Do you struggle with chronic pain and/or illness? Do you find it hard to have a good relationship with your body because of it?

I was recently diagnosed with a fairly rare connective tissue disorder. While I was relieved to finally have an explanation for myriad inexplicable symptoms I’ve had my whole life, the diagnosis also opened up a whole world of testing, supplements, and alternative treatments which often highlighted my body’s limitations more than anything else.

Through this journey, which I know is just beginning, I have been grateful to have my own set of healing tools and practices to help keep me grounded in a deeper truth, maintain a loving relationship with my body (to the extent possible), and prevent me from spiraling into fear.

I send so much empathy to whatever health issues might have brought you here. And I hope the following suggestions might help you on your journey.

1. Access your Emotions

The first step is to allow whatever emotions might be there to arise. That may be fear, sadness, overwhelm, anger, powerlessness, confusion… Writing a list can be helpful. And then I invite you to say hello to each one by name.

2. Access Beliefs Being Triggered

Next, notice any beliefs that may have been triggered by your pain and/or condition, as well as your journey for getting support, if it’s relevant. For example “I’m all alone.” “Those in charge have no idea what they are doing.” “I’m so unlucky.” “Just when you think things are okay, disaster strikes…” Whatever it may be. Again, writing them down, and saying hello to each one can be helpful.

3. Trace the Beliefs to childhood.

Notice if the emotions and beliefs feel familiar. If they do, you might want to trace them back to your childhood. Imagine you are sending empathy to any young part of you that was developing those beliefs.  If this feels highly emotionally charged and you want to go deeper into this work, this blog post (and YT video) might help: https://www.radiantwholenesshealing.com/healing-childhood-and-family-wounds/.

4. Connect to Your Body

When we are in pain, taking strong medications, and/or things are happening in our body we have no control over and might not understand, connecting to our bodies might feel difficult. Or terrifying. This is understandable. And yet, from my perspective it’s impossible to heal the body if we are not connected to it.

I invite you to sit or lie in a calm space. Close your eyes. And start feeling into areas of your body that feel tight, painful, and/or agitated. Take ten slow breaths (to the extent that’s accessible) in and out of the area. Imagine each breath is bringing compassion and care to the area.

As you drop in more deeply into your body, you might feel into the quality of the pain/discomfort. Ask yourself “if my body could communicate with me, what might it be trying to convey.”

5. Connect to Your Fear

For most people, wherever there is chronic pain/illness, there is fear (and if that’s not the case for you, you can skip this part). Although we said hi to all the emotions in #1, it can be helpful to spend extra time with the fear.

If possible, place one or both hands on any part of the body that feels like it’s needing attention (the heart and/or abdomen are often good places to start). If that is not physically possible, you can imagine it. Send care and compassion to the part of you that is scared. If you feel called to, you can say some reassuring words. “I know you’re scared. It’s okay to be scared. And you’re not alone.”

6. Connect to a Healthy Future Self

If it feels available to you in this moment, imagine a future of parallel version of yourself who is healthy. Imagine that you are stepping into that space with them. Let them know that you are a version of them that isn’t as healthy. Ask this future/parallel self for any message. Merge with them. Feel what it’s like in your body to be merged with them. Bring this feeling into the crown of your head, feel it spread through your neural pathways, and your whole body.

© Jenny Brav 2022

Do you struggle with a chronic health issue and/or chronic pain? Do you feel hopeless that you can ever shift it? Would you like to go deeper into what your body might be trying to communicate?

“Healing severe or chronic pain, I believe, includes transforming our relationship to the pain, and, ultimately, it is about transforming our relationship to who we are and to life.”—Sarah Anne Shockley

Let’s be honest for a minute. Having a chronic health condition and/or chronic pain sucks. There are no two ways about it. This blog post isn’t intended to diminish in any way how debilitating and devastating having a chronic condition can be. Instead, I hope to provide another possibility for how to relate to the situation and to your body. In my experience, long-term health issues arise when something is out of balance physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually. While focusing on treating the symptoms is one choice, I believe that exploring what our bodies and psyches are trying to communicate is ultimately more effective.

The following are 4 tips for beginning to explore your chronic condition.

1. Acknowledge the pain and anger

The first step is allowing space for the emotions and thoughts that arise when you think about your situation. Have a venting session with yourself. Say or write everything that you are thinking and feeling. For example: “This sucks!” “It’s so unfair” “This isn’t how things were meant to be” “Why me?” “What did I do to deserve this?” “Nobody cares” “I must be a terrible person for this to happen to me” and so on. You can also write a list of emotions that are coming up for you. Rage, hopelessness, grief – whatever it may be. To the extent possible, allow it to be OK to have these emotions.

2. Accepting what is

Common cultural wisdom has it that the only way to overcome a condition is to go to war with it and come out the winner. Anything else is seen as giving up. While this can be a helpful approach for accessing the hope and inner resources necessary to healing, resisting what is may cause an inner split between our reality and how we want things to be. Acceptance is not the same as resignation. It means shifting from a small contracted place of fear to one where there is space for everything to be as it is. Including the parts that are resisting your current situation (which is what we did above).

Having listed your thoughts and beliefs about the situation, I invite you to write or say a statement that both acknowledges the above, and makes room for a little bit of acceptance. For example: “Even though I have this condition and I HATE it, and I’m fighting it tooth and nail (because who wants this!), I’m open to accepting that this is my situation for now.”

3. Moving towards the body

Chronic conditions often (though definitely not always) arise when there is already some disconnect from our bodies. For example, in order to survive we learned to rely on our minds and be in control as much as possible. This usually means not trusting the body and its emotions, which can seem messy and unpredictable. Or we learned to be ashamed of our bodies. Experiences of trauma and coping strategies of disassociation also create a rift with our bodies.  When we have a chronic condition – which is often our body’s way of screaming for our attention – we move further away because being in our bodies feels so unbearable.

Part of the healing process is to slowly learn to move towards the body, and begin a process of reconciliation.  If this is physically possible, I recommend gently squeezing your body from head to toe. Take deep breaths as you go, and if it works for you perhaps say hi to each body part you are touching. This doesn’t need to take longer than 2-3 minutes (although you can always take more time if you wish). I suggest spending a bit more time on your feet. If touching your body is painful or not possible, I invite bringing your attention to each body part (from head to toe), and breathing into each one. Do this every day, ideally once in the morning and once in the evening, for a month.

4. Listening

Once you start having a bit more of a connection with your body, you may want to explore what your body is trying to communicate with you. Close your eyes, and bring to mind the chronic health issue you are struggling with. Notice any area of your body that feels painful, achy, contracted or uncomfortable. To the extent possible, take nice gentle breaths into the area. Allow yourself to get a little closer to the sensations then you might usually. Ask yourself, if there was an emotion associated with this health issue and/or pain, what emotion might it be? If nothing comes up, that’s absolutely time. Ask your body if it has a message or a request from you. See if you can receive the responses with gentleness. I recommend checking in with your body in this way at least once a week.

Copyright © 2018 by Jenny Brav. All rights reserved.