Healing is a Listening Art

Healing is a listening art. Whether you are a healer caring for patients or someone interested in healing yourself, you must first listen. Patients will tell you what's wrong with them if you ask the right questions...and then listen to them. Your body will tell you what it needs, too...if you pay attention and listen. In order to listen, you must be quiet, attentive and open to hearing some disappointing truths.

A couple of days ago, I sent a text to my sister, "My period makes me want to eat peanut M&Ms in direct proportion to my body weight." (probably TMI for my sister, too) Just for the record, that would be alot of freakin' M&Ms. I didn't eat that many, but I ate plenty. Yes, after 24 days without chocolate, I did THAT. I have to work on a strategy for next time.

When I woke up the next day, I had an all-too-familiar pain in my back, right between my shoulder blades. I tried to go through everything I might have done to cause it. I hadn't done anything out the ordinary...except eat alot of peanut M&Ms. So, I Googled "back pain and sugar" and came up with a theory from Applied Kinesiology claiming to have discovered decades ago that the Latisimus Dorsi muscle is related to the pancreas (where insulin is secreted to store or use sugar). When our pancreas is stressed (overloaded), these muscles go weak on both sides, causing abnormal pulling in the midback.

I have no doubt it’s true. I’ve had this happen again and again over the years – this pain in my back. I’d never quit sugar long enough at a time to definitively pinpoint it as the culprit. I know it is now and now that I know – sure, it’s disappointing, but it’s also illuminating; a concrete cause and effect example of how certain foods affect my body.

By actively listening to my body, I know I cannot eat gluten, I can only tolerate 1-2 servings of dairy daily, and I have yet to see how much chocolate/sugar my back will allow me to consume. Since this all started, it’s made me wonder how sick we’re all making ourselves – not just our guts but our entire bodies – with the things we’re choosing to put in them. And I’ve learned that just because something is labeled as “food” doesn’t mean we should eat it.

If something’s not quite right, try healing yourself. Take a good long listen. Write things down. What’s your body trying to tell you?

Photo courtesy of: Atlantic.org