Go into your inner body; feel that your energy field is alive. And you’ll notice, you’re not thinking anymore. You can still listen. Eckhart Tolle
Do you know how to go inside and connect with your inner body awareness? Most of the time, our daily attention takes us outside our bodies. We focus on outer tasks and people. We stay caught up in our minds, thinking, thinking, and thinking.
Can you stay present with the sensations inside your body?
Can you feel the energy within?
Do you know the best way to heal your body when you feel ill? Is it withdrawing from our body when we experience discomfort or pain? Perhaps, we would heal faster if we bought attention and love to the pain within. We all know what we resist persists. How many times have we taken medication to rid ourselves of pain only to have a different pain appear somewhere else in our bodies?
Eckhart Tolle and Judith Orloff, M.D. both recommend conscious attention to our bodily pains, as a first step to alleviating pain.
I believe pain has a message. Our body speaks to us with its own intelligence if we have the ears to hear. Pain can guide us towards getting well if we listen and respect it.
Listening requires trusting our intuitive senses. Perhaps, this also means we need to look at past emotional wounds and change nonworking behaviors which harm us.
Do you have the courage to make the changes to transform pain into wellness?
A Simple Practice to Experience Inner Body Awareness
Take your awareness inside your body
1. Focus on your in and out breath as it occurs naturally.
2. When your mind wanders to the past or future come back to your breath.
3. Awareness of your breath brings you back to the present moment.
4. Gradually become aware of sensations in your body, both uncomfortable and pleasant.
5. Stay with each sensation, regardless of how vague for as long as you have time.
6. When your mind wanders to the past or future come back to your breath.
Inner Body Awareness Benefits:
1. Lessens the constant chatter of our minds
2. Calms negative thoughts about ourselves
3. Experience our inner body, emotions and sensations
4. Can feel energy and aliveness
5. Insights can occur
6. Positive shifts in awareness and well-being
Note: It takes time to develop our skill of inner body awareness. Eugene Gendlin has a 6 step method called Focusing for developing skill to access our inner body awareness, our gut sense. This method can lead to bodily shifts and decreasing physical and emotional turmoil.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Michael David Lawrience is the author of The Secret from Drama, Trauma and Pain. His book provides ways for improving emotional health, easing pain and stress, healing physical and emotional abuse and suffering, and spiritual awakening. See book on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Health-Secret-Freedom-Trauma/dp/0615479170
Michael as a Residential and Self-Esteem Coach and Mentor has over 15 years’ experience teaching teen’s self-awareness, self-esteem, and self-reliance. See eBook See eBook Self Esteem- A Teen’s Guide for Girls on Amazon This book is valuable for women also.
Michael offers Bowen Therapy in person in Sedona, Arizona for easing physical and emotional pain. See http://emotionalhealthtips.com/bowen-therapy
Michael also conducts personalized hiking tours in Sedona for emotional and spiritual breakthroughs.
Interesting post – Thank you. I think it’s true many of us in this society run away (or try too) from our pain to quickly. There is a lot of wisdom in the body and when it is in pain it is attempting to communicate something of value to us if we will just tune in and listen…
Thanks for posting the video! Agreed, inner body awareness is important. A few years ago I learnt abut the Sedona method and the Release technique. I find it really helps, as Janet above me mentioned, to stay with the discomfort until it disappears. I sometimes tend to think of negative emotions as neglected children who are just doing the best they can to get our attention, to get us to listen to the message they have for us. All too often we just push pain away, until it becomes bigger and bigger, and harder to deal with.
Janet the methods described in the article have their foundation in Buddhist Mindfulness techniques.
I remember some years ago going to Buddhist meditation that was led by a Buddhist monk. Several of us where finding it difficult to kneel for long periods of time on our prayer stools. I remember him talking about bringing our awareness to our discomfort and staying with the sensation. Amazingly the discomfort would disappear