Listening to the Wisdom of the Body

 “We need the compassion and the courage to change the conditions that support our suffering. Those conditions are things like ignorance, bitterness, negligence, clinging, and holding on.”

—Sharon Salzberg

As an intuitive healer, I always dialogue with my client’s body. I find this fascinating—for example, I present certain questions to my client and his/her body answers by releasing different knots of tension or “stuckness”. This is possible only because I fully trust the wisdom of the body. I encourage each client to talk to her or his body and understand the messages it wishes to share. By developing a relationship with our bodies we can ask if we should avoid certain foods and “listen” for a response. I have done this, and my body will answer by becoming bloated and gassy if I ask to eat a food that isn’t good for me. We all have this capability within us; it just takes practice.

The wisdom of the body shows up in another way as well. Our bodies protect us from danger by giving us a sense that something is wrong. It’s that “sixth sense” we sometimes heed and sometimes ignore. Often, we will get a “gut” feeling about something or someone that can help us avoid trouble. Many medical professionals consider the colon the second brain of the body. I think true wisdom lies there. I work with this second brain and I tap into its wisdom during a session. The client’s body tells me where to work and how long to stay in one area and when to move.

Most of us store traumatic or frightening experiences in our bodies. To compensate, our body and our mind often use somatic wisdom to protect us from trauma. The body can handle this type of survival skill for a surprisingly long time until it gets to the point where it just can’t cope any longer. When this happens, I usually see physical dysfunction. Mental and emotional dysfunctions can manifest, as well. When people come to me for a colonic, rarely do they realize that the wisdom of their body brought them in—an unconscious strategy to help them release energetic knots on various levels.

You most likely have heard about the stress response of fight or flight; but have you also heard of freeze? A great book, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine and Ann Frederick, deals with this topic. The authors write that nature created a compassionate stress response called “freeze”—to help certain prey from suffering while being eaten by a predator. Sometimes, however, the prey doesn’t get eaten, and after the danger has passed, the animal gets up, shakes it off, and goes along its way. The same thing happens to us, but instead of shaking it off, the trauma of our experience stays inside us. Over time the trauma can resurface, presenting us with another learning opportunity.

By engaging in a Metaphysical Cleanse I offer clients an opportunity to allow the trauma to come to the surface of the body to be released. This can feel overwhelming, and, all of a sudden, the client can start to cry or feel angry. During such times, I encourage my clients to breathe and feel their feelings—all of them—and to fully express whatever comes up. Holding these feelings down can become a habit; so when they come to the surface, we need to do everything in our power to allow the feelings to move through. We do this by reminding ourselves that the original painful and traumatic experience lays in the past, and isn’t happening in this moment. Instead, we often discover that we can feel today experiences we suppressed years before.

Hopefully, practicing this method of release will help us feel compassion for the inner child[1] that suffered with feelings of fear, loneliness, and despair. Once we experience self-compassion and self-love, not only do we know it’s possible—we realize that self-love is both logical and natural.

I trust the wisdom of the body. As a metaphysical colon hydrotherapist, I communicate with each client’s body during their session. I do this a few ways—I watch to see how the body responds to questions I ask, I listen to where the body asks me to work and how it responds during the session. I also get information about the client’s emotional body and how it relates to physical manifestations.

Similarities do exist between a physical cleanse and Iyasu’s Metaphysical Cleanse. Both cleanses aim to eliminate unhealthy foods or beliefs that keep us ill. Both cleanses aim to help us feel better, lighter, and happier. Both cleanses eliminate foods or beliefs/attachments to emotions that create inflammation and congestion in the physical body. Both cleanses introduce healthy foods or beliefs into our bodies to replace what we have chosen to let go of. Whether a client cleanses body or soul, I encourage her or him to start the process with a colonic to clear away whatever no longer serves the person.

During an Iyasu cleanse, I believe that clients need to adjust their diet while working on their metaphysical issues. I ask clients to do so because when working with our deeper aspects, we might want to distract ourselves from feeling difficult emotions. If we have developed the habit of eating to distract, we subconsciously work against our goal by keeping certain feelings suppressed with food. For change to occur, we must make different choices. If we habitually distract ourselves to avoid these feelings, why not choose instead to let go of the habit and allow a different experience to surface—one that can offer true and permanent healing?

Every time we distract ourselves with a habit—food, drugs, alcohol, work, relationships, etc.—we limit the amount of light we allow into our lives. Without light, we stay in the dark and end up stumbling around our lives, wondering why strange or unwelcome things keep happening to us. By staying in the dark, we end up not taking responsibility for our lives looking the way they do, nor do we give ourselves the chance to change our lives into what we deserve. Some of us don’t feel worthy to receive a life that reflects health, wealth, and happiness. Some don’t believe we can even have that type of life. Core issues like these prevent us from experiencing joy and freedom. Many different factors play out in why people suffer. Although we may have experienced great suffering in the past, and might still experience heartache or emotional pain, that doesn’t mean it will continue for the rest of our lives. However, it does mean we must choose the courage it takes to face the uncomfortable feelings we have buried within or be willing to shift the beliefs we have held on to and admit those beliefs might be incorrect or inaccurate.

Many years ago, I went to healers and therapists to fix what I believed caused me to suffer emotionally. At the time, I was willing to look at myself . . . but not fully. I can admit now that a part of me still wanted to be right. I wanted to believe I controlled much more of my life (and the lives of others) than I actually did. I told myself that because I had looked at some issues in my life and dealt with them, I was done with that part. It was not easy for me to realize that although I did some internal work to stop my emotional and physical suffering, many layers remained to be uncovered. I had shed some of these layers, but not all. I wanted to know: “how long was this going take?”

I recognize today that asking that question meant I was still trying to control the process. As long as I bought into the illusion that I could control what I could not, I continued to suffer. Only when I chose to surrender—to truly let go and allow the process to happen naturally—did I find peace and happiness.

*[1]Our inner child is the part of us that lived our childhood. It is healthy to connect with and nurture that part of us needing healing and love.