It’s scary.

Do you know the feeling?

You feel out of control in your body and there is so much pain that you can barely function. I was there for many years. Ten to be exact.

I’ll never forget what an acupuncturist/energy worker said to me 4 years ago. He said, “Amie, you’re not even IN your body.”

I was like, “Buddy, listen up. I’m right here. In my body. See me? It’s me? Amie. I’m here.”

I had no clue what he was talking about at the time.

Now, it’s so obvious and clear that I was in too much pain to feel safe in my body and so I escaped and lived in my head and in fear and survival mode and in reaction mode and I had NO IDEA I was doing any of that.

You see, when you’re experiencing so much trauma in your life (whether it’s from a romantic relationship breakup or a scary diagnosis), both of which I had, your body freaks out and the trauma starts to take hold of you. And life is just too scary to deal with anything anymore, so you shut down and you escape.

The outside world (life/heartbreaks/bills/health issues/etc) is too scary and your inner world (pain, fear, thoughts, traumas) are too painful to deal with and so what happens next is you go bye-bye and you sort of just “get-by” every single day.

You’re shut down from your emotions.

Your totally disconnected from your body and you don’t even know the first step of what to do to help yourself because you’re so far down a deep hole that you feel like that’s just how life should be.

I’m here to tell you today that that’s not how life should be. I was there. I remember it clear as day. I was alone. No one believed me. No one understood me. But somehow, throughout the last few years, I found the courage to be brave and get ‘Amie’ back.

I’m here today to help you navigate your body when you’re experiencing symptoms so that you don’t shut down like I did for far too long.

Come with me and let me guide you to what has helped me heal.

Feeling safe isn’t an easy thing to do when you’re in the middle of a traumatic situation(s). For me, as I spoke about in my post The Trigger that Pops Your Balloon: What Activated Your Health Issues and Symptoms, our body gets catapulted into fight/flight mode where our cortisol is through the roof and all of our other stress hormones are sky high because our body thinks we are in danger. The problem with this fight/flight mode is that it’s very hard to get out of it if your nervous system has already been suppressed from something such as a virus or a cold or some sort of emotional event that really upset you.

What I realized towards the end of my journey was that NONE of my doctors were addressing my nervous system.

They were focused on my physical body, which I understood, but they were missing a big piece of the puzzle. I was doing every protocol possible. I was on a cocktail of supplements. I was eating the perfect and healthiest foods. I was doing everything right. Everything. But I still wasn’t getting better.

This is when I had to sit back and address my life and really look at what was going on in the bigger picture of my life here. Beyond food.

That’s when I realized I didn’t even feel safe in my body.

Heck, I didn’t even feel safe out in the real world.

Now, I’ve lived in NYC for over a decade and I’ve never felt unsafe here. The safety I’m talking about here is safety of being out in the real world doing real world things like working and being in relationships and traveling for pleasure and paying bills and.,,,,,

Wait for it….

DEALING WITH MY EMOTIONS.

I shut my self down subconsciously (meaning, not purposefully) to protect myself because the thought of actually FEELING the pain inside of me was way too painful to sit with it and look at it.

Sound familiar?

I didn’t want to know what was going on in my head- nor did I want to know what was keeping me held back from living the life I wanted to live. I didn’t want to look at any of this.

Why?

Well, because it’s scary. So, I threw myself into my work and my business and avoided myself, my emotions and my emotional body that was kicking and screaming. Most people avoid painful emotions/feelings with alcohol, food, TV, drugs, sex, and being afraid of being alone so they surround themselves with people all the time and so forth.

After diving into a ton of books about the connection between our health and our emotions and working with over a dozen energy workers who helped me release painful emotions trapped in my spine (where we hold many traumas) and my tissues (where we hold traumas, also), I started to connect the dots.

Emotions are just energy.

Whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttttttttttttt?

Yes, it’s true.

I’d walk into my energy work session with awful PMS, a migraine or just a really bad hormonal day and then I’d walk out feeling like life was FABulous! I didn’t know what to think. After this happened about 30 times, I was like, “this is crazy.” But it made me realize that I had so much junk stored in my body that was toxic and no matter how many supplements I did or no matter how many protocols I did, I wasn’t going to release these emotions. That’s when I learned how to sit with myself and let myself feel more.

To put my hand over my chest and tell myself, “I’m here for you Amie. I’m never going to leave you. I love you. Everything’s going to be okay.”

After just a few seconds of saying those words, I started to cry every time and that’s when I knew….there was junk that needed to come out that was keeping me from healing.

When we experience symptoms (PMS, muscle pain, back pain, headaches, nausea, belly ache, indigestion, sinuses, etc, etc, etc) there’s an emotion tied to it and if we get quiet enough with ourselves (which is NOT easy to do, I know!), we’ll start to see what’s going on here.

Here’s what I know for sure.

The body doesn’t lie.

If you’re experiencing symptoms, your body is trying to tell you something.

Listen.

Listen closer.

Listen closer.

Listen more.

Sit with yourself.

It’s uncomfortable.

It’s painful to do.

But it must be done.

Carve out time for yourself in silence and start to feel what’s going on- take your logical mind out of the equation and tap into your intuition and FEEL. Feeling is where you’re going to get your answer. Thinking is not where you’re going to get your answer. I know that for sure.

This probably sounds crazy to you. And trust me, I thought this was a bunch of phony crap until I realized this is actually how you heal yourself. You listen to your body and it directs you as to what’s ailing you.

When you’re stuck in a rut and dealing with a symptom or set of symptoms, stop and pause for a moment. Put your hand on your heart and repeat the above phrase that I mentioned with your name in there: “I’m here for you Amie (your name here). I’m never going to leave you. I love you. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Then, ask yourself, “What is the smallest thing I can do right now to feel safe?” Maybe it’s reading a book before bed or watching a romantic comedy under your covers or making a pot of hot tea or having friends over for a healthy meal. For me, it was going for a walk or sitting with myself and hugging myself when I was in so much chronic pain and I had no one to help me. I cried and cried and cried and held myself. I also used a pillow to act like a friend of mine and hugged the pillow so hard and squeezed it to get the love that I needed, which was really all the love I had to give from inside of me.

When you’re sitting with yourself, don’t just sit there and repeat the phrases and question above or shake your head feeling like a crazy person. Really FEEL what you are telling yourself. Bruce Lipton, M.D. has proven that we have the ability to talk to our cells. Your body can hear all those terrible things you tell yourself all day long (such as: you’re stupid, you’re too fat, you’re not good enough, you’re not rich enough, you’re not worthy, etc.) and after decades of talking to ourselves like this, our body starts to get the message. All that  negative energy is the opposite of positive, healing energy, which is what you need. Continue to press your hand into your chest and apply pressure- feel yourself as a little girl who is crying. What would you do to her? If a little girl you knew, came home from school crying to you, what would you do? You’d take her in your arms and hug her and love her. Do that to yourself.

That little girl (or boy) inside of you is crying and she needs you. Big time.

Sit with her, feel her, let her cry and know that you’re releasing so much pressure and emotion from when you were younger- all those feelings and emotions that you shoved down inside yourself because your parents told you, “Don’t cry. Crying is for babies and you’re a big girl.” Or the song, Big Girls Don’t Cry. There’s been numerous times in each of our lives where we haven’t released emotions that are trapped and need to be released. When you start to release these emotions, you’ll see your symptoms start to dissipate.

I see this every week with my clients. Most of them have no idea why they are experiencing symptoms but when they come to me they say, “Amie, do you know what’s wrong with me?” and I turn around and say, “Do YOU know what’s going on here? Do YOU know what’s really causing these symptoms?

That’s when the breakthrough takes place.

A divorce, a parent that may have passed away, a sibling they no longer communicate with, a breakup, etc etc etc. The list goes on.

Find your list.

Find your trigger. Read that post above about what popped your balloon and get back in touch with YOU on a deeper level.

You’ll soon see how everything is connected and how your body is really your greatest ally- not your enemy.

Lots of love.

xo