become lunch!
However, this means that in today’s world most of us are not operating from healthy vagal functioning due to the daily stressors in our lives as well as to past unresolved trauma. This in turn inhibits our “rest-and-digest” system, as well as the social engagement system that gives us a deeper sense of connection in each moment, which we all need for a better quality of life.
When the body’s core systems are not registering safety and nurturing connection, all our systems slow down and become depleted, leaving us in a constant state of hypervigilance, always on the lookout for the next threat.4
The bad news is that this epidemic of disconnection is everywhere. Look around and you’ll see that many people are more connected to their technology or their “to-do” list than to their loved ones.
Check out the number of parents who are on their cell phones while they are out with their children. Notice the couples checking email in a restaurant rather than talking to each other. You may even feel overwhelmed yourself, rushing through life and yet missing the joy because of a busy schedule.
Today we spend more time worrying about the future or being haunted by the past than living in the present moment. Sadly, the more trauma you have experienced, the more disconnected you may feel. But even if you have not experienced serious trauma, life in our fast-paced culture can disconnect us.
The good news is that this is repairable in a number of ways. Neuroscience confirmed the concept of neuroplasticity in the 1990s. This means that, throughout life, our brain and nervous system can grow, heal, and remodel.
Reclaiming Your Navigational System
My work for the last three decades has been about reclaiming all of who we are to restore our natural balance and our innate healing potential. Peter Levine says it so clearly, “Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.”5
While your path home to yourself is unique, all paths include your body and the capacity to feel the sensations of being alive within your skin.
The journey of reclaiming these instinctual parts of who we are is an exciting exploration. In each of the upcoming chapters, you will discover a new skill that you can practice until it is mastered.
You will then be on your way to having a healthy relationship with your inner navigational system. You will have access to the vital, primal information your body provides.
Your inner radar will be up and running and fully functional.
Once most of your system is available to you again, you can easily navigate the rest of the way home as you go about living your life through openness and curiosity rather than from fear and anxiety.
Consider questions like these as you go about your day:
• What food would nourish me right now?
• Is this a healthy exchange I’m having, or do I need to speak up for myself or remove myself from this situation?
• What is my next step in this relationship?
When we’re in tune with our body wisdom, these questions become simple, curiosity-stimulating avenues that lead us back to our body — our home, our refuge, our safe place — without a lot of charge or angst.6
You can begin to feel the exquisite joy of connecting to life: the beauty of a flower or a landscape, the love of a pet, or the connection you feel with a friend or your beloved.
Blind Alleys That Throw Us Off Course
Don’t let your mind bully your body.
— ASTRID ALAUDA
Having a good relationship with one’s body is clearly important. Yet I know that somehow I lost touch with mine, and I know that I am not alone in this dilemma.
After several millennia, the Western world has left many of us partially or completely divorced from our body sensations and wisdom. Whatever the reason — whether we blame Descartes or trace this back to the fall of the ancient goddess traditions and the rise of patriarchy — the results are the same.
Many of our religions and spiritual traditions speak of being wary of the body, controlling the body, rising above the body, and most of all, putting the body in a subservient role to the mind. In numerous ways, we are taught the body is “less than” our thoughts and mental faculties.
In the thousands of interviews I have conducted and healing sessions I have facilitated over the last three decades, I have seen that this loss of good relationship with the body is pretty universal, and it can cause major mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual problems.
First and foremost, not feeling connected to our body leaves us very vulnerable. We get anxious even when there is actually nothing to fear. We unknowingly put ourselves in harm’s way. We lose out on the opportunities for joy in each moment. If we are not connected to our body’s wisdom, we miss inner signals that are vital for surviving and thriving in today’s world.
All of us operate from a variety of body myths and either unconsciously or consciously believe them to be true. Body myths are often handed down to us through our family lineage. Below, I’ve identified five body myths based on my experiences, conversations with peers, and the stories shared in my trainings and private sessions across the last three decades. These may not all seem true for you at the same time; some may seem partially true; or some might have felt true at a particular time.
However, these are myths that you probably do not want to continue living from if you have a choice. The first step in this process is awareness. With awareness, we are given the possibility of choosing anew.
Body Myth 1: The Body Is Too Painful
Numerous students have said to me: “When I turn my attention inward, all I feel is pain, and I feel overwhelmed. I don’t know how to deal with my pain, so I don’t want to — I can’t handle anything more. How can feeling this pain more than I already do possibly be helpful?”
If any of this sounds familiar, ask yourself these questions:
Do I view my inner pain as an insurmountable problem?
Do I feel only anxiety when I drop inside?
Do I feel like my pain is bigger than me?
Many people who have survived traumatic, overwhelming events may have this initial response when they drop their awareness to sensations within their own inner landscape. The pain is real. That part is definitely not a myth, though we may have been told it was. The myth comes in believing that the pain is all that inhabits our insides.
All I Am Is This Huge Ball of Pain…
Jennifer was newly separated from her husband of ten years when she came to one of my classes. She was an attractive, well-dressed woman whose sweetness shone through her face and eyes. The tension in her shoulders and back told me that she was also carrying an inner burden of pain.
As the class started and it was her turn to share, she began to cry. Through her tears, she told us that although she was firm in her decision to divorce her husband, every time she stopped to reflect on it, she became overwhelmed with a deep ache in her midsection. When I asked her more about the size and shape of the pain, she described it as a “watermelon-size ball of excruciating grief.” It brought her to a flood of tears just describing it. I acknowledged her pain and how that huge, contracted ache in her midsection must be controlling her life.
To help her come out of feeling