Executive Contributor | Dr Kim Brown | Personal Development
Have you ever wondered why something in your body didn’t really hurt until you noticed the new bruise or the blood coming from it, and then it hurt – A LOT!
Have you ever noticed that your body’s aches and pains were significantly increased when you were tired and stressed?
Have you ever noticed that your body’s immune system shut down after a significant emotional event and therefore you were quite unwell after a trauma?
I am sure you have had times in your past where your physical body was feeling a hundred years old, and you were not sure why.
Let me show you how important your mindset and internal self chatter is to your physical performance.
I would love to challenge you right now to pop onto the ground and do 10 pushups. While you do them, talk to yourself in the worst possible way. Tell yourself how hopeless you are, that you are useless, that you are weak, that you are not good enough. Be brutal. Be unfair. Be nasty to yourself.
How did it feel? Was it hard? Did it hurt? Were you able to do the pushups? Or did you fail at them?
Now I want you to completely scrap those feelings and ideas and do another 10 pushups with the best self talk ever. This is easy. I am strong. I am amazing. I am the creator of my destiny. I am the best. I am courageous. Whatever self talk feels really good for you.
Feel the difference between the 2 sets of pushups? Did you succeed this time? Was it easy?
Whether you are Wonder Woman or not, you will have noticed the difference between the 2 sets of pushups. The first set would have been tough, even if pushups are a normal workout for you. The second set would have been so much easier, even though you had already done the initial set and therefore would have been more fatigued for the second set.
Why?
It’s quite simple really! The way you talk to yourself significantly changes your body’s ability to perform. If you have just told yourself you are not good enough, your body listens! If you have told yourself you are absolutely good enough and strong enough, your body listens!
Here’s a very quick science lesson to explain how this works. Neurotransmitters bathe every cell of the body. So if your eyes see something that is scary, it will send the feeling of fear to every part of the body. That’s why your heart rate increases, your breathing shallows and your whole body will tingle or you get “jelly legs”. It’s all connected! It’s the same mechanism when you feel the overwhelming sense of love or excitement or intense gratitude. All parts of your body feel it, not just your mind.
Therefore if your mind and your mindset has been affected, your physical body and wellbeing will also be affected. This is also the case for illnesses in your body. If a Doctor or person of authority gives you a label, a diagnosis and it comes with a prognosis, there is a good chance your body will respond to the upsetting news. Some diseases in the body are even created this way! You may not have had the condition prior to the diagnosis, however your body may just manifest it simply by the idea being planted in your mind by an authority.
When you’re fearful or anxious, your body lives in the “fight and flight” sympathetic system which increases adrenaline and has your body living in stress. Long term fear or anxiety will create chronic stress and inflammation as ongoing doses of cortisol, the stress hormone, are released.
When you’re angry, your body’s stress system is heightened and you become short tempered or short fused. Your immune system depresses for hours at a time and your energy levels become like a roller coaster of uppers and downers. You may find it much harder to shake off a simple cold or tummy upset, and your body may develop other symptoms like rashes or headaches which are simply due to the increase in long term anger, rage and frustration.
I could give a million examples however it is really clear when your mindset is not in a peak state through either acute or chronic stressful circumstances, then your physical health is affected. Whatever is happening internally, your body represents externally.
Your physical body is often giving you clues as to what emotional issue is going on for you. Author Louise Hay wrote in her book “You can Heal your Life” that “we create every so-called illness in our body.” Louise gives a list of examples as to how resentment, criticism and guilt are the most harmful emotions that live in our body and that “releasing resentment will dissolve even cancer.”
Did you know that lower back pain is a fear of money and a lack of financial support? Imagine changing your money mindset and your relationship with how you perceive money. It will not only directly affect your financial abundance but it will release your lower back pain as well! Extraordinary!
If your physical troubles are repeating themselves on the left side of the body, be sure to check your feminine connections. Your relationships with your mother, sister or other significant females in your life. If your physical issues are on the right side of your body, check your masculine connections and energies. What past trauma or event are you still holding negative emotion towards on your masculine side? Understanding this relationship can significantly alter your physical wellbeing by concentrating on healing and releasing any pain or trauma related to those gender relationships. This can be a game changer for so many people!
What can we do about it?
You can now appreciate that your mindset affects your physical health and wellbeing. But what can you do about your mindset and releasing the past in order to create vital physical health?
Many people turn to incantations and affirmations however this relies on repeating positive self talk within your own head and only affects the conscious mind. The conscious mind is like our battery pack, our filter, our will power and our logical mind. It only accounts for 5% of our mind’s power. However if you have ever tried to succeed with a New Year’s Resolution by willpower alone, you know that you are fighting a losing battle!
The reality is, all change needs to happen within the Unconscious mind, not the conscious mind. The Unconscious mind is where our memories, beliefs, values, habits and behaviours are stored, so if you want to change your long term thought patterns and your neurology, you need to change it within the Unconscious mind. The Unconscious mind is also the control centre for the physical body. It is responsible for our heart beating 100,000 times a day without us having to think about it. It sorts out our digestion, our breathing and all bodily functions without us having to remember to do it consciously (thank Goodness!)
There are several modalities out there that can help change the long term beliefs and values that are stored within the Unconscious mind. The most effective, fast and long lasting modalities that I have experienced are NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), Hypnosis and Time Line Therapy®. These extraordinary modalities are fairly pain free because it is not required for the person to relive past traumas in order to release them from the neurology. Imagine being able to release the beliefs of “I am not good enough” and “I am not worthy” without having to relive the content details of the event that created that belief system in the first place! Game changing!
It is also one of the safest and most effective way to release negative emotions of anger, sadness, fear, hurt and guilt from your neurology. This is powerful as these emotions are directly related to heightened cholesterol, heart attacks, anxiety, PTSD and depressed immune system just to name a few.
Changing your identity
How often has someone asked you, “how are you?” and your default response was “I’m tired” or “busy”?
Can you appreciate that this is exactly what you’re embedding into your Unconscious mind?
What if your response was “I am energised” or “I am productive”? Can you feel the difference? Even if it wasn’t perfectly true at the time, it’s a far more empowering response than the usual default and therefore your body will eventually catch up with your brain’s message. Why re-embed tired or busy as a default? Do you really want to be known as the person that is always tired? Or always busy? Are you really busy? Or just not yet productive……
The way you talk to yourself on the inside directly reflects on the outside.
Let’s say you were considering yourself as an overweight person, and the inner self talk was “I am fat.” If you were to change just a simple phrase within the language to “I have fat”, the way your Unconscious mind would hear that is changed from a negative disempowering place to an empowering place of possibility. Having fat that could be released rather than being fat as an identity is so much more positive and empowering. This gives your physical body permission to be able to let go of the unwanted body fat rather than holding on to it because it’s part of your identity. See the difference?
It will take a little practice to change the way you express yourself to others because the old way has been well practised. However, with a little thought and effort, you can catch yourself when you are using disempowering language about yourself and reframe it to something your Unconscious mind would like to hear over and over again. This is how we change our physical health and wellbeing. It starts from within our mind because our body will then make the changes that it’s been embedded with. Once the conscious and unconscious mind work together with the same integrated beliefs, the physical body will reflect the inner health.
The health of our mental and emotional bodies are truly reflected by our physical body. Change your thoughts and identity you hold for yourself and you can change your state of wellbeing.
