Connect mind and body for whole-hearted living. What does it mean?
How often do you find yourself lost in your thoughts and end up somewhere without knowing how you got there? How often do you feel disconnected from your body? How many times have you tried to "think positive," but the experience you're in is still negative and nothing changes? Or how about the times you are thinking of how you want your body to move a certain way, but it doesn't respond? How often do you get stomach pain or "butterflies," when you're stressed, nervous or excited? These are all examples of how the mind and body are connected.
Mind-body connection is how our minds can impact how healthy are bodies are, and our bodies can impact how healthy our minds are. This is why it's important to tend to both. Not only that, but the vagus nerve (10th cranial nerve) transmits and receives information directly from the brain to the rest of the body - neck, chest, and abdomen, which ultimately helps balance our nervous system.
"Until approximately 300 years ago, virtually every system of medicine throughout the world treated the mind and body as a whole. But during the 17th century, the Western world started to see the mind and body as two distinct entities." -Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing
When mind and body are treated as separate entities, it is extremely difficult to heal, function at your best and to change. According to Dr. Joe Dispenza in Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, change can't happen when the mind and body are in opposition - when we're thinking one way and being another. For example, your body doesn't know the difference between emotions that are created from your external world vs. emotions that are created from thoughts alone. So if you're feeling stressed out because of a story you've created in your head about something that might occur in the future, your body thinks it's real and responds accordingly. A.k.a. stress, anxiety, sickness, etc.
So how do we connect the two? Here are a few ideas:
Reiki and other types of energy healing
Breathwork
Meditation
Yoga
Exercise or physical movement
Creative activities like art, music, or dance
Hypnosis
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Somatic Therapy (ex: Dance Movement Therapy)
Biofeedback
Time in nature
Once you start to bring awareness to mind and body as an integrated whole, you open up a whole new realm of healing and connection. If you're interested in exploring some of these ideas, please let me know if I can help or guide you, whether through my one-on-one Reiki sessions (in-person or at a distance) with meditation and breathwork, or connecting you with other resources for support.
Sending love,
Chelsea
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