Our body acts on instinct. If there’s a flash, we blink. If we’re startled, we jump. If something is hot, we drop it.
Yes, we can control our instincts to a certain degree – but isn’t it interesting how we’ve developed systems that are meant for immediate protection, often before thoughts even reach the brain?
Intuition is a similar phenomenon – it’s having a sense of a situation before there’s any concrete reason to believe, bypassing conscious reasoning. And often it’s intuition that separates a good life from a great one.
Your body has a way of speaking to you. Before a disc slips out of place, a person may notice their back becomes tired more easily, their body isn’t moving as it once did, things don’t feel right. But time passes, things go untreated and then – “Ow!” – the pain comes. In many cases hindsight will bring 20/20 vision. If only you’d listened to that little voice saying things weren’t right. If only you’d trusted your body’s intuition.
The body speaks aloud and we need to listen. If you start feeling fatigued, depressed, bored, agitated – please, please keep in mind that this isn’t how you should be. Too many people accept the body’s messages instead of acting on them. They live with the pain instead of being activated to correct the problem.
Swallowing an allergy pill or an Aspirin will help stop immediate symptoms. But there’s more going on, much deeper and beyond the obvious, that needs to be addressed. Maybe your home has developed mold? Maybe you’ve been overworked and need to take a break? Maybe your body is lacking vital nutrients?
Pay attention to your body’s messages. Even if the words “sick as a dog” aren’t spelled across your forehead, your body will communicate when things are good and when they’re going bad. You’ll hear its voice by the way you feel.
Don’t forget to listen. When you feel good, figure out why. How can that feeling continue? When you feel bad, figure out why again. If you cannot understand the problem, visit someone who can help explain. That’s what we doctors are here for, after all.
Message for today: use your physical intuition and listen to what your body is saying.
What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? How does your body communicate with you? Do you have any stories where your intuition helped stop a problem before it became worse? We’d love to hear from you, so please share your comments.
Until next week!
Take Care
Dr Marcelle
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– A blog of a young woman who has just discovered she has breast cancer. Her writing is therapeutic for her, and is a help others going through this trying ordeal
The Intention Experiment with Lynn McTaggert
For many years I have had a sort of “intuitive” radar detector. I will be booting down the highway at a good clip when I suddenly get the urge to slow down and enjoy the ride. Within a few minutes of slowing down, I inevitably go through a radar trap, at the proper speed. Intuition works in lots of ways, saving me speeding tickets is just one way.
Love love love body intuition!
I recently certified as a Nia instructor (www.nianow,com) which is a form of physical exercise based on the combination of 9 movement forms:
3 Dance, 3 Martial Arts, 3 Healing Arts. The underlying premise :The Joy of Movement”.
It’s not rigorous aerobics or strenuous weightlifting but a class given barefoot focusing on what each participant “feels” they need for their body that day moment by moment.
Students are encouraged to move at their own natural time, pace and range of motion and are continually encouraged to do so throughout the usual one hour duration.
One of the reasons I found Nia fit my lifestyle was because I felt very bored doing regular gym workouts, jogging and even traditional dance classes that can be competitive with the need to keep up with the teacher regardless of how much I was overextending my personal physical limits. Nia always suggests to ask your body in movement :what feels good? What do I need? Am I feeling joy in this movement? As a bonus, the more I’m paying attention to what my body is saying in class the more I take the habit or asking into my day to day life. One thing I’ve noticed is I can’t wear uncomfortable shoes that look great but squish my toes or have a heel that’s even a little too high and therefore can’t sense the beautiful earth I walk on everyday. I often pause and ask “How do I feel right now?” Or “Body, what do you need right now?”. Sensing my elbows while I’m in line at the grocery store or my eyebrows when I’m walking my little dog Jack, keeps me in touch in a simple yet profound way with my body in the moment. It’s all the rage now to be in the moment and the body is always in the moment waiting for us to pay attention. It’s a beautiful machine exquisitely designed to live in yet I often forget it and am absorbed only in my endless mind chatter. When I’m in my body I am more often in touch with my intuition which is to me the language of the soul, speaking wisdom. More now, more miracles, less tickets from the cops!
Thanks Tony and Marcelle for your wonderful practice and sharing these ideas with the world. It’s time! We”re ready!
Lots of love,
Dawn Ford
Actress, Nia Instructor,
Reiki Practitioner
Wow Dawn, that is so cool! We did an exercise , actually a few exercises, at Ultimate Wake Up a few weeks ago which were about listening to your body and moving to the universal forces, to music etc. to tune yourself into its optimum receiving mode. This is all so great.
Wow! Nia sounds like something I’d really enjoy. Thanks for sharing, I’ll definitely look into it.
That explains why I couldn’t stop dancing at Tony’s and Marcelle’s workshop, even when I was sitting on the floor doing my picture board with my right toe tapping and my body swaying. My body was just so happy dancing away. I’m smiling now when I think about it!
In today’s Qi Gong class with JP Brunelle, I had a wonderful moment where during the standing meditation with my eyes half closed, I could see what was going on around me, but I could also see visions with interesting symbolism and messages… very cool to experience two types of perceptions at once… like looking through a microscope with one eye and drawing what you see at the same time with the other eye open.
On the topic of intuition, I find that Western society plays too much emphasis on analytical thinking. I was very intuitive as a child, but lots of schooling in logic, objectivity, the scientific method, and dogma by those in authority (be it religious or in the sciences) stripped away my wonder and creativity.
Tony has helped me connect to my intuitive side again, and I have discovered that my intuition is very powerful and more useful than my analytical thinking. My life flows so much better when I use my intuition and act on it immediately… the key for me is to act on it quickly/immediately and not stop to think about it.
Often, my intuition seems to be warning me about something that’s going to happen. For example, a few weeks ago, I was driving on the highway at 3 a.m. in the morning after volunteering at the cat shelter and I got the message to slow down which I did. My headlights then picked up an undiscernable shadow in the middle of the road. It was two deer stopped in the middle of HWY 417 taking up both lanes. My heart jumped in my chest for what could have happened, yet what a magical sight it was! I stopped the car and waited for them to walk off into the bush.
When I don’t know which way a decision should go, I go with what my heart says. A few years ago, I commissioned a painting of my 3 cats. The artist said she would let me see the work in progress to provide her with direction, however, when she called me up, the painting was completed and I did not like it. She had done a good job, painstakingly paid attention to many details, but it was not what I had envisioned. The painting was expensive and I could have refused it, but my heart told me that she had put a lot of effort into it and she was pleased with her work, so I took the painting. Determined to be the one to do my cats’ portraits the way I envision them, I enroled in a drawing and painting class… Now I feel like I’m in heaven whenever I paint!
I can’t help but think that life would be so much more beautiful and peaceful if people learnt how to use their analytical and intuitive skills in a balanced way, using the best of both ways of perceiving.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that most people who are fighting and struggling to survive are actually fighting their inner voices. They tend to try to swim against the current instead of simply floating with the flow. Once you begin to tune in to your inner voice, and pay attention, life does go easier.
Great website…lovely thankyou