Cover It Up, Mask It, and Restore It...or Acknowledge It, Heal It, and Let It Go.

If you cover it up, ignore it, and put a band-aid on it, will it go away? The symptoms may appear to go away, but did the body actually heal the underlying issue?

As we move through NSA care, adjustments engage the frontal cortex of the brain (our higher thinking center, awareness, and creativity) to have a new level of awareness regarding what our bodies are telling us. This typically leads to an enhanced ability to connect our emotions with our physical state of being (a deeper ability for the brain to acknowledge the current state of the body), our thoughts with our emotional and physical sense of being, even an awareness of how our postures, activities, and life-situations contribute to our energy, how we feel, and how we express ourselves. While NSA adjustments typically begin by dissipating tension from the nervous system, creating increased movement and a sense of ease, as the nervous system gains new information from the adjustments, nerve signaling patterns shift, creating new nerve signaling pathways for the body. This may create a sense of increased tension as the body needs to engage different muscles, tendons, and ligaments to support the change. It also may increase a very deep and persistent awareness of old pain, old emotions or ways of being. In essence, you are feeling it to heal it.

Because our cultural norm is to ignore pain, cover it up, or not experience it, many people are uncomfortable with the signals their body is bringing to the surface. They may want to numb it, mask it, or pretend it isn’t there. Think of taking cold medication. Did the cold medication “cure” the cold? No, it definitely didn’t. It may have masked the symptoms while causing a host of side-effects for the body, but the body was still working to heal the underlying illness. Another example, if one takes heart burn medication, does this heal the underlying physiology that is causing heartburn? No, it does not, but it does mask the symptoms and alter gut bacteria in a way that may create future gut-health problems.

The medical paradigm is how many of us were raised and is still the major way of dealing with health issues in our country; please know I am not damning anyone for making decisions to take a medication, but do know that there is information and knowledge to be gained, especially when one can ACKNOWLEDGE HOW THEY FEEL (notice it, accept it), and be with it versus masking it. The process of “being with it, feeling it, and accepting it,” is incredibly conducive to the process of letting go and healing at a deep level.  

Think of it this way: as you release tension and old, fight-or-flight stress physiology, instead of your body spending tremendous energy on the old pattern, you have new-found resources. True, deeper healing can begin. As that deep mind-body awareness emerges, do not be afraid of it, but also do not ignore it. You can now actually be aware of what was going on beneath the old stress pattern. Your body will facilitate this by speaking louder and louder until you listen. It will be even more effective if you listen, acknowledge what you are feeling, and take action. This may include having a difficult conversation, changing a health habit, making a decision to treat your body with more care, or even changing a relationship or work situation. The key to this process is LISTENING NOT IGNORING.

What happens if you ignore the signals or messages your body is sending you? Tension may build and build in an uncomfortable way until you are forced to take action. Realize that a very important state in the healing process is realizing how stuck you may be. The symptoms may speak to you so loudly, that you have no option but to CHANGE. NSA care and Somato-Respiratory Integration (SRI) will provide you with fuel for healing change.

While this may sound a little intimidating, the BEST changes that have been created in my life were when I honored this process. I listened to what my body was telling me. I may have gone through stages of thinking, “Nothing will work to change this,” to gaining a little more energy and realizing that “there IS something I can do that will help to change this,” to realizing that, “I am so stuck in this pattern that if I don’t change my perspective, I will be stuck forever in this pattern” to finally integrating information, energy, and enough clarity to REORGANIZE into a completely new pattern. This cycle just happens to be Stages 1-4 of the healing process. Your body is naturally integrating these changes through NSA, but if you ACKNOWLEDGE THE AWARENESS that is coming to you, it will happen with more ease.

SRI works deeply with this process. If you know your body is telling you something, but you aren’t sure what to do with that information or how to acknowledge it, SRI uses breath, energy, or movement to “find the area,” “listen to the area and what information it has to tell you,” and creates a higher level of energy within the nervous system to move into a deeper state of healing. Think of SRI as putting you directly in touch with the body’s innate knowledge and wisdom. This has helped countless practice members to find peace, healing, and new levels of consciousness to move beyond their current state of being, working hand-in-hand with their adjustments to create a new level of healing and wellness.***Watch our social media over the next month for videos on SRI!

We touched on how this process REORGANIZES the nervous system. In the next few months, we will discuss the concept of REORGANIZATIONAL HEALING. Medicine’s purpose is to “restore” what once was. NSA’s purpose is to do more than restore; instead, NSA works to reorganize your system into one with higher level neurological strategies, enhanced healing and resiliency, better mind-body connection, with access to new perspectives, growth, and consciousness. My thought always was, “why would I want to return to the same old me? Instead, why wouldn’t I want to be a more integrated, resilient version of me?” Look for future classes and articles to explore this revolutionary concept that has been documented in research!

Remember, Create Health by Choice, Not by Chance.