Special Guest Appearance Video
of generously volunteers to talk with me about her challenges with psoriasis of the scalp. This “Body Wisdom Reading” is a sample of how I work with clients to help them listen to their bodies and discover what life changes their bodies are adapting to. Suzy shares stories of when her psoriasis started, how it impacts her life, and I offer an explanation of what it means on a spiritual and energetic level, and some general “prescriptions” of what changes she could make in her life to help heal the issue on the mental/emotiona, and psychological/spiritual/energetic levels.
Storytime
I keep a set of canes tucked away in a closet,
cuz I never know when I might need them.
My toes are prone to catching themselves on table legs.
I’ve broken my both my baby toes and their next door neighbors twice each (that’s no less than 8 broken toe injuries in my lifetime).
And, my knees sometimes have a bad attitude.
When I look back on my life and all the aches, pains, owies, illnesses and injuries I’ve been through, they tell quite the story. Not just of my physical ailments, but of what was going on in my head, my heart, and my soul at the time.
1987-1991 - scoliosis back pain
feeling like I had to over-twist myself to fit in at school and in society1994 - chronic bronchitis due to a deathly allergy to cats
I was allergic to some really bad choices I was making in life1996 - anxiety & depression
I was living a life that lacked passion1997 - severe digestive issues & weight loss
I was living a life that lacked purpose2001 - hit by a car as a pedestrian, separated shoulder ligament
I needed a major shake up and wake up call to make some big life changes2002 - knee surgery
I was too humble and putting others above me, I needed to stand up for myself2003-2007 - eating disordered behavior
I wasn’t nourishing myself with food or life experiences. I deprived myself.2008 - 2023 - multiple broken toes
too focused on the details of getting things right in business2019-present - perimenopause 3am wake-ups
needing to listen more to Spirit and ancestors wisdoms
This is just a general list of the big stuff I can remember off the top of my head.
Another Story
On Christmas Eve 2007, my Grandma was fixing dinner for over 20 relatives when she called an ambulance and went to the ER. Instead of gathering at Grandma’s with my cousins for a formal sit-down dinner followed by presents (after the dishes were done and she had put on her lipstick), we gathered at the hospital.
Two at a time, we were allowed 10-minutes to say goodbye to Grandma. The doc informed us that the bowel obstruction was inoperable and she wouldn’t last the night.
My Grandma was a woman who held onto her shit, because letting others see our shit was, well, just not okay. She was the hostess with the mostest, and really knew how to keep up all the appearances. If she were named Jones, she would be the Jones that all the neighborhood was trying to keep up with, because, from all outward appearances, she had her shit together.
Grandma was also a hoarder. In the decade after Grandpa died, her four bedroom house gradually filled up with stuff. I’m not talking the crap you see on those reality TV shows, I’m talking high quality material goods, kept in pristine condition. One by one, as her friends and siblings died before her, she inherited their estates, and collected their things into her home, and meticulously packed them away into nice orderly shelving and drawers. By the time she was 89 years old, cooking Christmas dinner, there were only two rooms of the house left with enough space to host guests. The living room and dining room.
It was no wonder she died of a bowel obstruction. In her last years, she’d had a few hospitalizations to clear the excess crap from her colon, but she didn’t get the message to clear the clutter from her home. And who knows what she kept locked away in the corners of her mind because it wouldn’t be proper to share, with anyone.
My grandmother asked her body to store all her shit. Physically, mentally, emotionally. She kept it all packaged up so no one else would ever see or smell it, because that’s what 1950s house-wives were supposed to do. And one day, her body just couldn’t take anymore shit. It quit. She was blessed, she got 89 great years and a flourishing family, and an opportunity to say goodbye to ALL the people she loved on her death-bed.
When I left that hospital room that night, I made several promises to myself:
To keep doing the “wind-removing pose” in yoga (good for bowel elimination) for the rest of my life.
To declutter my home and keep it that way.
To allow myself to express my dark and hidden feelings so they don’t fester into feces I can’t get rid of.
Lesson
The human body is a miraculous machine. The wondrous collection of muscles and bones, tissues and organs, that also has an intricate biological communication wiring system that keeps all the cells working together in homeostasis.
The amazing thing (and incredibly frustrating thing) about the human body is that it adapts to perform in exactly the ways you tell it to. If you over-use a certain muscle, it adapts. If you deprive yourself of nutrients, it adapts. If you fail to give it proper rest, it adapts. By adapt, I mean that it does its absolute best to keep on keeping on no matter what, and giving you exactly what you ask of it, until it just can’t anymore.
And when your body talks to you, it usually does so very very quietly at first. And it gets louder in time, until eventually it just yells in all kinds of ways (major illness, cancer, massive accidents, etc.)
When your body talks to you, do you listen?
Do you really hear what it has to say and make the changes in your life that it is suggesting that you make?
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Get a Body Wisdom Reading
Do you have a body part or illness issue that just keeps nagging at you? You’ve done all the doctoring, and you just can’t find relief? In a 1-hour reading I can give you a zoomed out perspective of what your body might be trying to tell you about your life, and a few simple action plan prescriptions of what you can do to address it that you haven’t already tried.
Resources
Here are some books about Body Wisdom that I have referenced over the years.
You Can Heal Your Life by Louis Hay
This is an excellent resource providing a great list of body ailments with simple affirmations to work with for healing them.
Messages from the Body: Their Psychological Meaning by Narayan Singh
I offer this one with a big caution, it may cause hyperchoncria-like behavior. It is VERY negative in its phrasing. However, this is the most comprehensive listing of illnesses and ailments I have ever seen.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel A. van der Kolk
This one is excellent for understanding how the body holds unprocessed trauma and offers some wisdom as to how to release it.
Check out my other publications
If you Need Assurance, Ask Your Body for Advice