The physical memory of her trauma hit her first. She clamored to put her hands to her throat, her eyes fearful, piercing through whatever image she was seeing in front of her. It wasn’t me she saw, but I felt its presence. With a tightening around her neck, a boa constrictor of energy squeezed the last bit of life from its innocent prey. Her breathing seemed to come to a standstill at the top of her inhale, while the exhale frantically waited in the wings for her to release it. It just wanted the roller coaster sensation, to stop. But she couldn’t stop it; she was frozen.

"I can’t breathe. Oh, God, I can’t breathe."

The dissonant sounds of her coughing and spluttering reverberated against my office walls. The hacking noises jostling my memory, recalling my childhood Angora rabbit as he frenziedly tried to cough out a noxious fur ball that would eventually kill him. And this would kill her spirit, too, if she didn’t get it out, whatever it was. When she found it, she found her abuse.

The Voice

The body has a language of its own, a voice. The sensations that course through our bodies are not "just" physical symptoms to "fix" "cover up" or "get rid of." Whether they are waves of tightness, warmth, relaxation, tension, pain, or even numbness, these sensations are messengers. And, sometimes the reason "why" the physical sensations are there is more than a physical illness. We want to think that these sensations are "only physical," but more often than not, there is an emotional pain that wants to be released.

Instead of evading the messages, though she wanted to at first, my client’s relief came through diving "into" the sensations and exploring the original source. Rather than using drugs or alcohol, running away, or using unhealthy relationships to avoid the emotions she found, she dove into where they started, her abuse. She found the original pain, to then heal it.

She, and many of my clients, may be a little like you. They just want the pain to stop. Move away from the suffering and what hurts. They, too, have fears, anger, sadness, family conflicts, struggles, and pain. And for them, and maybe for you, exploring the sensations in the body, when they show up, can reveal unresolved sadness, fears, self-hatred, anger, doubt, and a myriad of other emotions. The problem is that we often ignore the body’s physical sensations, those messages. We misinterpret or rationalize them; we often deny their very existence.

Right now, just scan your body. Notice any places that feel tight, tense, stagnant, or where energy is stuck. If you were to give that place in your body a color, or an image, that best represents the sensation what would it be? If you wanted to change that sensation, to "let it go" rather than interpreting it as "good or bad" what would you have to do? Can you create a visualization of letting it go? Can you explore being willing to let it go by actually diving into the sensation and discovering if it feels familiar? Would you then be willing to go towards the sensation, and embrace it to heal, rather than running away from it, even if it is painful? Do you know where it really comes from, emotionally?

Storing The Stories

Even if we have different reasons for why those feelings appear, our bodies are still the same. For, while the mind may not know it, our bodies store the stories. It is as if the body has "locked" them in for safe keeping, waiting for you to discover them. The catch is that if you are not willing to hear your body’s voice, it still speaks. Even if you don’t like what it is saying, it still wants your attention, now. These are some of the things it wants you to hear:

Let’s face it. We will get hurt. Life can be painful. We can expect to have some struggles. But, it is in the constant attempt to avoid the pain that we create more suffering. We ignore where those sensations and emotions originally came from and "don’t want to feel it," whatever our "it" may have been. The addiction replaces the pain of exploring the original hurt it once covered up. The abusive relationship, because it’s familiar, just replaces the one prior. The cycle of emotions, stored in the body without release, continues. But, if we pay attention to the body’s voice, perhaps we can embrace the stories it stores, even if they are painful to hear. Then, perhaps we can transcend the suffering. We can be liberated from our attachment to the original pain and its power over our bodies. We can remember our true selves underneath, and that we are free.