I hear you.
I feel you.
A big part of my beliefs, what I am passionate about, and what I support people with, is accessing the answers and wisdom that lies within your body.
Your body has all the answers to your questions.
It is so much better than Google – if only we searched it as much as we do Google!
The body is the map to the unconscious mind, Carl Jung said. When considering our minds as a whole, 95% is unconscious.
Psychology teaches we are the sum of all our parts, every version of us, every age we have been, makes up the whole of us.
Yet there are parts, which Internal Family Systems (an integrative psychology tool) explains, that we have disconnected from. For us to become the fullest version of ourselves we must accept and love all parts. Reconnect.
Even the parts that did things we regret or that feel really vulnerable.
In Indian philosophy (and psychology accepts this, too), the most crucial relationship that influences you is your relationship to your mother and father. Even if you have never met them.
Our romantic relationships highlight a lot of unhealed younger parts, we play out the energy we experienced when we were younger. That’s why relationships can be very healing.
When we are older, when it is time to heal our younger parts, which happens at all different stages for different people, we experience relationships and environments that bring up the same energy we experienced in trauma as a child (or which your ancestors experienced). It’s important to note that you don’t need to remember the exact memory to heal it.
When it comes to feeling attracted to the wrong guys, despite knowing they’re not a good fit, there are a variety of reasons why you might experience this. Ultimately, there’s something within that’s asking to be healed.
- The bloodline, misogyny and patriarchy.You have been born in a time where you do not have to put up with mistreatment like so many women before us did. You get to say this is not OK and walk away, whereas many women before had to accept disrespectful treatment from men. We no longer have to accept the default of fawning or freezing to men, but it’s vital to realise that, because of our bloodline, that is still our default programming. We owe it to ourselves, the women that came before us and to the women that will come after, to create a new reality for women. But it would be silly to expect the change to come easy. Hence why you still feel attracted to the wrong ones.We can’t expect to go straight from men treating us badly to not accepting mistreatment. We need to accept and awaken to what our ancestors went through – and observe and accept that we experience that same fawn/freeze response based on the conditioning of our bloodline.
- Being abandoned as a child, and the untrue beliefs we created to understand around this trauma. People who were abandoned can tend to ‘chase’ as they don’t believe they are enough on some level.
- It could be a distraction from other bigger pain you are experiencing in your life, ie. masking grief after the death of a loved one.
- A trauma bond, where you repeat cycles that you experienced as a child ie. codependency, abuse, neglect etc.
When we have a strong attraction to something that is not good for us, it can feel like our body is failing us but it’s not. It’s asking us to heal untrue beliefs and younger parts so that you can experience the love you so deserve, which must come from you firstly.
A question I have often pondered is, if I truly loved myself, would I let myself be treated like this?
How can you tell the difference between the body asking for trauma to be healed (can be generational or younger self) and wisdom from the body. Wisdom is guiding you whereas, if traumatic energy, it can lead you to repeat patterns.
Let’s take a really basic example.:
You have a feeling: you want to text an ex to see how they are.
How do you know whether this feeling is arising from a healthy place, ie. wisdom, or if it’s purpose is asking for something to be healed?
If the energy:
- Feels like you cannot pause.
- It MUST be done.
- It feels very intense and overwhelming.
- There is a fear response in your body – lots of energy, fixation.
Urgency means it’s most likely traumatically charged energy that needs to be completed but not by action it is telling you to do, but attend to the emotion arising.
If the energy:
- Feels like a knowing energy you can’t explain
- It can wait, it doesn’t need immediate action
- It feels calm, loving, peaceful (even though pain and discomfort can be here too)
- It has time to be actioned
- You feel relaxed even though you can still be experiencing intense feelings.
Calm and confident means a genuine signal from your body that’s in your best interest to follow (wisdom)
A really good exercise is learning what yes and no, feel like in your body.
You can do this by playing with simple questions you know the answers to so you can learn,
For example: “do I like peanut butter?”,
Landing the truth in the body – yes and seeing the visceral reaction then landing the lie (in my case) no, in your body. Observe your body’s physiological reaction to the outright truth vs the untrue. With time and practise, you’ll become familiar with the sensations and more skilled at working with the body and understanding what it’s trying to tell you.
Internal Family System has a great outline which can help you identify when there is wisdom present in the messages of your body.
IFS teaches us to connect with Big Self energy which is always there for the taking, always with us. We can connect to this when making decisions in our lives.
This similar idea is spoken about in lots of religion and philosophies.
Big Self Energy has the 8 C’s and 5 P’s
- Confidence
- Calmness
- Curiousity
- Clear
- Concise
- Creativity
- Compassion
- Clarity
- Playfulness
- Patience
- Persistence
- Progression
- Presence
Wisdom from the body is often heard when there is stillness and silence which is why having practices that allow you to become more skillful in accessing this supernatural power (ie. the wisdom) is so important. With record levels of anxiety disorders being reported and feeling disconnected from self very commonplace, reconnecting with the wisdom your body holds is more needed than ever.
When our body is speaking to us from wisdom, from truth, it has the above qualities yet there can be very distressing emotions present.
For example your body is asking you to end a relationship and the energy is calm yet your heart feels like it’s breaking.
I am so here for us to connect and use the most powerful instrument we have; which is our bodies. If you want to work with me deeper around healing and gain clarity around questions that you are holding, contact me carla@carlamcgreevy.com.
My next online breathwork and somatics is Wednesday , July 17 at 7.00pm, online.
Next online immersion, the Wave Effect, September 3, 2024.
