Body Language - What Do You Hear?

Did you know your body is talking to you? All the time, and about lots of different things!

It informs you not only of your day to day health and vitality, but sometimes even on the direction of your life! Its deep stuff!

Recently I was visiting a specialist and was running through a series of old injuries collected within a 2 year period when I was ~20 years old. “Yeah, I snapped a ligament in that ankle, then while that ankle was healing I got tendonitis in the other ankle. Then I twisted the knee above my first injured ankle for good measure! Everything comes in threes, you know?!”

My specialist’s response – “Wow, going in the wrong direction, were you?!”

The light bulb for me that blinked on when she said that was hilariously bright. “...! OMG, you are SO right!”

This is a sweet example of how our body might suggest something. At the time of the injuries, I was studying a double degree in something I was mildly interested in, but really had to egg myself on to be passionate about - it just didn’t come naturally. Perhaps I might have been best focussing elsewhere, I just hadn’t understood what else I wanted to do, making this a precious, but necessary detour J

Another example might be my appendicitis last year. First I was injured lightly (twice) in sport, then I hurt my back badly. Just as I was recovering from my bad back, I caught the cold from hell. And then just as I was recovering from my cold, I woke up with what felt like a knife through my abdomen. I then proceeded to continue to work through that horrific pain for 11 days prior to finally driving myself to the hospital…! 2 weeks in hospital, open surgery and 5 weeks total off work later, I got the hint my body was trying to tell me something! J

Through this whole parade of pain and sickness, I kept working at my day job because I was so stressed about my workload… I put my job, and my stress above my health… In hindsight, a poor order of priorities - and my body escalated it's message until I simply couldn't ignore it any longer!

These are just a couple of specific lessons from my beautiful body I have learnt. Almost every single person I have spoken with has similar stories.

Do you ever find if you run hard at work or life for too long you suddenly get the cold from hell?

Or after being manically busy for ages, you finally book a holiday with a fabulous but full itinerary, only to wake up sick on the first morning of your break?

Your body wanted a break – and had realised perfectly clearly that being sick was the only way you’d take that rest. Sad but true, isn’t it?

Our body has a specific language that has been deciphered over time by experts like Louise L Hay, Annette Noontil and Inna Segal. These individuals have studied comparative emotional characteristics between people suffering the same style of injury or illness. They have then published ‘lists’ that summarise their own findings from observations in their studies.

I truly believe that almost every ailment we ‘suffer’ is due to an emotional or spiritual issue that we haven’t yet dealt with. Our bodies try to help us work through these things by bringing them into the physical.

Here are some common examples of physical issues and their possible emotional connections. I have borrowed these specific examples from Inna Segal’s “The Secret Language of Your Body”. Each of the 3 specific issues I list below have a series of possible options. They may not all feel right to you, but some may just spark a thought or feeling of curiosity? J

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) – Unbalanced, too serious and controlling. Focussed on the negative. Judgemental, opinionated, easily irritated. Difficulty in trusting others. Holding on to outdated beliefs and ideas. Confusion, loss of direction, not knowing which way to turn.

Snoring – not wanting to let go of old ways of thinking or doing things. A need to control. Feeling like you can’t express what you need to say. Fear of change.

Sprain – Feeling scattered, unfocused, vague. Needing to pay attention. Pushing past your limits. Impatient, unaware, intolerant. Making silly mistakes and regularly misjudging things. Resistant to authority. (etc)

Our precious, beautiful bodies carry us through our lives, so they deserve the attention they want and need. However, anytime you research what the reason might be that has caused an issue, be sure to listen to your intuition. If the researched ‘answer’ doesn’t feel right to you, perhaps it isn’t – and there’s never a need to force something. If it feels right though, perhaps have a think on what you can do to heal the situation.

The first, and usually the last answer to resolving issues is love. Love of yourself. And love of those around you. Love of life. 

And true love never needs to force anything J

On that warm note, this week marks 10 weeks of this Stress Relief & Relaxation blog! So cool! And it’s gone so fast!

Next weekend marks a very special occasion for my family. To allow myself to fully enjoy spending precious time with my family, I’m going to take a week off from posting. While I’m offline, have a superb and joyful fortnight, and I look forward to ‘seeing’ you again on the 8^th June!

In love and light, be peaceful.

Annnalise

Where Are You?

Hello my dear friend, welcome back!

Recently I witnessed something that left me pondering and this week I’d like to share the anecdote, and my own musings. Please feel free to join me by sharing your own perspective in the comments section below  – I’d love to share in your take on this topic too. J

A couple of weeks ago I walked into a country supermarket to buy a snack and some water. The shop attendant was busily polishing the glass doors of the drink fridge, and she was just about finished. The doors positively glowed; she’d done a fabulous job, so I complimented her on how beautiful she’d made the glass.

Her response was derisive snort, a sigh and then “only until the next person goes anywhere near it…!”

In response, all I could do was smile sympathetically, grab my snack and very carefully not touch the glass as I collected my water. But I was left pondering as I returned to work.

 “Why couldn’t she just enjoy her beautiful handiwork, even if just for a moment?”

The answer I’ve come to – she wasn’t ‘present’. Rather than being present and enjoying the moment, she had chosen to already be witnessing that future scenario where someone put greasy wipes all over the glass! Because she was so wary of this future ‘mess’, it felt like she’d completely missed the current beauty.

So what if someone comes and puts a handprint on the glass, why not admire their beautiful hand?

Paraphrasing something I heard recently by the brilliant Eckhart Tolle, “dwelling on past thoughts often leads to regret. Dwelling on future possibilities most often leads to anxiety. Neither option leads to joy.”

So let's practice being present, even if only for a the odd occasion to start!

My advice and GEM for the week – allow yourself to enjoy the beauty in moments.

• ·         Pause from whatever you are doing, and enjoy a deep, relaxing breath.
• ·         Go for a walk around the block at lunchtime and just enjoy the fresh, non-conditioned air.
• ·         Open the curtains in the morning and pause to bask in the beautiful dawn light of a crisp, late autumn morning (or spring if you’re in the northern hemisphere). J
• ·         Watch a leaf or flower dance in the wind, on its way down to earth.

Life is all about the little moments of joy and it can be as simple as any example above, or anything that might warm your heart. We are constantly surrounded by things that can give us joy. Allow yourself a moment, it might only be 10 seconds, to relax, breathe and experience it.

And with that delightful thought, have a beautiful week.

In love and light, be peaceful.

Annalise

Reflexology Lesson - Part I

Hello everyone!
Welcome back to another exciting week. Over the last few weeks I have strayed away from specific reflexology to share some of my other favourite stress relieving, thought provoking topics.

This week, I want to start start a series of posts that will contain information for you about reflexology, as well as how you can self treat certain systems of your body. I won't do all of the posts in this series in a row though, so look forward to some other random inserts in the middle! ^_^

As I mentioned a while ago, our beautiful, precious feet have the reflex map of our body, but so do our hands and ears. There are other maps and approaches around your body too, but I have only studied these three.

For this series, I will be providing homework for you to start practicing on yourselves. As reaching our own feet can be awkward at the best of times, I will focus on our HANDS. How handy! ^___^


How often do you massage your own hands?

If you find a sore spot on your hand, do you give it a bit more love?


If you've answered "No" to either of those questions, we have some work to do! ^_^
Massaging your hands feels great. Yes, I know its even better if someone else does it for you (oxytocin!), but its still awesome to do yourself.

The trick is to massage the WHOLE SURFACE AREA of your hands. It doesn't have to be a deep massage, as the reflexes are just below the skin.
If you find a sore spot - you may have just bruised / cut / injured your hand, or you have a sensitive reflex. If you cannot think of a very specific reason for that sore spot on your hand, its probably the reflex crying our for some Tender Loving Care. So give it a gentle massage.

There are two specific systems I want to teach you the reflex areas for this week. These are the Central Nervous System (CNS) and your Lymphatic System (LS). These two systems are super important for everything in life, and balancing your CNS will go a long way in helping your body deal with stress as well, not to mention help your back and brain!

See my (gorgeous, MS Paintbrush) image below. (!) I have highlighted the specific areas of your hand for these two systems.

• The green lines are your Central Nervous System
• the yellow circles show a nifty way to stir up your Lymphatic System

How to do it:

CNS
Gently massage along and around the bones of your thumb, from the wrist up to the tip of your thumb and back down.
Also make sure you give some TLC to the tip of your thumb, it needs it too!

This line covers reflexes for your spine (full length), spinal cord and brain - the nervous hubs of your body!


LS
This is not so much a massage as a gentle, flat pinch of the webbing between your fingers. Grab a 'meaty' hunk of the webbing between your fingers with the flat pads of your thumb and index finger and gently pinch. Repeat this action a few times on each finger webbing, and do this regularly - it's a great time filler for idle hands.
This is the most common piece of homework I give to my clients - it's sooooooo good!

This action is like 'pumping' your lymph around your body. Do the action gently and feel the pumping sensation as you work. Its super good for you, particularly as most of us these days spend way too much time sitting down.


For either of these areas, if you find something is sore, revisit it gently and see if it stops hurting. If it keeps hurting, give it a rest and visit it again later. If it starts to get more painful - stop what you are doing as something isn't going quite right.


Remember :

REFLEXOLOGY DOES NOT HAVE TO HURT TO WORK.

I am a firm believer that healing mainly occurs when the body is relaxed. Causing yourself pain is not typically relaxing, therefore, not very healing.
I acknowledge that a hard massage can feel great sometimes, but feeling pummeled and bruised for a week after a treatment doesn't float my personal boat at all, and I thoroughly discourage that attitude in these reflexology exercises!


So this is your first lesson in reflexology self treatment, I hope you like it!

Let me know how you go with it, and whether my descriptions make sense to you - I can clarify if required. ^__^



Have a delightful week, see you next Monday night!

In love and light, be peaceful

Annalise

Aesthetic Stressors

‘Once upon a time, in a land not so very different from the ACT, lived a girl studying Forestry and Sustainability Science at university. One day during an Urban Forestry lecture, her professor dropped an anecdotal remark – “Looking at straight lines causes psychological stress to human beings, thus urban forestry is important and modern architecture is curvy.” And with that, he moved onto a different topic…’

Now, more than 10 years after having completed that subject, I am still fascinated by that one anecdotal comment he made. It’s funny – it’s probably the single, clearest memory I have from any subject I studied during those long 5.5 years! And it’s barely forestry related! Its stress related! So today I’m taking the pleasure of sharing this fascinating concept with you.

In the architectural world it has long been known and understood that people feel more comfortable around round objects than sharp objects. This has an obvious origin – sharp and pointy means dangerous. Smooth, soft, fuzzy edges are comfy and safe.

There is also quite a lot of research that fractals make people feel more comfortable. This also has an obvious source – nature is full of fractals of varying degrees (tree branches, leaf veins, snowflakes, vascular systems, feathers, etc.)

But where am I going with this?

Think about ‘modern decorating’ or the cityscape that many of us now exist within. How much space around us is full of soft, curvy objects, or fractals (natural or otherwise)?

We humans have been so busy making our lives efficient, smooth and time-saving that we have almost completely disconnected from our natural roots (another fractal!).

I've deliberately placed so many images in this week’s post to give you the opportunity to have a good look at each. Just relax and look at each image – how does it actually make you feel? Forget about all the ‘learned aesthetics and biases’, and just feel it.

Straight lines and sharp objects stimulate the stress response area of the brain. So even if you consciously like the simplicity of a harsh or abstract design, you will more likely than not be stressed on a subconscious level.

My GEM for this week, give your conscious and subconscious mind a rest - take the time to look at natural things. Have a good look at the tree out the front of your home, or on the road to work (please don’t try to do this while driving though – dangerous!) J

Getting out into nature is fantastic, but if you don’t have the opportunity, find ways to look at nature in the meantime.

There’s so much more to it than this, but I really wanted to share with you this one fascinating little insight that has been delighting and inspiring me for 10 years now!

And one more thing – Google Image search “Fractals in Nature”. Wow, so many beautiful images! Just, wow!

* Disclaimer – I own none of the images borrowed as examples for this post. If anyone is interested in my sources, message me and I’ll send you the links.

Next week I’ll bring us back to reflexology, and teach you some nifty tricks that I often give my clients as homework! J

Until then, have a refreshing and delightful week.

In love and light, be peaceful

Annalise