Join us for Paths to Well Being class, Saturday Aug 4, 10 to 11 am. at Heartwood Center. The class will help you to:

• Hear your inner felt sense to discover more feelings and energy your body is holding
• Learn more self-compassion
• Move beyond being stuck and into what you really want for your life
• Describe what you feel without judging it  
• Discover how compassion and curiosity open new possibilities
• Become mindfully present to be calmer and more grounded

Have you found that merely talking about a problem doesn’t change it or help you cope any better?

The fact is that talking and thinking your way out of problems leaves out much of your wisdom…your body’s wisdom. When working through an emotional difficulty, talking is just the tip of the iceberg. The information you need for healing is accessible through a deeper process and happens in the body and emotions

Acknowledge the Physical Level

For example, suppose you are dealing with a relationship problem   Maybe you are feeling a lot of tension about the relationship. And as much as you have tried to figure it out mentally and control it,

that hasn’t changed how you feel: the tension that’s there in your gut about the unresolved situation is physical. To change it, you will need to work with the physical experience.

Be Curious about Your Sensations

When you feel a physical reaction to an issue, this is a feeling that exists in your body. The reaction could come as heaviness in your chest, tightness in your throat or fluttering in your stomach, for example. If a sensory reaction isn’t immediately apparent, when you sense into your body, your

bodily feel of the problem can show up. The feelings exist in your body, not in words. At this point, when sensory reactions occur, continuing to just talk or think about the problem, might distract you from noticing the physical experience. Acknowledging these bodily felt sensations, and paying attention to them, offer moments of opportunity. These are events where your body and mind feel the whole issue in it’s full complexity.

Let’s return to  the “tension” in your difficulty with a relationship. The best approach to take at this moment of bodily experiencing is to completely sense it with no judgements. Be curious. There’s more in the experience that can open up and shift and judging it would close it down. You can also short-circuit healing if you try to make the feelings logical right away. Just sit with your felt sense. The key is to listen to the bodily experience and ask questions.

With the support of a good listener or guided exercises you may more easily access this attitude toward yourself. When you spend enough time while your body is actively feeling the sense of the whole issue, you can open up awareness of more of your experience. You will feel better and stronger emotionally. Insights can come and steps that you can take to resolve the situation will become clear.

To register, contact Marsha, www.marshasmithcounseling.com, 847323-1717, smithhuemer@gmail.com.