Friday, January 23, 2015

A Call Out to All Perfectionists and Overachievers




I ' ve been glad eye a trend lately while working with women suffering from health issues. I coach women with pelvic pain issues of any collection, and I can ' t help but mind some commonalities. I am no longer surprised when I hear person after person make apparent herself as a quixotic, an overachiever, a type A personality, an anxiety victim, or someone who is very shy. Though not every client has all of these disposition, these do seem to be the most common issues common by women dealing with pelvic pain issues. I without reservation have all of the ultra personality one's way. As I ' ve pondered the connections between these temper, the health issues, and my coaching knowledge, I have being to develop a theory.



I think back being described one time as a somatizer by a medical proficient. The definition of a somatizer is " a forbearing with frequent physical complaints for which no organic basis is found. " Well, that naturally did illustrate me, I check. However, that didn ' t really help me fathom myself or measure toward healing. Having learned Martha Beck ' s coaching tools, I can now connect the dots between my personality, study processes, and ailment.



The main Martha Beck tool you need to deduce this connection is called the Body Compass. It is really an awareness of your own physical self, and location your deepest unhappiness and greatest joy reside within you, physically. Literally. If you think about the worst event in your life and gently scour your awareness over your body, you will discover that conclusively in your body, you feel a physical sensation. This is your body ' s way of alerting you to things in your life that aren ' t good for you. If you think about the best event in your life - your happiest memory - you can study your body and discover the physical sensation that equals joy. Mine is this awesome spiraling sensation that begins in the bull's eye of my chest and grows in addition and amassed as it moves upward toward my head. My body registers negativity in my stomach - I feel like there is a pile of rocks in there. If you tune in to your Body Compass often, it literally works like a compass. You can project the things on your to - do inventory and spot what your body thinks of them. Laundry - not entirely rocks in the stomach, but pebbles for incontestable. Writing - ahhh, big spirals moving up, up, up.



The key expression there is " tune in to your body. " Did I do that, previous to my health conjuncture? No, no, and no. Without fail not. I was not one iota aware of my Body Compass. Well, when would I have found the time? I was too busy scheduling my never - ending inventory of activities that needed to be washed-up without reservation, then beating myself up over the results, which never, ever level my expectations. I was too busy anxiously analyzing corporeality I did, scheduling more things to do, hating myself for not being perfect, ( because though nobody is perfect, I really should be ), and looking for the next thing I could achieve to make myself feel better about myself.









I ' m getting exhausted just remembering.



I have memories reaction the rocks - in - my - stomach responsiveness in high indoctrinate, but I did not recognize it as my Body Compass. I deduction I had an ulcer or something, in that my stomach hurt all the time. Strangely, that missed when I stopped dating the counterfactual - for - me person I was dating at the time. Then, in college, I had a recurrence of that stomach subject, right as I was pushing myself to take every pulchritude offered at the university and get law-abiding A ' s in all of them. Hmmm. Did I listen? No, of course not. No pain, no gain, right?



I did not listen, and I did not listen, and I did not listen. So my body got louder, and louder, and louder. It refused to let me ignore it. First I got carpal cellar. Then I got bladder symptoms. Next was lower back pain. Followed by increased vaginal itching ( which always popped up along with the rocks - in - the - stomach ), followed by vaginal pain. Then, vulvar pain and burning. My body was so weak of me not listening, that it was literally unwell. And it only got sicker, and sicker, and sicker, until climactically, I stopped body and tuned in to the poor physical home of my very perturbed self.



Since that first moment of communication, my body and I have developed a fantastic relationship. For about a spell after my vaginal symptoms went away, I would get a little twinge of burning anytime I contemplated something that wasn ' t right for me. I listened. Now, it ' s back to just the rocks in the stomach. I sit up and take heed, hold me. I never want my body to have to yelp again. Ever. It was not a pleasant experience.



My definition of a somatizer is this: someone whose body is screaming at them to listen to its messages. Why are we type A, overachieving, utopian, anxious, shy women prone to ailment? My theory, and it ' s new and as after all unpolished, is we are the women who do not listen to our Body Compasses. We are too busy, we are focused on our achievements, we are thinking about making existence perfect, we are stressing about every little thing, we are worrying about information possible, and we are not confident within ourselves. We do not listen. It ' s time to tune in to these magical bodies that know much, much more than our minds. These maestro bodies will keep guiding us, always, to our own North Stars, which is really just code for true joy, comfort, and happiness in the very core of your being.

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