Stress Alert! Can unchecked  stress reshape your body? You bet!

Here is how:chronic stress elevates the amount of cortisol, a powerful hormone, responsible for increased hunger and deposit of fat around the the waist. Cortisol activates the fat-storing enzymes in the cells, causing the cells to enlarge. Fat cells around the belly have the largest number of receptors for cortisol, so, naturally, the hormone is attracted to this area.

 

Ayurvedic tip: If you rushed and worried through your day, your nervous system is already in high alert mode ( fight-or-flight response) and your body is more likely to hold  on to those calories.Take a few deep diaphragmatic breaths to shift back into rest-and-digest mode and then enjoy your meal!

Chronic pain Remember yourself as a  small child - how did it feel to move back then? As you drive home from work - stop and watch a group of 5-year olds' playing. Their bodies resilient, they jump, skip and hop, tirelessly and without any effort. 

Somewhere along the lines of our lives we loose that ability. Sometimes I feel like I am still that 5 year old stuck in the stubborn body that just wouldn't listen. Don't you?

 

I asked my students and clients how chronic pain  affects their lives. They've painted such a broad picture. Chronic pain, like a drop of ink on a piece of paper, absorbs into the very fabric  of our lives. Traversing every part, it affects our sense of physical and emotional well-being, our energy levels, our sleep, mood, our relationships ( don't even mention the sex lives); it instills fear - never ending, gripping, exhausting fear of what if: what if it doesn't go away, what if it gets worse, what if it comes back, what if, what if, what if...It creates this certain level of disconnect, distrust if I may; as if our minds and our bodies are sitting on the opposite sides of the fence.

 

I am no stranger to chronic pain; in fact, the two of us have rather cozy relationship. In the last two decades of my life, some years were marked by nagging aches and pains, and others by debilitating conditions, that left me in bed for days, barely able to move or breathe. It felt like I was a part of some unending tribal dance; my life show, directed and produced by chronic pain. As if asleep, I moved from one doctor to another; from one test to the next. I lived in my own nightmare...

 

And then, quite abruptly as it happens, I woke up.

I woke up to the reality that there's no  doctor, guru, or therapist - no matter how brilliant, well-intended and educated they might be, who can "fix me". My chronic pain was in fact a chronic invitation to get re-acquainted with my body and a chronic opportunity to create changes I so desperately desired in my life.

 

 

If the answer is no - hey, thanks for sticking around to read this far - you are a real trooper!

 

What amazes me the most is how deeply compartmentalized our approach to health and healing is. Doctors stand ready to cut and medicate; chiropractors will crack, snap and pop; I've met a massage therapist once who said she was on the mission to search and destroy ( search and destroy what, I ask you?); your friendly neighbourhood health food store will gladly recommend some supplements. Here is a bright thought: you are a brilliant, miraculous, beautiful living being. Your body, your mind and your soul are inseparable and in love with each other. Would it make sense to create a global healing approach - the one that will embrace your holistic nature and address nutrition, emotional well-being, spiritual health and physical wellness as one single system.

The power and responsibility for your health is yours for the taking. Come and get it!

 

I once heard a story of a Buddhist monk who only slept two or three hours per night, because he was so busy tending to the poor, sick and needy people. When he was asked: "Don't you get tired?" he responded by saying: "My body gets tired sometimes, but I'm alive and vibrant".

 

"We are so much more than our bodies! When we're able to realize, remember and live from that awareness - we can take back our power, transform some of our fear, and create a healthy, loving and empowering relationship with our body that serves, supports, and enhances our growth and our experience of ourselves and of life in general."

 

                                                       Mike Robbins

 

 

What does you posture have to do with your chronic pain? It is our cultural believe that as we age, our posture deteriorates and our body becomes a burden. Is that true? In May's issue of the newsletter we'll talk about fascia - your connective tissue. Fascia is wonderfully alive, adaptive, dynamic system that delivers nerve impulses, blood, lymph and nutrients to every cell in your body. It has an amazing ability to change itself according to the your current needs. Check out the video of live fascia on our Facebook Page.

 

Try Yoga Therapy or Therapeutic Yoga for Hips and Shoulders classes; they are a great way of cultivating the healthy posture though the process of self study and creating new sense memories of bio-dynamically correct movement.

 

Interested in emotional healing?  I am attending Free to Love- Emotional Freedom workshop from 16th to 19th of April in San Francisco. Visit Satori Facebook Page for live updates from the event. And while you're there - become a fan and receive daily updates on Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and all the latest buzz in the alternative health industry.

 

Take it a step further with Learn to Meditate workshop - a two hour meditation class that will teach you the basics of mantra meditation and give you a set of tools to create and maintain your very own meditation practice.

 

 

 

 I would love to hear your thoughts, ideas and suggestions. E-mail me at julia@satoriyoga.ca or leave your comments Satori Facebook page.