Relaxing your nervous system is one of the most beneficial ways to help your body heal. By doing so, your body shifts from being stuck in a passive survival mode to being proactive in detecting and correcting what’s needed. This process requires a grand investment of your time and efforts but is very effective.
Yet, while this investment shows great healing benefits, you might find yourself occasionally shifting back into your old habits, without understanding why you cannot commit to your healing journey. And then, you will most likely decide that it is more convenient to keep your familiar ways, rather than attempting to make a change.
Why would this be happening? Could there be some unspoken side effects to the process of relaxing your nervous system? Could these side effects cause a great disservice to your healing journey when they are not addressed properly, preventing you from healing? Is there anything you can do about it?
Let’s take a look at some examples of the spoken effects and their unspoken side ones and see if there is anything you can do to address them:
Spoken Effect: Healing from long-standing conditions
As we mentioned above, when your nervous system relaxes, your body has the means to detect and correct what’s needed. Then, healing will become part of your life, and any long-standing condition will begin to slowly disappear.
Unspoken Side Effect: Benefits of possessing a condition
Healing should be the most desired action for everyone who suffers from any condition. However, you may be among those who secured themselves with some benefits of possessing a condition – attention from your family and friends, having your condition as a topic of conversation to talk about, accepting priorities in lines in airports or supermarkets, or reimbursements/payments benefits, etc…
When you are not fully aware that there is a need to shift your mindset to one of a healthy person along with the need to become independent regardless to your conditions, you may be very disappointed once the benefits you enjoyed disappear. This might pull you back into your old habits, finding no interest in healing.
What can you do?
Take a moment to look within and ask yourself how your condition benefits you. Take another moment to look within and ask yourself how would healing benefit you. Then, ask yourself if you are willing to renounce your condition in order to gain your health. Honesty is a must in this process. Especially being honest to yourself.
Spoken Effect: New perception of the truth
Once your nervous system relaxes, you begin to see the world with “new glasses”. You may find that the truth is not necessary what you were telling yourself all these years. The truth might include painful realizations about your life, your family, or your friends, which will eventually help you understand that changes in your life are necessary.
Unspoken Side Effect: Fear of facing the truth
Making changes is inconvenient when you live in some type of perceived balance, which feels comfortable and familiar. Therefore, when you open up and discover facts that you are not ready yet to process, you may feel overwhelmed and inclined to go back to your old habits, where you feel safer.
What can you do?
As mentioned before, honesty is the key. When you allow yourself to be sincere, you will be open to accept the fact that the choices you made in your life brought your body to a place of dis-ease. From here, instead of scolding yourself in disbelief, you might consider choosing to forgive and love yourself unconditionally. Doing so will provide you a space to contain and process all your new realizations.
Spoken Effect: Weight Loss
When Nervous system is in survival mode, your body will be holding on everything, as there is no certainty in regard to what it needs. Therefore, there is no way you can lose any weight.
Once your nervous system relaxes, your body will get the message that “war is over” and will start to release what is not serving any longer. Then, your digestive system will function more efficiently, and your weight will probably go down.
Unspoken Side Effect: Body flooded with memories
As you go through life, your cells retain memories of every event that happened and has not been processed. When these events accumulate, your body will need to cover them so you will not be overwhelmed. Covering is done by pilling up mass, aka, gaining weight. Once you begin to lose weight, all these stored memories will set loose and pop up in your mind without any advanced notice. If you are not aware of this pattern, you may be caught in past traumas and fall into emotional eating, gaining back all your lost weight.
What can you do?
Let’s establish one basic forgotten fact – your body is your buddy, your roommate, as you both reside together in the same building. That’s why your body will never turn against you! Your body simply uses everything you provide to keep you alive. Many times, it will need to compromise as you may not provide all it needs. So, when memories arise, it is because your body cannot hold them any longer, not because your body is on a quest to prove you wrong. Take the time to look into each memory and mentally state: “I accept you into my life as you are part of me”. Then move on. The memory will not bother you anymore, as all it needed was to be acknowledged.
Spoken Effect: Increased awareness of your body
When relaxing your nervous system comes from routine activities like nourishment, castor oil packs and touch, you will discover that your awareness of your body increases, meaning that you will be able to notice subtle changes in your body and tend them before they become a problem.
Unspoken Side Effect: New sensations of pain
With that said, pains and discomforts might appear in areas that you did not notice them before. These are not new sensations, as these pains were there before, but this is a new awareness – now you know they are there! However, you may think that these sensations were caused because of the new changes you made and then choose to go back to your old habits.
What can you do?
First and foremost – breathe!!!! Before jumping to any conclusions – take a deep breath in and a slow breath out. Now, pay attention to the area that hurts – did something happen there in the past? It can be a physical or emotional or mental issue. Take the time to ponder with tenderness and no judgement. Keep your new routine and see if there is any correlation between your pain and what you ate, what you thought or the environment you were in.
Embarking on a healing journey that involves relaxation of your nervous system, will always bring wider effects than anything you would expect. This should not loosen your commitment. On the contrary – once you embrace all that comes your way, you will find that your healing is much deeper and meaningful. Your connection with your own body will strengthen, up to the point that you will want to maintain your new healthy lifestyle. In order to do so, I would like to share few general points that helped me on my ongoing journey hoping they can assist you as well:
🪄Surround yourself with people who walked this path, as they will understand what you are going through and will encourage you by their life example to continue. Remember that you do not need to be like them – you just need to absorb the inspiration from their actions.
🪄Appreciate your uniqueness and do not fear to create your individual path. Educate yourself and learn from other’s experiences. Remember not to limit yourself to their examples – turn this knowledge into something that serves your own needs. Be creative! Shine in your own way!
🪄Learn from your mistakes, as they are an awesome tool to understand what is working for you. Remember to leave your self-scolding aside and concentrate on the new revelations coming to light from your actions.
🪄When things get rough – take a moment to check in. Be honest with yourself while you scan the arising issues which stand in your way to healing. Remember to take a moment to breathe, and if needed – repeat!
If you feel in a bind – seek help before you decide on quitting. There are many professionals out there that can teach you how to deal with these issues – psychologists, hypnotists and even myself. Do not let your past dictate your future. Relax your nervous system and allow all the effects and side effects to come to surface and face each one of them with the confidence that they are here to move you forward on your healing journey.
Traditionally Empowered Healing LLC 