coaching; sophrology; socolibris Archives

YOUR BODY HOLDS WISDOM. TRUST IT.

Do you know that your stomach nervous system contains more neurons than your whole spinal marrow and that information is continuously exchanged from your stomach ‘second brain’ to your superior functions of your ‘main’ brain?

Do you know that your heart actually sends more signals to your brain than your brain sends to your heart and those heart signals have a significant effect on emotional management and higher cognitive faculties such as attention, perception, memory, and problem-solving?

Latest medical and neurosciences studies provide new scientific evidence of how our body, mind and feelings work together.

Nothing new, you may say: for centuries, we’ve been commonly saying: ‘Listen to your heart’ to take an important decision ; or ‘It takes guts’ to refer to courage and willpower…

Yes, our body holds wisdom and intelligence since ages… but in Western world, our cartesian mind may had forgotten a bit about it ?

Sophrology practices aim at restoring or reinforcing the state of balance and harmony between what we feel, what we think and what we do in our everyday life. Here are some examples of how, in my practice, I rely on body wisdom :

Balancing :

Your body has intuitive capacities to restore balance.

Mental or emotional stress means a form of tension in your body. Being aware of those tensions and stress signals in your body is the first step. Having tools to release them is the second to increase your stress management capacities.

Enhancing :

Breathing techniques help you shift out of stressful emotional state. Meditation and coherence cardiac techniques as well.

Positive emotions do not only feel so good, they actually help your body’s systems synchronize and work better. You can develop your capacity to self-activate and eventually sustain a positive emotion.

The more you experience a calm, balanced, yet energized and responsive state; the more your body will allow you to perform tasks requiring mental acuity, focus, problem-solving, and decision-making, as well as physical activity and coordination.

Speaking and telling the truth :

Your body language does not lie. It is almost impossible to censor emotions. A large part of your body language is indeed unconscious and not controllable.

So, listening to your body and developing your body awareness are self-development gateways.

To communicate effectively with others, relying on your ability to sense with your whole body what other people are feeling is also an important factor in allowing you to connect. When you are engaged in deep conversation with somebody, your body also participates, synchronizing movements and postures, vocal pitch, speaking rates and length of pauses, and even important aspects of your physiology.

Last but not least, to access more of your intuitive intelligence and inner sense of knowing, one of the most important keys is developing deeper levels of self-awareness of your more subtle feelings and perceptions, which otherwise never rise to conscious awareness.

In sophrology practice, I can use mental imagery in a deep relaxation state to connect with your intuitive intelligence.

And I am always impressed by the powerful impact of this simple practice to visualize the long-searched solution, to let emerge the desired vision or see the situation differently!

Your body holds wisdom, simply listen and trust it !

Nadège Ravoux – HealthyLux Passionate Contributor

HealthyLux July theme – Your body holds wisdom

If you would like to volunteer for a Healthy Luxembourg, please contact us (contact@healthylux.lu). We can’t wait to hearing from you!

References:

Antonio Damasio (professeur de neurosciences, neurologie, psychologie, philosophie, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of California) - L’ordre étrange des choses.

Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance. An Overview of Research Conducted by the HeartMath Institute.

Harvard Medical School Study of 1,623 heart attack survivors found that when subjects became angry during emotional conflicts, their risk of subsequent heart attacks was more than double that of those who remained calm.^[65] Mittleman, M.A., et al., Triggering of acute myocardial infarction onset by episodes of anger. Determinants of Myocardial Infarction Onset Study Investigators. Circulation, 1995. 92(7): p. 1720-5.

Positive emotions are a reliable predictor of better health, even for those without food or shelter while negative emotions are a reliable predictor of worse health even when basic needs like food, shelter and safety are metPressman, S.D., M.W. Gallagher, and S.J. Lopez, Is the emotion-health connection a "first-world problem"? Psychol Sci, 2013. 24(4): p. 544-9.

Connecting with spring energy

We can feel it. We emerge from winter. Days are lengthening. Spring is in the air.

Sophrology practices are based on empowering you by using positive body-mind connection, by restoring or reinforcing the state of balance and harmony between what you feel, what you think and what you do in your everyday life.

Spring is already affecting your whole system, whether you do consciously feel it or not.

In this period of the year, you are set by default to feel renewed and at the same time to bring renewal. You may feel it or acknowledge it for your body. But, what about your mind and emotions?

Let go the ‘winter’ baggage :

We all carry around an emotional baggage with us. Spring might be a good time to write down your feelings, regrets or negative emotions and freeing yourself from past worries and hurt. Writing or beginning a diary of your feelings, regrets and emotions – so you can actually acknowledge them, accept them and then feel able to move on and let them go.

Writing these thoughts down and facing them can be a huge relief. And they often seem much less important when you actually see them written down!

‘Mental Detox’

Conditioning that have thrown you into undesirable attitudes and habits, negative self-talk, concentration issues, rumination, negative thoughts… We sometimes feel that our mind needs a ‘detox’ time as much as our body does.

Spending too much ‘mental energy’ in negative thinking (victimization, self-defence, fear, resentment….) is like wasting positive mental energy that we could spend on positive thinking, on concentrating on our work or our important projects, attention to nice things around us, to others, to our sensations, etc.

Letting go, deeply relaxing your mind and body will help you expand your awareness and defocus. Some simple sophrology techniques like ‘Shifting Negative Feelings and Thoughts’ are aimed at raising awareness of negative sensations, feelings or thoughts, putting them aside for a while and helping you connect to other positive feelings, sensations or thoughts. This positive action helps you (re)build confidence in your own capacity to find positive resources to move forward and to deal with the negative with expanded awareness.

Spring vitality awareness

Here is a body-mind adapted sophrology exercice to connect with your ‘vitality’ and own resources to embody spring renewal energy :

In a sitting or standing up position, close your eyes and connect with your inner body sensations. Be aware of your breathing, take 3 deep breaths with long inhalation and long exhalation.

Install a relaxing abdominal breathing (if you know how to do it, if not simply feel the air moving in and out of your abdomen).

Then bring your attention to your body :

Start by being aware of blood circulating into all your body, visualizing or feeling how it reinforces and balances each of your vital organs.
Feel your body warmth, and if you wish, imagine or bring more warmth, more energy circulating into all your body.
Then focus your attention on your head, your brain, and your face. Be aware of the vitality and the warmth in this part of your body. Be aware of each organ’s role and cells’ energy (brain, eyes, ears, …).
With the same intentions, scan your neck area.
Then your shoulders and arms.
Your upper back and chest.
Your abdomen.
Your lower back and lower abdomen
Your legs and feet.
At last, be aware of all your body, the whole vitality of your body cells, your organs’ tone and activity. Feel your life energy, your body balance and harmony.

To end the practice, connect again with your breath and its role bringing the air inside and outside of your body. When inhaling, visualize and feel the renewed energy and flow you take from outside ; and spread it inside, to all your body cells when you exhale.

After a few breaths, take a moment with your eyes closed to record and welcome all your new body sensations.

How do you feel now ?

Spring is coming. Enjoy !

Nadège Ravoux – HealthyLux Passionate Contributor

HealthyLux March theme – It’s spring! Let yourself glow!

Autumn changes.

Letting the colourful leaves drop.

Sandwiched between blazing summer and chilly winter, autumn is the “cooling off” season. Crisp, cool air and drifting leaves of autumn are a colorful reminder that things are once again changing around us.

It is, in some ways, nature’s recall that life inevitably keeps moving forward and often leaves us searching for meaning and possibilities how we might adapt and overcome.

Trees shed their leaves before they take on the next change or challenge of snowfall. So too, we may find that change is necessary.

For us, it’s not leaves. Sometimes, our values, our motivation, our balance, our needs don’t look the same anymore. Leaves might also be dried up love, crumpled relationship, failed plans or lost dreams.

Something’s died, and we have a choice: will we hold on to it, season after season, while it saps our energy, stunts our growth, and strangles our beauty? Will autumn bring sorrow to think of these secondary losses- or this season of change be seen as a catalyst for the beauty that is to come as we find new purpose and connections with others?

Oh yes, letting go is hard ! It’s a struggle to release situations, people, things, behaviours or emotions we’ve grown accustomed to having in our lives. Some of us are better at letting go than others and we might be more attached to certain aspects of our lives than other people.

A few coaching tips to choose to let go and let healing grow in you today?

Decide what’s really important. Take a step back. Think and feel what’s truly important to you.
Assess what benefits you’re getting. One of the reasons we hang on to things or people is because we believe they add value to our lives or because they added value before. But is that actually true? Really think about it…
Be brave enough to make the 1st step to release your grip and make space for emptiness. And remember : the hardest part is the release; once you’re brave enough to take that first step, you’ll soon see that you’re just fine without it.

Practice a body-mind sophrology exercice to help you ?

In a standing up position, close your eyes and connect with your inner body sensations. Connect with your breathing to relax and, if you know how to do it, scan your body sensations from head to toe and install a state of relaxation and deeper awareness. How do you feel inside, in the different parts of your body ? Does your mind or your body feel cluttered ? Let come to your awareness what is cluttering you or your life today.

Then, use your hands as beautiful cleaning brushes to massage and remove dust. ‘’Brush’’ yourself from the tip of your head to your feet and toes, as if you wanted to take off dust, the negative and unnecessary energy or emotions. As if you were making more space on your skin, inside all your body parts, removing and sending away all dust.

When finished, take a moment with your eyes closed to appreciate your new body sensations. How do you feel now ?

And concretely, you may also feel like breaking free from something : objects, old clothes to give away, a phone number,….

Remember the vibrant yellows, reds, and oranges of trees are at their most beautiful when they are in the midst of letting go. Yes, you might go through a tough time — a winter, if you will — but that will pass, and you’ll grow stronger and healthier in the process, just like bright green leaves and flowers do each spring.

Let’s go, let go!

Nadège Ravoux – HealthyLux Passionate Contributor

HealthyLux November theme – Autumn colours