Thousands of Bodies
It's hard to believe but I've done the math, and I've touched about a thousand bodies a year for the past three and half years that I've been in Seattle, Washington. Every body has a story; not necessarily the story its owner is telling! What I've come to know is that your body doesn't lie.
Hundreds of Stories
There's the body telling me that the spirit in it is unhappy and doesn't believe it deserves to feel good or to be healthy while its owner is telling me how solid her self-esteem is yet she gets injured every time she exercises.
Another person whose body relaxes with the slightest encouragement and assistance yet she insists on focusing her mind on telling the story of how someone in her life isn't behaving. As she tells the story, her body becomes more and more tense and within minutes she is lying on the table with both hands clasped to her forehead. Gently I ask her to notice that one minute she is just fine and the next minute she talked herself into a red hot mess just by focusing on something in her life that she can't control or accept.
With many new clients, the first thing we do is breathe. The breath pattern is always, "Slowely, deeply in through the nose. Slowly exhaling from the back of the throat." If a person is really stressed, they cannot take a deep slow breath. They cannot breath slowly or deeply. It's as if they're holding their breath, waiting for the other shoe to fall.
Then there are the clients with a mouth set in stone. The lips are almost invisible and the lines have hardened her mouth into the permanent pursed lips of disapproval and anger. With those clients, I save my own breath because I sense the courage it would take to let go of the judgement and criticism it takes to form that mouth is too great.
Your body tells the truth. What is your body telling you?