Reconnecting With The Body

By: Alexis Chirban, BS

In today’s world, most of us have complicated relationships with our bodies. As infants, we are socialized to communicate with other people, yet often aren’t taught to understand and relate to our bodies. Our society has encouraged us to value material things and often objectify the body. This supports us in focusing our attention primarily on our external presentation without connecting and knowing what’s happening on the inside. Another reason people can feel disconnected from their bodies can be due to mental, physical and emotional trauma, where the body has learned the only safe way to live is through ‘shutting down’, ‘freezing’ and being disconnected. Through these ways, we’ve learned to ignore internal messages until our body has no other way of communicating but through headaches, depression, anxiety, pain, etc. Whether it’s because we’ve never been taught how to listen to our bodies needs, the influence of society, or trauma, these experiences have given us the mindsets to remain disconnected from our bodies.

Through practices like Reiki, Pilates and Guided Meditation, people have the opportunity to stop, pause, and reconnect with their inner experience. Reiki is an ancient practice where trained practitioners use touch (or hand hovering) to provide clients with the opportunity to relieve stress, anxiety and promote healing and connection within the body. Practitioners offer a safe space to explore the reconnection in the body, which opens possibilities of reintegration, deep healing and inner discovery. Pilates is a body based movement system developed to help individuals strengthen the mind and body connection and restore physical, mental and spiritual health. Through certain movement patterns, clients are reconnected to the breath and learn control, precision, and relaxation. Guided meditation also allows people the opportunity to enter the body, noticing sensations and building connections between the mind and body. These are just a few ways people can learn to reconnect and integrate the mind and body. If you’re interested in learning more about Reiki, Pilates or Guided Meditation, please contact Alexis Chirban.

References:
1. https://www.reiki.org
2. https://thoughtcatalog.com/monica-mcdowell/2017/04/we-are-so-disconnected-from-our-bodies-this-is-why/