Trusting Your Body: Anna’s Story
Few things can rob us of pleasure as much as chronic pain. Anna came to me after having worked with a multitude of practitioners. She was experiencing several challenges, including an auto-immune disorder, marital distress and concerns about her child’s academic performance. She was chronically uncertain about how to improve things with her husband and how to help her child. She acknowledged that she was also grieving the loss of her health and just wanted to feel better.
Initially, Anna was skeptical. She wondered what she could possibly get from coaching when all other self-improvement modalities had not given her the acceptance she was looking for. And yet, here she was, searching and yearning. This is her story.
Anna’s Story
Anna was a passionate, articulate, loving woman who had experienced a medical trauma 10 years earlier that still resonated for her. Her week was overly filled with work, medical appointments for herself and visits with specialists for her daughter, whom she suspected had ADHD. She did not feel supported by her husband, whom she described as angry and volatile at home. She wanted peace, tranquility and emotional intimacy in her family life, but had no idea how to create these for herself.
When Anna first shared her story, it was evident that she was a thinker, but it was hard for her to be clear about what she really wanted. She described a strong desire for something better, a determination, but all of her energy seemed to be going sideways rather than taking her forward. In other words, she was lost in powerful stories and thoughts that did not lead to clarity or forward movement.
Through coaching, Anna decided to take action. She agreed to a Brain Gym balance with me, to learn how to trust her body and get her in touch with what she truly wanted. The only requirement was “No thinking!” Through muscle checking of her body’s (Chinese) meridian system, here is what her body indicated:
- She wanted to transform, but was not ready
- Her relationship with herself needed attention
- She had lost contact with her inner direction
- She did not trust herself or where she was going
Anna’s Breakthrough
When Anna first spoke about her desires for herself, she looked sullen and confused. She was slumped in her chair and she seldom smiled. When she checked in with her body, however, her eyes lit up. Her whole body straightened as if pulled upward by a cord.
This began a shift in Anna’s coaching experience. There were powerful and challenging conversations along with body work which ensured she was balancing thinking with inner knowing. Switching on the meridians was also central to helping her intuit her next best actions.
Through coaching, Anna learned to recognize when thinking a lot was not serving her. She noticed that when she sat mindfully with her pain and saw how her thinking increased her pain, she was able to commit to new and different action. The circumstances of her life had not changed but she changed in how she responded to them. This increased her confidence and her ability to connect with joy.
Anna’s Successes
Anna learned how to trust her body again.
- This supported her when her husband’s anger threatened to throw her off center.
- She felt more empowered because she knew what to do to connect with herself.
- Anna was able to make decisions with more confidence because she was connected to her own values, needs and desires.
- Anna learned to let go of the inner controls so that she could glide, coast and simply BE with whatever she was experiencing.
Anna shared with me that her physical trauma had been so profound that she needed to feel deeply safe in order to connect once more with herself. She credited the safe space in the coaching process, along with concrete action, as being integral to her success.
