Tag Archives: body-mind

A Migraine Sufferer’s Turnaround

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“Before I worked with Jan, I was suffering constantly from headaches and was    desperate to find relief.”

When I first met Sarah, I noticed right away that she seemed to be using herself up as she gave Reiki sessions. We were both body-mind practitioners volunteering our services at a wellness event in town. She looked weak and light as a feather, as if I could blow her over with one puff of breath. Her hands were tense, and the energy work she was giving to the clients seemed to stay stuck inside her hands instead of flowing out through her fingers. She had dark circles under her eyes and looked exhausted. As we talked briefly, she shared with me that she had daily migraines, and I told her I could help.

Sarah booked a session with me for the following week, declaring from the beginning that she was ready for a change. She was open to the coaching for her migraines and started making the recommended dietary shifts right away. She also dove right in to exploring and releasing, in session and in her daily life, her past trauma. She quickly began to re-inhabit areas of her body that she’d previously vacated and was able to create a new shape of vitality, energetic flow, and good health. As a result, her skin plumped up, her body filled out, the color in her face brightened, and the dark circles under her eyes disappeared.

She had a breakthrough when she realized that for most of her life she actually hadn’t been eating a sufficient amount of food. In a short period of time, only six sessions, Sarah had embraced a new outlook and mood. I salute her courage to work on herself and her commitment to delve head-on into her traumatic history. It made all the difference.

“Within a few short sessions, Jan helped me gain control of my symptoms, become more aware of the underlying causes, and empowered me with practical and simple “tools” and techniques to feel better. As a result, my headaches have been dramatically reduced, and, overall, it has made a huge difference in my life. Thank you, Jan!” —Sarah, New York, NY

We Get Busy

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We get busy. We get busy and forget to breathe, to pay attention to life. That we’re right here, right now. We lose connection. Maybe we never had it. But we want it, yearn for it. You, me, we, people, life.

Transformative work can bring you back into your body, put you in touch with your cells, with yourself on the cellular level. You can breathe, relax, relieve pain, tension, and stuck places. Find the spaces you can’t feel into, that are numb, tight. You’re suddenly aware of qualities you’ve embodied—a wooden board, a bungee cord.

Bring your awareness into your body. Feel yourself breathe. In the moment. Settle into your Self and feel gravity hold you, right where you are. Feel. You’re alive. Breathe. Let it go.

Let go of the grip of now of then of centuries past. You were gripped by what you feared and tightened against, or learned to please, squeeze, or run away, or stay paralyzed, frozen, tucked in, tucked away. It was reaction, safety, protection, wanting affection.

Let those toxic layers get cried away, yelled out, coughed up, shaken out, drawn away, melted down. New skin, new shape, new ground, purpose, meaning. Ease in.

It can be refreshing, soothing, plumb the depths, release the pain. You’re the explorer. You and your body carve the path. Keep breathing. It all unfolds as you grow.

[cross-posted at Mundo Lifework]

The Headache Healing Challenge

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Scan 1Doesn’t The Headache Healing Challenge sound like it could be the name of a new game show? You’re a contestant, and an expert panel tells you exactly how to solve your chronic migraines, just like that. It’s taped in several segments, with you going through various challenges along the way, and you win because you get rid of your pain and get your life back! Wouldn’t that be great? Considering that in the U.S. alone there are an estimated 50 million headache sufferers, over 30 million of whom get debilitating migraines, we’d be a much healthier nation with that problem solved.

The game show challenge sounds a lot like my professional practice as a headache coach. (Some clients call me a headache whisperer.) People I work with have suffered from headaches for years, sometimes a lifetime. They live in pain or ignore it, curb and restrict their lives, and extinguish their dreams. They’ve seen neurologists and a host of other practitioners and tried many, many treatments and medications—if it’s been around, they’ve done it. They feel sick, sick of the pain, sick of dealing with the pain and with their medications’ side effects. They want to re-up their efforts and are resolved to do something that works once and for all, with no side effects.

However, many longtime headache patients initially discount body-mind solutions, such as diet, stress reduction, breathing, self-massage, and transformational bodywork, because, they say, they’ve tried it all. They’re skeptical: how could something so simple work when the most advanced medications could not? In looking at why body-mind solutions may not have worked, I’ve noticed a pattern. Usually, it’s because they’ve focused on one particular therapy or aspect of their lives at a time, such as meditation, which may or may not have worked, and then they dropped it and tried another.

But, here’s the key . . . Continue reading →