Mind talk, body talk

Equipped with the realisation that I’m a people pleaser with regular negative internal dialogue – “ruled by fear” I think Noreen said to me at one point – I started to look at my life through new glasses. My therapy had come to an end and although the internal anger I was feeling in the months before had subsided substantially, I often found that periods of high pressure at work quickly led me back to unhelpful ways of thinking. I needed something else to help me to manage stress.

A coach and holistic therapist, Sian was recommended to me by a friend and in my first session she had asked what had brought me to her – I said that I was often experiencing stress and also felt I had “lost my mojo”. She had explained how reiki can help with managing stress, and with no promises as to whether my mojo would resurface or not, we got to work. I was very quickly taken aback by the power of holistic therapy, particularly when combined with talking therapy. On the one hand Sian was helping me to identify goals and next steps in my life, but I hadn’t realised the importance of paying attention to your body and noticing how it feels. It sounds so obvious writing it down, but I was so ridiculously unaware of what my body was saying to me that I’ve often not noticed stress manifestations until they become so loud you can no longer ignore them (IBS, skin rashes and the like). I once met my friend Gaz for lunch and proudly declared how relaxed I felt. He stared at me in disbelief perched awkwardly on my chair in the restaurant with a facial expression that looked more like I was having a colonic than enjoying a gin and tonic. I digress. In all probability my chakras were horribly out-of-whack (I believe that’s a technical term), and after 45 minutes the effects of my first reiki session were deep-rooted. Ironically, I noticed on the journey home that I was driving at such a serenely unhurried pace that I had amassed a queue of traffic behind me. I slept so deeply that night and the effects lasted for days. I was hooked.

In the subsequent months, I would see Sian for talking time and reiki time, and I felt my energy shifting. I became more attuned to my own energy and better able to spot when and where something needed to be worked on or cleared and she encouraged me to do breath work at home on a regular basis. Whenever I had experienced reiki I would always feel as though the panic dial had been turned down and I had somehow brought myself into closer contact with the wider universe. Seeing, hearing and smelling nature – and truly appreciating it, appreciating other people more, appreciating life more. Increasing my vibrational frequency, as I since learnt.

Whilst psychotherapy reframed my thinking for the better and was hugely beneficial to me, I would often feel the need for a glass of wine afterwards to unwind. I know that speaks to a minor problem of mine, but my point is that for all the mental breakthroughs that took place, my mind would need slowing and body would need calming. The importance of synthesis of mind and body cannot be overstated.