The Mind-Body Connection
There is scientific proof that that the mind and the body need to work together in order function at our best and that’s what I want to share with you today, The Mind-Body Connection.
Your mind is constantly taking in information all day long and processing it, but what about your body? Your body doesn’t have thoughts, and it can’t process outside information. The mind needs a way of telling the body what is happening so it can therefore act accordingly. Enter the Mind-Body Communication System.
Tune in to learn what exactly is the Mind-Body Connection and why it’s important, and two ways we miss use and interrupt this connection which causes havoc to our well-being and habits.
I’ll also walk you through a quick and easy process you can do any time you’re feeling overwhelming and intense emotions that will help to bring you some relief.
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Let’s talk about the mind-body connection. What is it exactly? And why is it important?
The mind-body connection is an amazing communication system that Heavenly Father created. He created it to bring the mind and the body together as one. We’re told in the scriptures that the mind and the body are the soul of man and that they need to be working together in order to have a fullness of joy. (D&C 88:15 and D&C 93:33)
So we have this beautiful mind, our brain that is taking in information all day long and processing it. Constantly it is doing this through our thoughts. It has thoughts about what is happening, thoughts about what is going to keep you safe, and thoughts about yourself and your life. All the facts around you, your mind is processing and having thoughts about. This is what it was created to do. James Clear calls our mind a Suggestion Engine. It’s pumping out suggestions all day long. It’s constantly putting out thoughts.
Your body however, does not have thoughts. Your heart and your legs and your stomach and your arms do not have thoughts, and because your body doesn’t have thoughts, it can’t process outside information. The mind needs a way of telling the body what is happening.
Enter the Mind-Body Communication System. Your mind takes in all the information and then passes it onto your body through emotions slash feelings.
Emotions are the name of what you’re feeling and feelings are the actually feelings, the vibrations and temperature changes etc. in your body that you feel when you experience an emotion. I use them interchangeably. SO don’t get too caught up on is it an emotion or a feeling. It doesn’t really matter. They mean pretty much the same thing.
Your mind translates thoughts into chemical signals that your body is then able to understand and then it knows what to do and it can act accordingly. For every thought, there is a correlating emotion. How cool is that?!
Every feeling we have is created by a thought that we have. Every feeling has to be proceeded by a thought. I’ve heard it taught the other way, but it just doesn’t make sense. You don’t have a feeling and then a thought. The thought in the mind is what creates and releases the chemical that you feel into your body, and then your body acts.
Our mind and our body are connected. That’s what makes up our soul. They work beautifully together. We need them both.
Sometimes we try to interfere with our mind-body connection, and we do this in two ways.
Way number one is we try to numb it. We don’t like how it makes us feel uncomfortable and so we try to buffer the feeling by eating, shopping, drinking, scrolling mindlessly on the internet, watching an entire season or two of a show Netflix, there are lots of ways we try to numb the unwanted feeling.
My favorite way to teach this is by comparing it to playing crystal glasses. Have you ever seen someone do this? Basically, how this works is you have all sorts of crystal glasses, think wine glasses, and they are filled with different levels of water. The fuller the glass, the less the glass vibrates, and it makes a lower pitch sound. The less empty glasses have a more intense vibration and make a higher pitch sound.
When we feel an intense emotion and we’re having an intense feeling going on in our body because of a thought in our mind, we fill our “emotional glass” so to speak, because it dulls down the vibration in our body and we’re able to numb it for a bit. But numbing it will not make it go away. Your mind is trying to get information to your body that it thinks is important, and it will keep sending it, it will keep sending the chemical message, the emotion with all its feelings, until you pay attention to it.
Here’s the deal, feelings are meant to be felt. Like I said, they’re just information sent to your body from your mind who is trying to keep you safe and alive. When you can take time to feel and therefore receive this message, your mind will settle down. It’s when we resist, avoid, ignore, and or try to numb our feelings that they build and build and build. They brain keeps sending them. We keep ignoring them, and stuffing them into our imaginary backpack. If we keep ignoring, they keep building until we eventually explode or shut down.
Way number two we try to interfere with our mind-body connection is by what I call “Thought Swapping.” We know our unwanted uncomfortable emotions are created by our thoughts so we try to think positive thoughts to escape having to feel them. We try to swap out the “negative” thought for a positive thought. Sometimes this works, but most of the time it doesn’t. Your mind is trying to tell your body something and it is stubborn. It most of the time will keep trying and trying until you listen to it. And the way you listen to it is by allowing the feeling and feeling it. You’re not trying to positive think it away and you’re not trying to numb it by emotional eating or drinking. You’ve got to feel it to heal it.
How do you allow a feeling? Allow me to walk you through a process you can use that will help you to allow your feelings, any and all feelings.
Take a comfortable seated position. You might want to sit cross-legged on the floor, or maybe a chair is more comfortable for you. Wherever you’re comfortable.
Slowly take 3 deep breaths. In through the nose and out through the nose.
Now, go into your body. What are you feeling? Scan your body really quickly -start at the top of your head and scan down to your feet. What feeling are you feeling right now? Can you name the emotion?What do you feel? Where do you feel it? What are the sensations? Is it heavy or light? Is it stagnant or does it have some movement to it? Is it large or small? Do you feel it in more than one place in your body? Describe it. What does it look like? Does it have a texture? Does it have a color? Does it have a temperature? Is it hot or cold? There are no right or wrong answers. Just keep you attention on the feeling. Focus on the feeling not the stories or thoughts coming from your brain. Keep focusing on it. Let it know, in your mind, that you see it and it’s welcome to be there.
What’s probably happening now is you’re having a hard time feeling it. It’s getting less strong. That’s because feelings are like waves. They come in strong and then they go out. In fact, they only last for about 90- seconds.
Brain Scientist Dr Jill Taylor in her book, My Stroke of Insight teaches us:
“When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop Something happens in the external world [we have a thought about it] and chemicals are flushed through your body which puts it on full alert. For those chemicals to totally flush out of the body it takes less than 90 seconds. This means that for 90 seconds you can watch the process happening, you can feel it happening, and then you can watch it go away.”
Heavenly Father has designed an amazing communication system for the mind and the body that keeps your soul healthy and alive. When you let it do its job, you’ll find that it works perfectly. Once you allow your mind to communicate to your body and you allow your body to feel what your mind is saying, then you can either choose to continue taking action or you can choose to pause that model and intentionally create a new one. New models are so much easier to create once you’ve allowed this communication to take place.
This is awareness, and awareness is always the first step. Once you have the awareness, you now have a choice. You can take that thought and that feeling or you can disregard it and create something new. It’s a beautiful thing that helps us choose joy because happiness isn’t enough.
