WHY IS THE BODY SO IMPORTANT TO HEALING THE PSYCHE?

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

It is my firm believe that in order to heal your psyche you inevitably need to heal also the rest of you: your mind, your soul and your body of course. It has been rediscovered already some time and it is in the meantime a well-accepted fact, that there is a synergic relationship between our psyche and our body. There are many way to explain this concept and there are many experiment done to prove this. However, it would be too dispersive to go too much into that, I believe, and it wouldn’t make much of a difference.
 
What I want to share that is really relevant and useful for you is how can you look at your body when you are suffering psychically. If you notice your negative emotions are taking too much space in your life and in your mind, this is particularly useful for you.

​Many people don’t know that emotions have always a place in our body where they can be felt more easily. This place can be different for each of us and it is also commonly known that certain organs are associated with certain emotions. Both are true, I would not focus too much on what the internet say about where your sadness should be felt in your body, but I would rather invite you to feel yourself and discover where your own personal sadness is to be felt in your body at this very moment.
 
With this second way of approaching the connection between your emotions and your body, you are making contact with your body, you are acknowledging your emotion, you are coming home to yourself and you are starting to be present and grounding, aka you are starting to heal.
 
The healing of the negative emotion that we often define as psychic discomfort, is not in the elimination of them, but it is in its exact contrary. Healing is about going back to be whole, being whole means being present to what is in all our entirety. Bad emotions are a language our system uses to let us know something is happening we are invited to pay attention to.
 
The body has the material solidity and safety to allow as to get in contact with our emotions and bare the pain in a safe way. In the body we can choose to give more space to the emotion, to let it flow towards our feet. This is how we see more of it and we listen its message, like we would listen to a sad friend, to understand, to care, to be there, hold the space and allow it to be.
 
Research has been done to demonstrate that after a maximum of 20 min. feeling completely immerse in the body with a negative emotion, the emotion soften en subsides. It feels like it is digested you could say.
 
What we are actually doing by allowing the emotions to be and be felt, is building emotional resilience and becoming able to manage our emotions. Imagine how your life would be if you were able to feel the sadness or the anger, without it influencing your behavior in a way you don’t feel you can control. Many clients have had this as main goal and the answer is in the body, getting more and more in touch with the body, feeling the body and the sensation in it.
 
I understand that when I ask clients reporting negative emotions to tell me where in their body they feel that, I get weird look and follow up question. We are not really used to look at the body and the emotions like this, but it works every time, and to my knowledge there is not yet a better way found to feel, handle and manage emotions.
 
To get you started I would suggest you ask yourself a couple of questions:
 
-             What is your relationship with your body? Elaborate for yourself in self-reflection about how you experience yourself in relationship with your body.
 
-             How fit and health do you feel? Either you think you are really healthy and fit or the opposite, you must believe there is a reason behind your current status, stop to reflect on what you believe is the reason.
 
-             What do you dislike the most about your body and why?
 
-             What do you like the most and why?
 
-             What are you most grateful for when it comes to your body?