How to Talk to Your Body

The following tools are very useful for chronic pain, injuries, surgery and recovery, as well as dealing with less dramatic day-to-day physical issues such as heartburn, bowel function or sleepiness, and many more.

In order to begin, you will need to be able to “visualize” the part of your body that you want to talk to. For some, this would be the actual function or appearance of that body part; for others a caricature of it. I like to actually find a medical picture of how that body part actually functions, although with children I make up fun images, like for the white blood cells, I use the image of a tiny ambulance, full of the little white uniformed “helpers” that are going in to help “heal” a “booboo.” It is important to picture or “see” whatever function you need to happen as a visual mental movie of sorts, in either format.

1. Create a safe quiet space for this process.

2. Make notes, or record it, before hand in order to guide you through.

3. Concentrate on slowing, and maintaining, your Breathe to a steady, slow, rhythm.

4. Visualize the body part, see it as it is now, then “breathe into that body part” so that you become very focused & connected to it.

5. Now use the visualization process to “see” the healing, or change that needs to happen.

6. Stay in that relaxed state and repeat the process for at least 10 mins. each time.

7. During this, mentally talk to that body part, tell it what you expect to happen, how you see this happening, its okay to do so to yourself.

8. Do this as often as possible, 2-3 times a day brings the best results.

9. If you can make a tape of this process, listen to it at bedtime as well.

10. Each day, or week (depending on severity of issue), see the progress in your visualization, so that you can “see” the improvement happening as it does.

Now, for chronic pain there is another method. Use the above steps, with a change to the visualization: See an exact double, a mirror image of yourself. The more detailed and exact that you can imagine that image, the better. This “trick of the mind” will work. See this being breathe as you do; see the eyes flutter under closed lids. Now imagine in your mind’s eye that there is a red glow around the part of your body where your pain is at on the double. See it pulse just as the pain does in your body. Focus on the pulsing light, make sure you make the light reflect any changes that you feeling.

Now “transfer” that sensation of pain to the mirror image, allow it to move over into the other you! Now allow your double to slowly start to glide back away from you, getting smaller, and smaller… and smaller yet, so small in fact that it becomes a mere speck on the horizon. Then let it simply disappear from sight, along with your pain. Results vary on this process, yet most people can get at least 20-30 minutes as a minimum release, enough to allow you to drop off to sleep, or make it until you can get further help.