Every morning I wake up, and it’s another day. A single mom of two busy boys, a busy integrative health practice, spreading this work to other health professionals, and watching my father decline cognitively, there are many mornings I would prefer to continue to hit the snooze button, then curl up on the couch with my cat and read and write all day.
The weight of the world is HEAVY…need I say more.
Add on the grief and sadness that comes when we lose trusted relationships and best friends lose their children way too soon.
It doesn’t take much for our brains to go down a negative path.
I am in a “nurture mode.”
I am nurturing my beloveds and patients who are struggling with pain both emotional and physical, and I am making extra time to nurture me.
In the past, it was very easy for me to keep pushing forward…pushing down feelings, emotions, and other messages from my body telling me it needs care. Over time, this protective, unrealized strategy has resulted in a gradual loss of my health, both emotionally and physically. Only by studying and working with brilliant, loving practitioners that understand how the body works as a whole and responds to trauma, learning with my mentors on the brain, nervous system, and organ relationships, and befriending, learning, and developing love for my own body, mind and soul, have I become more in tune with my body and can respond to her every changing needs.
When we are under periods of great stress and trauma, regions of our brains and nervous systems, often go offline. Certain areas become more overactive or underactive to help us feel safe, in many cases, by avoiding painful, uncomfortable feelings. Our bodies’ go into survival mode.
The insular cortex is an important region in the brain that struggles when we endure great hardships. It plays a significant role in how we experience pain and experience emotions, and when challenged, we may be more vulnerable to experiencing chronic pain, anxiety, as well as other emotional experiences and perceptions.
Unfortunately, we often do not even realize this is happening…
And some of us are in a constant state of stress and hardship…
This results in the building of pathways that continue to perpetuate stress, negativity and chronic pain. The more we are exposed to negativity, both externally from our environment or internally, by how we speak to ourselves, the stronger the pathways become, making it harder for us to break out of chronic cycles. Our cells, tissues, and organs within our body cannot handle the increased stress and negativity for long. We begin to experience muscle pain, an injury slower to heal, digestive issues, skin issues, mood issues, sleep issues, leading the diseases and syndromes that doctors often label us with and are quick to offer a medication.
The body is asking for help, and we need to develop the awareness to listen to it and interpret what it needs.
During my times of intense mental, emotional, and physical strain, I have been working extra hard to find quiet, pray and meditate, and journal, to allow myself to experience feelings and emotions, to check in with my body as to not ignore what it is experiencing and feeling. Hand on my heart, or intestines, liver, etc, I am checking in and giving support. What information can I receive from my body? Where is my brain going? Is it going down an old, habitual negative pathway? Is something really true? How can I catch this, acknowledge it, and support it? The wisdom of my body often is more reliable than my brain, which is quick to go down adaptive pathways of thinking and protection, which aren’t always healthy for me.
It is critical for me, and you, to acknowledge and nurture the pain and traumatic experiences AND nurture the opportunity for healing, growth, and positivity.
Acknowledge, honor, support, and heal. Rinse, wash, repeat when the next challenge comes.
Both/And…
We live in a challenging world, and will always experience challenges, pain, and suffering. At the same time, we also live in a world that is full of truth, goodness, and beauty…as long as we continue to seek it and not allow pain and suffering to rewire our nervous systems for the negative.
It’s hard work, but this is what is needed in the world today. Learning and growing from pain and suffering AND both seeking and sharing the true, good, and beautiful, both within ourselves and with others.
We need people who have learned how to support, care for, and nurture their bodies, so they can help others do the same.
It is an honor to support you in your healing journeys’, be it from an orthopedic injury, or more complex health issue. While learning how best to nurture your body with respect to food and exercise, the equally, if not more important system to support is your brain and nervous system. I have created the Inner Wiring Workshop to teach you the fundamental basics of your nervous system, how it relates to everything else in your body and how to take good care of it for a lifetime. This course is best learned with the help and accountability.
My writing is not only for you, but also for my continued healing and health. I try to squeak it in, when I have 30 minutes in between a school drop off and tennis. This morning my intuition was super strong in skipping tennis and completing this post. My body is sore from lifting yesterday (a good sore as it has been couple weeks since I’ve been to the gym), the demands on my nervous system are hight, and my heart needed to complete this.
I look forward to helping you learn how to trust the wisdom of your body through the Inner Wiring Workshop.
Peace and Love,
Jen
Uddin LQ, Nomi JS, Hébert-Seropian B, Ghaziri J, Boucher O. Structure and Function of the Human Insula. J Clin Neurophysiol. 2017 Jul;34(4):300-306. doi: 10.1097/WNP.0000000000000377. PMID: 28644199; PMCID: PMC6032992
Knutson KM, Rakowsky ST, Solomon J, Krueger F, Raymont V, Tierney MC, Wassermann EM, Grafman J. Injured brain regions associated with anxiety in Vietnam veterans. Neuropsychologia. 2013 Mar;51(4):686-94. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.01.003. Epub 2013 Jan 15. PMID: 23328629; PMCID: PMC3644343.