most likely see how they are impacting you, if you are honest with yourself.

Just knowing what issues have been building up can help you make better choices in the future and take care of yourself.  However, you need to consciously connect the mind with the body in these things and release the stored energy.  Bodywork alone won't do it.  Meditation and mindfulness alone won't do it.  It is the combination of the two that will help to heal the body and allow you to consciously live within your cells.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 12/1/14 by Don Shetterly

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