The body’s wisdom and its premonitions can change plans and shift the sands under our feet without notice. Life is not always easy when this occurs. When things suddenly change, it can throw us into personal or professional havoc, and have us questioning ourselves. And yet, the body is a source of infinite wisdom and can be a powerful ally in our lives …
The heart can go on missions the body does not understand.
The body can go on missions, the heart does not understand.
The body can say no, while the heart says to go.
The body can go and the heart cries no.
Thoughts can splay racing between hither and tither, dynamically and chaotically negotiating the two, and the variant discussions of what to think or believe, or why something is or is not true.
An example of this happened several years ago. I was getting ready to leave for New York. Everything was set and in place to go. I would be staying with a close friend and her husband. There were parties and affairs we were invited to, and they were picking me up at the airport. But in my body, it was all wrong and I didn’t know why. I kept wondering if my mom would be okay when I was away. I lived with my mom and watched over her. I wondered if the plane would crash, or any number of other things. It was hard to pack. There was this sense of unease about the trip, though everything looked one-hundred percent ready to roll. And a friend was staying with my mom so I could go. But about a week before going, this friend was hurt in a bad car accident and wouldn’t be able to watch over my mom. I immediately knew why it wasn’t right for me to go. My whole body relaxed. I canceled all my plans to stay home and be with my mom. It was a relief. I wasn’t happy our friend got hurt in an accident, but it was a relief to finally know why I had been so ill-at-ease trying to pack. I was relieved that the accuracy of my body’s forecast system was working well, relieved that I wasn’t crazy.
Sometimes you get inklings of things that you don’t understand. Inklings of things that are up ahead on the road when there is nothing in your immediate field of vision to validate what you feel. The body’s wisdom with a vague or deep sense of unease following you through your days can be a premonitory tool of sorts.
Another friend had an entire journey planned leading a group to Scotland in September of 2001. But in August, she canceled the trip without knowing why. As it turns out, she would have been there during 9/11 and would have had to take care of all the people, along with extra expenses that would have been incurred during the days when no flights took off and flew the skies.
Two friends of mine in India took hours mapping out a trip with a travel agent. But upon leaving the office, the husband doubled over in pain. The wife suggested they cancel the trip they just mapped out and do something simple instead, like relax on a beach and not travel to the many destinations they had planned to see. They walked back inside the travel agent’s office and apologetically canceled all their plans. The husband’s mysterious pain immediately began to recede. Weeks later, they returned to the United States. It was December of 2004, the year of the tsunami in Southeast Asia when hundreds of thousands of people were killed. All the places my friends had mapped out to travel to were where the tsunami hit. As it turned out, my friends were back in this country a week before the tsunami, but they believe that Consciousness was acting through the husband’s body to warn them of something impending. They had been accustomed to acting on the warning and forecasting signs of their bodies for years.
Recently, I was going to India for a month, and I canceled my plans the night before. From the start of planning my body was upset. I could not sleep well or eat much. I was losing weight. I felt literally cold, and I was anxious. I came way too late to the planning for such a big trip on too little funds. It was occupying my thoughts incessantly. There were things about the trip that gave me concern and my mind was splayed.
My heart unequivocally said go. Friends and cheerleaders, excited for me, chimed in their support of this journey. But my body was saying no. It may have been my own anxiety about the things in my life — or was there something more that I didn’t yet see. The night after the decision not to go, I slept and woke more peacefully than I had in weeks, but my heart still hurt. It mourned this decision, literally aching like when my mom left this world. Because I really wanted to go to India, the lands of my heart. I had not been in over ten years, way too long. I found myself with regrets as I second-guessed this last-minute reversal, lightly shoulding myself.
I dove into a deeper quiet. I did not tell people I hadn’t left. Instead, I put my hands on my heart and listened. It would heal. I visited my chiropractor who knows the body and knows the impact emotions and change have on the body. He worked with me through his skillset of clinical applied kinesiology to calm and soothe the exhausted body and hurting heart. And to give honor to my intuition that speaks through the body, even though all the reasons would remain unknown.
Revelation will come if it is to come. There are forces we cannot see. Things we cannot control. Sometimes there are signs to move or not to move, even when we don’t understand. Sometimes no sign is the sign to be still and wait. Or to take a small action and see how it feels, adjust, and move again. I can’t know what I don’t know, but I can trust the small things that I do know.
Maybe something was averted — or maybe there is good coming that I cannot see. I wait for the body-heart and thoughts to align. Listening into the peace that is already here but that, on certain days, is hard to find. I needed to go away on a deep silent retreat, to let the content of this world go for a while. Now I retreat in a different way with the world at my door, with the world that yaks all manner of doubt into my ears, and with the world that lives in the body-heart-mind. But as I move deeper inside, doubts melt and disappear. I relax and exhale. I softly surrender and tenderly trust. Yes, there are missions our bodies and hearts go on that we don’t always understand. And my mission now is to be in sweet rest.
Rest
Exhale
Surrender
Trust is from the REST Course by Elizabeth Welles.
Found at https://elizabethwelles.com/howtorest or how2rest.com
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