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The Body-Mind Connection

Living Inline Newsletter July 27th, 2004

Picture This: On a Tombstone it reads “ Well, we guess it wasn’t just in her head after all.”

For many years, health practitioners have advised people that they do not really have a problem; they commonly say that “ it is all in your mind.” What this really means is that if the attending doctor can’t find why something is going on, then they mat at times default to the typical conclusion of “ it must be in your head.”

The word psychosomatic breaks down into its component parts: psyche means mind, or soul. Soma designates the body. In our culture, there has been a clear distinction that they are not the same. You can have a physical ailment, or an emotional (or soulful) ailment. For so many years if there was no obvious cause, it had to be in your head.

At Living Inline, we sometimes ask, “What if it was the other way around?” What if the “condition” of your body influenced your whole being or at least your mind? Consider this: When you experienced a physical trauma to your body how did your mind respond? Were you cheerful and happy, and loving and ready to spring out of bed the next day? Or, were you deeply inside, searching for meaning, perhaps, or simply just dealing with the physicality of the pain. Yes, there is a somatopsychic / Body-Mind connection, and a deeply profound one. We see it every day at Living Inline both with our hands and through our Life coaching sessions.

The founder of our care, Dr. Epstein taught us that the shape, tone, and tension of your spine, of your nervous system, of your body, dramatically influences your mental status, your ability to fully function, and, the way you think and respond to life. So why doesn’t everyone know this?

Let’s take a look at how our culture arrived at where we are at today:

In the 17th century, Rene Descarte, the philosopher and father of modern medicine was faced with a dilemma. He needed bodies for dissection, but ran up against the Pope. A deal was struck: the church would retain jurisdiction over the spiritual body, the emotional body, and the soul. Descarte would have the bodies he needed, and have jurisdiction over the physical body. And so, the ancient framework was set for what has now become modern-day health care and the separation of the body and mind.

It is only now, entering the new millennium that the somatopsychic connection is being explored. Perhaps this led to the new thought movements that exist today in Sociology, Health care, and more. The basic tenant here is that you are an interactive component for all that occurs in your life. Perhaps if we see people in this light, we will be able to serve them as a sum total of all their parts, choices, and interactions in life and not as separate and distinct portions or parts.

There is a real connection between emotions, feelings, and your physical body.
The joy is in discovering that connection, understanding that this connection is real and what we are motivated to share through our Balancing Sessions and through our Life Coaching is that this connection is safe and in most cases, you have the power to shift it all.

Candice Pert, Ph.D., Best- Selling Author,Brain Biochemist, and former department head of Psycho-Neuro-Immunology at The National Institute of health, published a wonderful book, entitled “Molecules of Emotion…Why you feel the way you feel.” (Some may recognize her as one of the scientists in the movie- “ What the bleep Do We Know? )

Dr. Pert takes you through the understanding of how you get to be the way you are! What an incredible journey. She encourages all to more greatly understand that there is a true physiological, neuro-chemical link as to why we feel the way we feel. Furthermore, she empowers us all to pay attention to this connection, and to implement strategies for change. In other words, " gut-feelings" are real.

It is refreshing to know that you as practice members are demanding models of healing that integrate the entire being; for there is no more a separation of the body/mind than there is separation of your fingers from your hand.

The master architect of our body did not create, for example, an autonomic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system. The plan did not call for separate parts such as a digestive system and a reproductive system. The plan called for the magnificence of the human body. It was the specialists and the scientists who chose to isolate, segregate, and alienate different parts of the body.

What about the concept of the whole being? Consider, just for a moment, that the wisdom that made the body also has the wisdom to heal your body. All too often, external steps are taken to achieve a short-term goal of getting rid of the immediate problem. This is magnificent if that were really all there is to healing. Unfortunately, healing has noting to do with just removing the pain.
Healing may indeed mean being with and moving through the pain until your body has the opportunity to correct an underlying cause.

Two years ago, a physician and a Ph.D. published an article in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association reporting fascination findings.
Essentially what they found is that how you feel about how you feel, is significantly more important than how you feel. Let me say that again; how you feel about how you feel, is significantly more important than how you feel. In other words, if you know the context of your experience and why you feel the way you feel, the odds are that you will feel better about how you feel.

Yes, we understand that clients sometimes come to our office not always at their best. However, more than ever they also came with goals of a richer connection with self, more energy and motivation, a freer internal life, wanting to feel better about themselves, and they are ready for more peace and ease in their lives

Healing is most often not psychosomatic. It is real. You simply need to explore the connection between the mind, body, and heart and we graciously offer that Living Inline is a process that does that, and, it does that very gently and effectively.

We thank you and we appreciate you!

(We kindly acknowledge Dr. Candace Pert for this beginning Joke from her book Molecules of emotion)

Posted on July 29, 2004