Everything I know I learned from my body

Think about the last major decision you had to make. If you think back to the tension you held in the moments, days or weeks before acting, can you recall any sense of being pulled forward toward the decision you made, or pushed back away from it?

I have come to appreciate the body as an oracle; the Branches Of the Divine Y ou. Whether we are meeting a new person, handling daily stress, mourning the loss of something, or facing that difficult decision, our body feels our longings even before we can cognitively be present with the emotion.

The cells in our body are literally bombarded with energy or charge through unconscious shifts in our equilibrium, and with those shifts we have a doorway of insight into our deepest truths. It's like if you were sorting your sock drawer, throwing away the ones that were stretched out, didn't fit, or were widows. Eventually you'd have a pile of keeps (positive vibes) and a piles of tosses (negative vibes). This energetic sorting of feelings and experiences happens automatically within us because the body doesn't have any ideas that get in the way! Miraculously, we can tap into the density of this sorting with a little practice if we ask, pay attention and listen.

Going back to our big decision, if asked in the moment of your tension just to visualize one of the potential outcomes, your body would literally lean forward toward it, or back, away from it. Your mind may have had an idea of what path to take, but your deep, wise tissues had already felt your energetic sorting and knew where you stood.

This process is one form of what's called muscle testing. Muscle testing is one of the most primal tools given to us as living, energetic beings. Your essence knows what will be beneficial to you, making you stronger, and what is dismantling, making you weaker.

Try this little test with any number of people, ideas or objects. However, do not rush the process, and certainly do not take it for granted. Pay your body the respect that it deserves by finding a quiet place and putting your attention toward the person, place or thing. Just watch what your body does. 

If you're feeling really adventurous, exaggerate any subtle movements or sensations so you can see them better. 

"What's that you say? You feel like tucking into a ball when you think of ____?" 

This deeper process is called the "accordion" exercise, accentuating a subtle push or pull within you to see it more clearly, as if projecting it up onto a screen. You can try in the BODY Mapping class on Thursdays, and I'll probably make a video about it, as well.

This subtle muscle testing response element is just one of dozens...hundreds of ways that the complexity of our lives and the world around us is translated into our bodies. Yet we tend to ignore this information highway because it's right under our noses. One of our greatest honors is to come into relationship with our bodies to in turn learn how to love and trust ourselves.