This article focuses on the way you communicate to your Body. Communication is a vital aspect of relationship, determining much of a relationship’s quality. Communicate with love and respect and you create a healthy and thriving relationship. Communicate with harsh and shaming words and the relationship flounders. This is especially true of your relationship with your body, as mind and body are intricately connected. Loving words towards your body can heal and repair while critical words can create sickness and disease.
Following are four steps to get you to communicate with love:
Step #1: Assessing your current skill level:
The first step in working with your communication skills is to identify your current skill level: how do you presently communicate with your body? Do you speak words of gratitude and loving-kindness, such as you are wonderful, I am so grateful for how hard you work for me, or I know you are tired, sweetie, but you need to hold on tight for a couple of more hours? Or do you speak impatiently and critically, such as you are disgusting and fat, I hate you, I wish you were different, everyone else’s body is better than mine?
Exercise
Keep a log on your journal for the next week of how you speak to your body. Divide the page in two. On one side, record negative communication and on the other side, record positive communication. At the end of the week, tally up the scores and see where you stand at in speaking lovingly to your body.
Step #2: Uncovering the origin of the negative communication pattern:
The next step asks you to recall where you learned your communication skills. Did anyone ever speak to you critically? Did you hear others speak harshly? We all internalize our caretakers’ patterns of communication and then replicate them in our own lives. And though we work very hard not to act them out onto others, swearing that we will never ever talk to anyone the way we were spoken to, we can unwittingly act them out onto our body.
Exercise
Spend about 15 minutes a few times a week journaling childhood communication patterns. Sit quietly with your eyes closed and ask to remember examples of how people communicated in your environment. Let memories bubble up to the surface and write them down as soon as they do, not judging them or editing them. You might notice that one parent frequently used critical words or that there were specific areas in your life where you were shamed, such as sports or body size.
Step #3: Are you ready to change the communication pattern?:
Choosing the change the negative communication is not always so obvious for a number of different reasons: 1) our society condones us being controlling and tough towards our body. We are taught that using shame and criticism will propel us towards change, while love and kindness are considered weak and ineffective; 2) our body can’t show us the impact that our harsh words have, unlike a child or a friend or a partner who might cry, or get angry, or rebel; 3) changing communication habits is difficult and requires commitment, vigilance, and hard work.
It is important to know that negative interactions DO seriously affect your body. Negative thoughts harm the body by slowing down growth and healing, increasing your vulnerability to disease and speeding up aging. Positive thoughts allow the body to grow and heal. strengthening your immune system and your life. Go to www.eruptingmind.com/how-thoughts-effect-body/ to hear a fascinating interview by Bruce Lipton on how thoughts affect the body.
Exercise
List the pros and cons of changing your communication patterns towards your body, including your beliefs about using loving language rather than critical language.
For example, I might say:
Pro of using loving words: I will strengthen my immune system
Con: I might not push my body as hard which scares me as I might gain weight.
When you have finished your list, add up the pros and cons and see which list is bigger. If you have more pros, proceed to the next step. If not, you are free to continue talking to your body as you wish.
Step #4: Changing the communication pattern:
If you have decided to change the way you talk to your body, how do you do it? . It can be really overwhelming to think of transforming the thousands of negative thoughts that run through our head on any given day. The only way to change your patterns is to focus on one communication at a time. Every time you catch yourself saying something unkind or critical to your body (or about your body), STOP, TAKE A BREATH, and RE-ROUTE the message. Say something kind and loving to your body, even if you think that you are faking it at first. Imagine the way a loving parent talks to their child and use those kinds of words and that tone of voice towards your body.
Expressing gratitude is one of the most effective re-routing techniques, as it helps you actually connect to your body and to the gifts that it showers you with every minute of every day. Instead of saying you are fat, find something wonderful that your body does for you. This could be thank you heart for keeping me alive, or Thank you muscles for letting me move. Instead of saying you are disgusting and weak, say Thank you digestive system for working so hard with the foods I give you or thank you brain for letting me think and learn and feel.
Re-routing your patterns requires constant repetition. At first, it might feel like you will never be able to change fast enough or that changing requires too much effort. I promise you that EVERY time you STOP and RE-ROUTE your thoughts, you are creating new neural pathways in your brain that will eventually become the norm rather than the exception. One day, you will notice that you have not said one critical word to your body all day and you will be amazed at how good you feel.
P.S. As usual, it is exciting to note that the effects of practicing positive communication towards your body will permeate every relationship in your life as well! You will quickly become aware when you use unkind or critical words towards others and will know how to shift into loving communication. This work is so worth it!
Exercise
Whenever you notice a negative communication towards your body, stop and change your words to love-based or gratitude-based ones. Remember, it might feel as though you are faking it at first but even then, you are actually rewiring neural pathways and positively impacting your body.
The more you actually connect to body parts as you speak kindly to them, the more real it is going to feel. When I say thank you to my heart, I actually imagine my heart beating; when I express gratitude to my digestive system, I imagine my stomach and my intestines digesting the food I gave it.
Go to www.bodybeloved.com and sign up for my bi-monthly newsletter, The Body Beloved Revolution Facebook community, and a Twitter once-a-day tip on how to love your body. We need everyone involved in this Revolution!
posted by Isabelle | 2:15 PM
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