The body doesn’t lie

I have recently completed a therapeutic course in Postural Integration (PI) with Ross at Sea Change. I had heard a lot about this series of 10 sessions designed to improve my body and mind connection. Already being a bodywork practitioner, I had an existing awareness of how our bodies’ ‘store’ emotions and how these often surface in our daily lives. The postural integration techniques used by Ross were instrumental in reinforcing and expanding my body mind awareness.

The concept of emotions registering in our physical bodies is obviously not a new one. It is expressed by the medical intuitive Caroline Myss in her phrase “your biography becomes your biology”. It is a succinct phrase indicating that over time our beliefs (resourceful and un-resourceful ones) become crystallised in our bodies. A flexible body generally denotes a flexible mind.

This is why if you have ever had a good massage/ bodywork session you can sometimes activate old or repressed memories at the most unexpected touch of a part of the body. I have consolidated my thoughts in the last few years that our bodies and emotions are the messengers of our beliefs. Let me explain.

In about the seventh session I mentioned to Ross that I had had this very acute and painful condition in my right arm for the last month. I could find no physical cause for a muscle strain or the like. I noticed that applying massage and pressure on certain muscle points alleviated the condition for a short time only. It is exceptionally easy and expedient for me in my busy life to put this occurrence down to the fact that I  must have ‘slept on it the wrong way’. Or that I am are under some ‘stress’ at the moment and I need to move on. Trouble is, my/our body doesn’t move on. It remembers ... and the body doesn’t lie.

So what was the message that my body (through acute pain) was trying to tell me? Symbolically, the emotion generated was one of restriction in that I could not reach out and grasp things in front of me without excruciating pain. Ross agreed with me that I was restricting my needs in some way through a belief that was not serving me. Neither of us were sure of the exact nature of the belief(s) at this juncture.

Through the use of a powerful PI technique Ross brought me to my emotional centre - the heart. I was flooded with an intense emotion of not being worthy and then relief to know that this was ultimately not true. It was an amazing breakthrough to find that for all these years I did not think I deserved a wonderful intimate relationship! 

In the lead up to these sessions and coinciding with the pain in the arm I had been dating a woman who I thought could become my life partner. At the time this outcome was far from certain and my body was telling me to attend to and heal this belief so that I could positively move on.

So you see, it took a bit of work on my part and Ross’s to discover the message - but in the end our bodies never lie, and oh … in case you are wondering,  I got the girl!

Got some pains you can’t figure out? I’d highly recommend you go see Ross for a program of postural integration.

by PB. originally published in our BodyLanguage newsletter 2004