If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs……

(“If”, by Rudyard Kipling)

So, we’re still in crisis – how are you going to deal with it?

Many of us got through the Summer lockdown by knowing it would come to an end – they say any torture is bearable if you know there will be an end to it.  But here we are again, facing another national lockdown – or ‘firebreak’ as the new terminology has it.

Whilst initial discussions are that this will be for four weeks, we have no idea how long this may go on for and it is pointless guessing and discussing the subject; it’s a waste of our energy and creates fear and depression.  What we have to do is, individually, take responsibility for our own mental, emotional and physical health.  By doing this, staying calm and focusing on the many joys of life, even if they are different to those we used to revel in, we can get through relatively unscathed. How to do this?

Firstly, although it’s important to follow Rudyard Kiplings’ great advice to ‘keep our head’, we then need to get “out of our heads”! When studying martial arts (Ki Aikido) I learned that “Mind rules Body”.  And as a therapist I often say that the body is “the last bastion of defence”.  In other words, the body demonstrates how we think and feel in that it reflects what is happening with us emotionally and mentally.  This is clear to feel and see – when someone is depressed, they visibly change posture vs when they are positive and happy they generate a wonderfully light feeling, are open, stand tall, and everyone around them responds. The energy changes because depression causes a contraction in body and energy, while joy links with an expansion.

Somatic awareness is the focusing in on the body, tuning in, and becoming aware of the different areas and what they are ‘telling’ you.  The body is a responsive, adaptive, organic, ever-changing, sensory organism and we ignore it at our peril.  Try this simple exercise in exploring how your body is at the moment:

• Turn off all ‘phones and find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed.
• Sit on a chair with your feet on the floor and back well supported.
• Rest your hands in your lap and focus on your feet.  If your brain starts whirring and thinking, just refocus on your feet.
• Imagine tree roots going down from the balls of the feet into the floor, and the earth beneath, growing, dividing, creating a network of roots that is going to hold you connected and grounded in the earth.
• Breathe gently, imagining that breath going around the body, down to your feet and into your hands.
• Compare the left and right sides of your body – how do they feel, or how do you ‘see’ them?  Light or dark?  Heavy or light?  Happy or sad?  It doesn’t matter what the words or feelings are, if that is how you interpret your body, then they are right for you.
• Take time to explore your body, the head, the throat and chest, the heart, the abdomen, the pelvis, the back – in fact wherever your mind takes you to.  Don’t judge or criticise; try a detached, loving curiosity that will help you understand how your body is reacting to whatever is going on in your life.
• If you find an area that doesn’t feel happy, or you can’t engage with it at all, just stay there for a minute and take your gentle breath into it, sending positive thoughts towards it.  It has been proven that positive thinking effects cellular change. 
• At the end, just sit still for a minute and allow yourself to come back gently.  Remember, your body is amazing, and it is coping brilliantly.  Always praise it, never disparage or hate it. It responds to your thoughts^[1].

Do this exercise daily and watch how the way you feel about your body changes – how much more settled, contained and grounded you feel over the weeks and months.

How can we help you?

A wonderful way of clearing emotional, mental and physical ‘issues’ and helping the processing of any negativity, trauma or current trials is through Energy Field Therapy.  The energy field regulates the physical functioning of the body and reflects the emotional and mental state.  The therapist engages with the field and facilitates normal flow in areas that feel blocked.  It’s a little like acupuncture, or acupressure but off the body and needle-free; rather like the therapist doing the Tai Chi or Chi Gong for you instead of doing it yourself – and much more intensive.  You can have one session or, to enable bigger shifts in your healing, four days in a row, one hour a day.  Click here to see our information page for more details, or of course please get in touch to find out more.

FURTHER READING:

1. The Biology of Belief, Lipton, B. (2005). Pub’d Hay House
2. Energy Medicine, the scientific basis, (2000) Oschman, J.L. Pub’d Churchill Livingstone (Elsevier) 
3. Molecules of Emotions, Pert, C. (1997). Pub’d Simon & Schuster, London.
4. Through self-consciousness, the mind can use the brain to generate ‘molecules of emotion’ and override the system. While proper use of consciousness can bring health to an ailing body, inappropriate unconscious control of emotions can easily make a healthy body diseased….” Chapter 5, The Biology of Belief, Bruce H. Lipton. Published by Hay House.