When the body says NO.

How many times this week have we said “yes” “maybe” “I don’t know” “let me check my schedule” “would you consider instead…” “I don’t want to, but…” to a proposition by someone around us, when every signal in our body was screaming and affirmative “NO”.

You see, most of have been conditioned to silence ourselves, to speak when spoken to, to follow instructions instead of lead, to be good girls and do as we’re told. Over time, this conditioning not only necessarily impedes our capacity to own the “no” that is presenting in our body, even to ourselves, but it also teaches us to sacrifice ourselves in the name of being a “good girl” and pleasing others, not causing a fuss, keeping the peace, not stirring the boat, not appearing aggressive.

Have you stopped a moment to ponder though, what is the personal cost of being nice?

From what I see unfolding in the world around me, people, especially women, have been taught that it is heroic to sacrifice our lives for the sake of someone or something else.

From where I stand, if to “keep the peace” or "being nice" means sacrificing parts of ourselves until we are no longer visible to ourselves, then, all we are managing to do is wither and disappear.

When we begin to notice that the promised goods are not being delivered despite our sacrificial commitment to the deal, when the prince’s carriage is becoming an expensive prison, we realize that we have, somewhere along the way, lost ourselves. And, instead of owning our decisions, we play the victim and resent the prince for making us be this way.

Self-sacrifice, it appears, never paid off the way we were promised. Now, we’re pissed. Now, we’re resentful. Now, we believe it’s too late to take back our lives. Now, we have no fucking clue how else to live our lives.

We have become experts at ignoring the role that we have played in enabling the situation to unfold exactly as it is—exactly as it should—because we have yet to learn our lesson: I can never please everyone so might as well focus on doing what is right for me.

Otherwise, the fire that lives within us begins to consume us, day by day, and in the process, transforms the tissue of the body. And so the body screams “no” by manifesting dis-ease and daily discomfort.

• When we do not give voice our Truth, our bodies scream no.
• When we victimize ourselves and feel we have no way out, our bodies scream no.
• When we marry because our family said so, our bodies scream no.
• When we invite people into our lives that diminish our self-worth, our bodies scream no.
• When we blindly fight and see everyone as the enemy, especially ourselves, our bodies scream no.
• When we try to drown the sorrow of being alive by mindlessly consuming ___________________, our bodies scream no.
• When we withhold and bite our tongue for the sake of “keeping the peace”, our bodies scream no.
• When we scream and cry and convulse and externally blast because we do not know how to contain our fire, our bodies scream no.
• When we become so codependent that we enable people to walk all over us while we beg for their love, our bodies scream no.
• When we offend ourselves in order not to offend someone else, our bodies scream no.
• When we sacrifice our dignity to cultural shame, our bodies scream no.
• When we lie to ourselves about our Truth, our bodies scream fuck no.

And while we are too busy dismissing the messages of the body, it is in the process of manifesting disease: pain, ulcers, diabetes, cysts, fibromyalgia, IBS, indigestion, obesity, depression, anxiety, irritability, isolation, crone’s, addiction…

When you understand a little bit about the world of physics, especially quantum physics that rule the nano-world, you understand that the energy that moves through your body that sustains your life can and does stagnate if it is not in flow. Because energy needs to be in flow, the moment we lie to ourselves, it begins to stagnate. Once it starts stagnating, depending on how you experience what is going on, you will manifest dis-ease for yourself.

My question is, is it worth it?

Our bodies are intelligent bio-processors. Just as they know to process lunch, they know to process information in flow, energy in motion (e-motion). They hold no judgment and have no morality –they just process what flows through them. The moment we allow the intellect and the cultural conditioning to apply a value judgement on what is moving through us, the body tenses up and cannot process, cannot metabolize, thus energy stagnates and we manifest disease.

Understanding disease from this perspective has changed my life. Now I know, there is nothing ever wrong with me. Whatever is presenting in my body is perfect, it is a message, and all I have to do is sit back and breathe and allow the flow to move through my entire body. If my intellect needs something to do, which it does, its only role is to focus on the base of my spine, the inhale and the exhale. I do not need to place a value judgment on what is happening in my body – I only need to trust it to be able to process what it knows to process. I do not need content to explain and analyze why this is happening to me. I feel no fear because I know it is all information in flow, and it is all perfect.

When this wave is over and the energy has moved through me, I am a different person. My body has stabilized, and so have I. I am not left with another story to take home and analyze and journal about talk to my therapist about and relate it to a story in the past and talk and talk and talk while shutting the signals of the body down. By engaging the body instead of the intellect, I am free of all of this.

I am free to choose to listen to the signal from myself.

What I know is that when energy moves through me and I allow it to just be, I become more me.