I arched my back and then twisted side to side hoping that I would relieve the discomfort between my shoulder blades. The pain had been there for a couple of weeks and as a physical therapist I knew that I had done nothing mechanically to result in this pain. I knew that the root of this discomfort was energetic and that no amount of stretching would change it. 

My body is simply one of the ways that I receive messages about myself. I spent years disconnected from my body and unable to listen to it. I spent years minimizing what my body was telling me. Then, I got the blessing of understanding just how important the relationship with my body is and how much it has to offer me.

When my low back hurts it is always a reminder that I am not providing enough self care and that I need to focus on myself again. When my mid-back hurts it is a reminder that I am playing small and that I need to own the depth of connection that I have with spirit and be doing that work rather than more superficial work with spirit. So, I could twist and stretch all that I wanted but I already knew that the back pain would dissipate when I took steps towards deeper work with spirit. 

I knew what spirit was asking from me and yet I wasn’t doing it. I could make up a lot of excuses but the reality is that those would just be excuses. The reason that I wasn’t doing what spirit was inviting me into was directly connected to self worth and fear. I smiled, recognizing that I wasn’t going to allow myself to get away with that. I closed my eyes, gently laid back onto the hardwood floor and drifted into meditation to get clarity from spirit about the pathway into this deeper connection.