How do you feel about your body? If you are someone who feels like your body loves you and you love your body, clearly you are having a great relationship. If you are someone who feels radiant and comfortable in your skin, celebrate, this is not an area of challenge for you.

Often when I ask that question my clients respond with feelings of embarrassment or they don’t feel they have control over their body.   Guilt is another feeling that shows up around food and our body.

This is a subject I have been dealing with for most of my life. As an anorexic teenager I was ashamed of how I looked. I didn’t feel I had any control over my body. I have made lots of progress in this area but I realize I am on a journey and there will always be emotions and things in my body to deal with. I am human and there are challenges in life.

As a student of Abraham-Hicks, Seth, Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle I have found a new way to be with my physical or emotional pain.

I believe whatever is showing up for me is actually there as an opportunity for me to
reach a greater understanding of who I am.

Abraham says how we feel about something (like our body) is our first manifestation. It is our vibration and our point of attraction.  We are always radiating a signal. Every thought vibrates, every thought creates a feeling which radiates an energy field around us.

One of the keys to creating vibrant health is to
cultivate a feeling of joy.

How can we feel more joy? What can we do when we have these uncomfortable feelings about our body? How can we be in a state of joy when we are in pain? How can we remain joyful when we feel guilty for eating chocolate? How can we be joyful when we are embarrassed about the way we look?

For years I wondered how to be with my physical symptoms and how to be with my negative emotions? How to I get back to joy when I am suffering?

 I have been on a quest to find my way with this and it hasn’t been easy. I suppose this is what Joseph Campbell calls the hero’s journey.

This is what I have come up with that is working for me. I am still on the journey but I have a new way of looking at my difficult emotions and physical symptoms that is incredibly helpful for me and my clients. This idea is based on the Law of Attraction. Recently I have been reading Gabrielle Bernstein’s new book “The Universe Has Your Back” which has supported my experience and given me the inspiration to share more of this with you.

4 Steps To Find Your Way Back to JOY

Step 1. Look at whatever is showing up for you as an invitation to
reach a higher state of awareness.

Your symptoms are a beautiful invitation to re-engage with who you really are. What I mean by who you really are is your Higher Self, your Inner Being or the Universe.

I ask myself this question from Eckhart Tolle “What is my relationship to the present moment?”
Am I suffering by trying to get away from the present moment? Am I hating what I am feeling? Whenever we resist our feelings they keep showing up.   There is a quote I love from Debbie Ford “What you can’t be with won’t let you be.”

 

Step 2.  Honor your feelings with kindness and compassion.

This is a very important step. If we can’t be with our feelings they will keep showing up. Many times we like to just go to an affirmation without actually being with the feeling that wants our attention. I know from experience it doesn’t work. It is by allowing yourself to be with your feelings that they release. 

• Take time to be with your feeling in stillness.
• Allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. Sit with it. Breathe into it
• Stay in your skin
• Feel the feeling in your body. Use your breath to stay present.
• Be kind and friendly with your difficult emotions. Remember they are visitors to help you heal.
• As you sit with your feelings you’ll begin to feel them dissipate as they flow through you. You will being to relax.

Note: If you have experienced severe trauma you may need a qualified therapist to help you with this. Don’t do it alone.

Step 3. Ask the Universe for guidance.

Trust your Inner Being is always there to help you. If this is new to you, as it was to me, simple consider it. As you do you will strengthen you relationship with your inner being and you’ll begin realize you are not alone.   It is my experience the Universe is never going to give you anything you can’t handle. No matter how difficult your situation, once you realize you have support from the Universe if you ask things begin to shift.

Step 4 Trust and welcome the healing.

Trust the Universe, your Inner being is with you, guiding you and supporting you. This step allows you to receive the healing. When you are willing to accept the present moment is friendly and be with it, the greatest healing can occur. Once you shift into believing whatever is showing up is a friendly opportunity, you open to receive the new awareness. Know that when you get the awareness you are going to feel greater joy than ever before

Let me give you an experience of this from my life.

 A few years ago after losing my business, getting divorced and having to sell my house I wound up with something called Interstitial Cystitis. Basically I felt like I had to pee all the time. I did a lot of research and worked with my digestive system to heal and I made progress. I felt better but still had flare ups.   I began to ask where are these symptoms guiding me?

Instead of feeling like I was doing something wrong, I opened up to the idea that these symptoms where there for me, to take me into a whole new state of awareness.   Even though I didn’t know what it was I began to trust I would receive the guidance.

I sat with the physical discomfort. I asked how did it make me feel. What was the emotion I was experiencing.  It was fear. I felt unsafe. It was a first chakra experience. As I sat with the feeling of fear in my body it began to release. Not all at once. It took some time.

My expansion has been to realize I am safe and “things are always working out for me” as Abraham says.

I began put my attention on the things in my life that make me feel safe. Daily at the end of my meditation I tap into the feeling of safety. I began to see how much I didn’t feel safe in my body. This has been a huge awareness for me. Feeling unsafe is something I have been carrying around for years. Once I realized where I was going the symptoms became a blessing for me. I am beginning to feel safer than I have ever felt in my life. I rarely have a flare up but if I do I know I am being called to open up to an even greater feeling of safety in my life.   This is a big issue for me and I am still on my journey around it but WOW I feel the healing working. For the first time in my life I AM SAFE BEING ME. I AM SAFE WITH MYSELF.

Health Tip

If you are having a challenging feeling about your body or pain, instead of trying to get away from it use these steps to move toward it. I realize if you are in pain it is hard to feel joy. I get it! But if you can shift to seeing it as a opportunity for greater joy and connection to yourself and others you will open up to receiving the guidance and healing. Once you do you will be amazed at how great you feel.

Here is one of my favorite practices to raise your vibration and bring healing to your body.

I hope this information serves you and guides you to more joy and better health.

Please leave me a comment below I would love to hear what you think of these steps.