Your Body Speaks but are you ‘Listening’?

By Karin Whitbeck

How many of you have neck pain, shoulder pain, back or hip pain? If you get stressed, how’s that pain doing, gets worse doesn’t it? Why is that, you didn’t do anything different, right?

Do you feel like you can’t join your friends when they go shopping or playing golf with your spouse, partner or friends? Or go out to dinner because you can’t sit for very long because of your back pain or sciatic pain going down your leg or your neck pain and the headaches…

I want you to know I hear you and I understand you. I see it in my clients every day.

• You’re tired of taking pain medicine and don’t like how it makes you feel, and you know there’s a better way…
• You are tired of nobody is listening to you and you’ve been told just learn to ‘deal with it”
• Nobody understands you because you don’t ‘look’ sick or in pain
• You know that the negative self-talk is dragging you down but don’t know how to change it.
• You have tried EVERYTHING and still living with pain and don’t know where to turn

As a massage therapist, we can work with your body, your neck, back and shoulders and yes, it makes it feel better for a while but if we don’t figure out the root cause or go to the bottom of the problem, it will never go away. Have you ever thought of your pain and been asking, why your pain is coming back? Take stress, what is that doing to our bodies, any kind of emotional stress or other stress, it acts the same way, if you have stress in your body your pain will get worse. Now ask yourselves, are you really listening to your body’s signals?

If you look at your body as a vehicle and the dashboard are your signs for how your body performs. When the check engine light comes on, what do you do? Do you ignore it and keep going? Do you say “Oh, that’s nothing important, I’ll keep driving” or do you call the repair shop or the car dealer to check it out?

Why don’t we treat our bodies the same? We are so busy with our life and don’t pay attention to the signals, or I call them the ‘idiot lights on the dashboard’ and we just keep going. The quicker we stop and listen and do something about it, the better off we are.

Here’s 3 things you can do today to start feeling better.

1. Mindset – Check in with yourself and pay attention of your thoughts. We have about 50,000-80,000 thoughts a day, and research shows that 80% of those thoughts are negative! Whatever we focus on expand so pick something fun and exciting to focus on, something positive. Words and thoughts matters!

2. Movement – We need to move to heal. Move within your own comfort level and don’t create your own pain. If you can just move a little, do it! If you have been sitting for a while, the first few steps you feel stiff and sore but after you get going, it feels better, right?

3. Meditate – I know what some of you are saying, ‘I’ve tried that, and I can’t do it’. If that’s you, don’t look at it as meditating, you are just taking some mindful breaths. Close your eyes right now and just breath, pay attention on how the air you breath in is colder then when you exhale. Do that for 3-5 breaths. See, that wasn’t so bad.

When I work with my clients, my goal is for them to finally see and feel the connection between their pain and emotional part of there being.

When they finally ‘get it’, the transformation can be incredible. When we can learn to focus on something different, more positive and not on our pain, maybe you can finally go ‘around’ the pain and get relief. To be in charge of your body again and now I see my clients getting the results they want, to get back to their lives with joy and full of energy again.

Sometimes it’s just a sore neck but for a lot of people, there’s an underlying problem that no one has addressed before and that’s our inner strength and the power to heal, the power of our minds. I want for all of you to discover the whole YOU. Your body, mind and your soul. To listen to your body more and to get out of your own way, to teach/show you the true connection with yourselves.

Karin Whitbeck
Owner of Therapeutic Wellness Center, Inc
Massage therapist and Body Mind Coach

I love the joy and connection I get with my clients. To help them return to doing what they love after being in pain for so long is very rewarding. A big part of my work is to teach my clients to listen to their bodies, know what to do with that information, focus and take action. The most inspiring part is to see my client when they “Get it.”

Taking a look at the whole puzzle (where the problem stems from) vs just a piece (the current pain or symptom) is where our journey begins, TOGETHER! With Bodywork and BodyMind Coaching, you can begin to move forward towards the life you have been dreaming of. I work with clients that are ready to do the work and invest in themselves. They understand I can’t do it for them. They have to do their part to get to the other side with a new outlook on life!

I received my massage license in 1994 and I believe it’s important to continue investing in my education and myself. To always continue learning and growing with my profession. Some of the modalities in my ‘toolbox’ are Myofascial release, CranioSacral therapy, Whole Body View, Lymphatic Drainage and BodyMind Coaching. A combination of techniques is used to ensure the best experience and result at every massage treatment. Clients comment that my massages are ‘very different’ than others they have had.

Therapeutic Wellness Center, Inc.
100 Madrid Blvd. Unit 411
Punta Gorda FL 33950
941-833-3344
www.therapeuticwellnesscenter.net