I am a huge fan of bestselling author, lecturer and teacher Louise Hay. I recently picked up her little pocket guide called Heal Your Body. She says, “I’ve learned that for every condition in our lives, there’s a need for it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have it. The symptom is only an outer effect. We must go within to dissolve the mental cause. This is why willpower and discipline don’t work. They are only battling the outer effect. It’s like cutting down the weed without getting the root out.”

Louise teaches that the first step to getting rid of trouble with our body, mind and spirit is our willingness to get to the root of our issues. What’s really going on under the surface? What limiting beliefs are causing dis-ease in our systems? She mentions 4 biggies that really wreak havoc in our systems. Those are criticism, anger, resentment and guilt. It’s possible that you have these mental thought patterns and don’t even realize it. 95-99% of our feelings are subconscious. How do you know if you have limiting beliefs? Look for symptoms, aka weeds. How you feel is the perfect feedback system to nudge you to take a internal look at things. Ignore it and those weeds grow huge and seed and the dis-ease gets worse.

I’ve always had lots of “weeds” in the form of physical pain. I typically don’t think things, I feel them in my body. I don’t know what is going on besides I hurt. I must dig deep to figure out what’s really going on. Louise’s little pocket guide is so helpful because it can clue you into your symptom and give you a possible limiting belief that may be causing your issue and a new beliefs statement you can make your own instead of the limiting belief that might be festering in your subconscious.

I’ve recently found that I’ve moved from annoyed to grateful that my system has a way to tell me, “HEY, there is something going on you need to spend some time on.” In the past, I’d just plow through life not knowing what I needed to change. About 6 months ago I hurt my right should weight lifting. It was almost better and then started hurting again. Knowing my pattern of pain, I’ve been seeking answers. Yes, I’m seeing a chiropractor etc. to make sure everything is structurally aligned which it is so now what? We dig deeper into the mind.

Today during yoga, I could not do eagle pose, chaturanga hurt and even warrior 2 holding my arm out to the side hurt my shoulder. Very unlike the rest of my life, today, I felt grateful for the pain. Grateful my body has a message to share with me. I’m grateful for the opportunity I must spend more time with myself and learn. I’m thankful for the life experience to know that my shoulder won’t hurt forever. This is temporary. I love myself and my body as I am and as I change. I am bigger than my pain. The pain I feel is not me.  I am not pain. I am Jenny and I’m thankful for me.

What pain have you experienced that you are now thankful for? Was there a message or lesson you learned from your pain?