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Do You Love Your Body?

Submitted by on October 1, 2009 - 1:45 am

When I was in 3rd grade, I chased a boy named Erik on the school playground, trying to kiss him. Not only did Erik deny me a kiss, but he also punched me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I collapsed on the ground breathless and in shock.

The body stores these types of traumas for years after they’ve occurred. Over the years, I’ve felt a tightness at my diaphragm at times when I’ve felt invalidated, particularly when someone has tried to control my female creative energy, or when I’ve taken a step towards expressing myself more.

For example, right after I got my first gig as a singer/ songwriter, I got a cough (originating in the diaphragm) that lasted a month, right up until the gig. When a conflict came up with my ex-husband, that same spot would get tight.

In August I visited my family and I saw clearer than ever how controlling my mother can be. I know she learned that from her father, and he from his mother (who moved across the country to go to college with him!) and so on and so on, and that they were all just looking for love and security in the best way they knew how.

Still, I got back from the trip feeling drained and angry, after being so on fire with purpose and happier than ever earlier in the summer. After a lot of traveling, I had decided that by September it was time for all the projects I had envisioned to manifest, but it felt like my fire had gone out. And then I was even more mad.

So I was walking around the house feeling like “I should be doing this, I have to do that…” and guess how my body responded? The diaphragm (3rd chakra area) got tight. EVERY time. So once I realized that I would stop the “have to’s” and stop trying to control myself, and ask my heart what it wanted. And then I did whatever my heart said. I even went over to the mirror and said the “shoulds” and “have tos” to myself in funny voices. Immediately the tightness went away. Every time.

I was also mad because my body had been holding this story for so long when I thought I (I as spirit) was done with the story. After all, I am a healer, I have been on a path of personal growth for 20 years, etc. etc. and so I decided this “shouldn’t” be happening. I was basically head-butting this condition in my body and of course, that only made it worse!

To heal this, I wondered, what more can I do if I already know why it’s there and I know I don’t agree to it?

When I was in psychic school, we learned a lot about how to clear other people’s energy out of our space. We learned how to clear old emotions, beliefs, and energy around past traumas. We learned how to call our energy and power back from other people, places and times.

In my training and life(times) as a healer, I have long held the questions: What am I truly responsible for? And “What is the best way to carry out my responsibilities?”

As a healer, and not so much professionally but especially earlier in my personal life when I healed unconsciously, I often took responsibility for things that weren’t mine. And once I learned how to clear energy, my newfound awareness made it easy to think my problems were all because of someone else’s energy in my space, and then so none of it was my reponsibility. Now in part that was true, but there was always something in me that allowed them in.

The more aware I become, the more of the bigger picture I see. Did my 3rd chakra get tight as an adult because that boy punched me in the stomach in 3rd grade, or did he punch me because my 3rd chakra already had the energetic imprint from my Dad that I better not let too much female creative energy out?

Was my mother’s control really hers, or was it her father’s, his mother’s or even someone before that? Was my trying to control myself my own thing or just a pattern I learned from others?

The more aware I become, also, the more I see everything comes down to love. And survival, but really I think our survival depends on love. Especially when we are babies, these things are lumped together. And as adults, don’t we feel safe and secure when we are truly understood and therefore connected in a sense of oneness and love?

So what I am learning now is to heal anything, but particularly the body, what we need is love. And it really DOESN’T MATTER whether the stuff is yours, your mother’s, her mother’s, your partner’s or whatever. Because picking it apart like that takes us out of oneness and wholeness which equals health.

When the body is given love, the body responds by matching that vibration of wholeness and harmony and every part of us begins working together harmoniously.

In terms of responsibility, what I have realized is this: Yes, I am responsible. But, no, that doesn’t mean I am responsible to fulfill someone else’s desire to control me, or to go against my own heart because someone is afraid to lose me if I change.

What I am responsible for is to be in love, to be in forgiveness, and to follow my inner knowing– and in doing so I am healthy and happy and offer others the opportunity to do the same. It takes great courage and it doesn’t always initially make people happy, but it actually benefits all beings in the most miraculous ways.

What conditions in your body or life frustrate you? Let me know if I can help you dive in deep beneath the story to the true expanse and release of love.

copyright 2009 Ann O’Brien- All Rights Reserved.