Dealing With Stress Showing Up In The Body

Note where you may have pain, discomfort or issues happening in the body.  That is the key to dealing with stress showing up in your body along with making the connection to what is happening in life.

The first thing to do when you notice some pain or discomfort is ask this simple question.  What was happening in my life just before this?  Then create a timeline of events.

You don't have to make this a difficult exercise, just go with what comes to your mind in that moment.  Usually the important facts are right on the tip of your tongue.

If you haven't read the other part to this blog post, make sure you read
Where Does Stress Show Up?

If you start to look at what is happening around the time the pain or discomfort is showing up, you might just find a key that helps you interact with your life differently.  Awareness of what is going on helps lead you to the point of making different choices.

Without that knowledge or awareness, you're missing key bits of information that could alter and change your physical reality or even your mental reality.  We can impact our lives so much and our physical bodies even though we forget that we can.

Go in and feel...

When you think you've discovered what the events were that brought on the pain, try to go in and feel that.  Take a look at it.  Is there anything you can change or alter?  Is it trying to show you something?  It it attempting to connect you with something that you need to do differently in life?

Feel and sense the pain in your body while making the connection.  See what movement or connection you can make to help let it go.  Sounds and very slow connected movements can do wonders to help alleviate stress in addition to breath work.

That's the first part and after that, it is up to you in how you proceed with the knowledge and awareness you have.  It is up to you how you find ways to work with letting that physical stress go. We can of course keep beating our head against the proverbial brick wall, but if we understand that we can interact with our own biology, than we're on the road to making positive changes in our life.

Dealing with stress showing up in our body takes us out of numbing and disconnect.  It brings us back into our body where we can interact with it in a much deeper level.  Someone once said, "Know Thyself" and through the body interaction with pain, we will truly begin to know thyself.

Unfortunately most of us go on autopilot every day of our life trying to get from one activity to the next, one job task to the next and ignoring the greater parts of our life.  If we just stop and notice at some point during our day, we could alleviate much of our suffering.  Numbing and disconnect gets us nowhere, but as humans we tend to keep repeating that which does not work.

This is not just a mental exercise of thoughts and thinking positive.  This is learning to interact with not only our thoughts, but their connection in the body.  If you stop and notice and observe, you will see them, but if you only focus on the mental aspect, you will miss half the healing that is readily available.

It is truly up to us what we allow ourselves to do and how we interact with our biology.  We make the choice.  We can choose to avoid it or we can choose to go in and take a look, thereby giving us a greater awareness of the body we inhabit.

---

Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

---

Blame Is A Way To Discharge Pain And Discomfort

Blame - A Way To Discharge
Pain And Discomfort

I recently saw a video of a speech given at the TED conference by Brene Brown on vulnerability. (To view the video, click this link) It is an excellent 20 minute video that you should see.  In the video, she talked about how blame plays into vulnerability.  It is easier to blame someone or something or some entity and cause, rather then understand the dynamics of what is going on behind the scenes.

According to Brene Brown, blame is a way to discharge pain and discomfort.  Think about that for a moment.  We live in a society today that is blaming everyone and everybody for everything.  If any issue is written about or discussed in the news, there are usually two sides presented and commented.  It is those that completely agree and those that disagree.  There is no middle ground in the discussion.  It is either one way or another way.  You really don't have to look far to find evidence of this in your day.

Allowing Things To Change

Sometimes I so badly want things to change in life. My fears try to get the best of me and self confidence falls to an all time low. I am constantly reminded though, that all of this is part of my journey. I need to allow it to unfold and let the prompts in life guide me.

Allowing is difficult to do in life. For when things seem so noisy and stressful, you just want to move through them as quickly as you can. However, it is most likely the same as the song Garth Brooks sings, "I could have missed the pain but I'd of had to miss the dance". It is part of the process, no matter how difficult the process may become.

Of course, the frustration, pain and discomfort is messages of prompting to help find our way. They are like bumper railings in life. Sometimes though, it is easy to focus on the bumps and not on the path.

It takes courage, determination and staying open to all that we experience. What we may see today that makes no sense in this moment, may be the cement we use to build tomorrow's bricks for our path.

*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

High Tolerance To Pain OR Numbing Out

At one time in my life, I could endure a lot of pain. It had to get to the level that was so high before I would really pay attention to it. Usually in those situations, the situation was so dire that it would require going to the emergency room or a doctor for muscle relaxants and pain pills. I remember a few times that I was barely able to drive myself to the emergency room to get medical attention. Can you imagine that?

Not too long ago, I would have thought this was all a normal and standard part of living in life. Everyone gets pain, right? Everyone learns that you just have to suck it up and move on, right? After all, our jobs, families and other responsibilities don't allow us to be down with pain and physical problems. How many times have you heard someone tell you to just "buck up" or "suck it up" and move on? I bet if we were given a nickel for every time we heard that, we'd all be rich and wealthy.

Now I'm learning in life that there is another way. Of course, it took me going to the point of paralysis before I woke up a little. Yes, you heard me correctly. I was paralyzed from a Conversion Disorder, which is where you take various traumatic events in your life and just stuff them deep down inside until you can't function any more. It is rare to be in this psychological state, but unfortunately I'm living proof that it does happen. And if you want a wakeup call in life, trying being paralyzed and almost seeing your life end before your eyes. If that doesn't wake you up, not much will!

I suppose you're sitting here reading this and thinking, "what is this guy suggesting"? I'm glad you're asking that question. Then I'm assuming you're probably thinking - what's next, he's going to tell me to feel the pain? Wow, how did you hit the nail on the head so quickly? You're exactly right! And now I'm sure you're most likely sitting there reading this and probably uttering under your breath that I'm just plain nuts. Nope, this is first hand experience I am writing from here, and it isn't just a pie in the sky concept.

See, our bodies have a built in mechanism to help get our attention, and help us evolve or work through things in our lives to move us forward in life. That mechanism is "pain", "discomfort" and various other things. So often though, when the pain comes along, we say "we don't want to feel this", and we look for ways to numb it out, attempt to get rid of the pain, do surgeries to eliminate the pain and so on and so forth. However, in the end, we really didn't get rid of the pain, we just put a Band-aid on a gushing wound and thought we solved the problem. The source of the pain (the message) is still there in the body. All we've done is tried to silence the pain by applying Band-aids to it.

I know, I know - this concept may be totally foreign to you and you may be laughing so hard at me, but like I've said, I've experienced this concept over and over in my own life. If you think you have a high tolerance to pain, I would suggest that it is most likely your ability to numb out the pain - to not feel it, to act as if it doesn't exist. However, as I have learned in my own life and that of others, the more you try to numb it out or act as if it doesn't exist - the more the body says "I'll Get Your Attention". And the body will get your attention in some way or another. It doesn't give up. It keeps trying to say "hello, pay attention to me, I've got a message for you".

Most medical procedures, drugs, supplements, and many of the "feel good holistic therapies" out there just work to numb the pain. I get some information all the time in the mail about massage training that emphasizes “we get rid of pain or we eliminate pain”! I'm sorry, but that's not what is going to help anyone heal. It is by going into the pain, that we allow ourselves to heal. Yes, that is not easy to do and no, it is not comfortable, but when you connect the mind and body together as one without the fear, you can then go into the pain and find healing at the source level.

I'm not suggesting that you can do this on your own in the beginning, but I am merely trying to raise the bar of possibilities within our human culture. You may need someone that has already walked down the road, you are traveling to help show you the way. Ultimately, each of us has the ability to go past the fear, into the pain, and find healing for our lives. Healing doesn't come in some therapy, or some new age philosophy or a drug, doctor or surgery. Healing comes from within us. It is part of us and we are a part of it.

For legal purposes, please don't go stop what you are doing that was medically prescribed by your doctor after reading this. Check things out and take care of yourself in the proper way before you make a major change. There is a time and place for doctors, medications, surgeries and alternative treatments, but there is also a time and place for each of us to learn just how powerful the fears are in our lives and how much they prevent us from listening to our own bodies and our own internal health.

Learning to listen to your body and learning to go into the pain is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. It is the gift that keeps on giving. We were not put on this earth to exist in our human form. We were put on this earth to reach our full potential and to grow, learn and experience all that life has for us. Yes, many of us have been beaten down pretty bad in life. I am one of those, but the rewards of learning to be at one with your body are so much greater than the struggle through the process.

If you only remember one thing from what I’ve written, I hope you will remember that true healing comes from within - not from outside sources!