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Doctor Neha: Welcome to Talk Rx with Doctor Neha. Today I have Anne with me. She is a bodyworker in San Diego. Thanks for being here.
Anne: Thank you, Neha.
Doctor Neha: Tell me, what questions do you have on communication? What do you want to know about?
Anne: I am just coming out of a devastating separation-divorce. How do I, or one, learn to trust again?
Doctor Neha: Wow. That’s a big one. The first thing you want to think about is you want to tap into your body. You know how when [during massage] there is something that’s physically painful, you have me take deep breaths and settle into my body there?
Anne: Mmm-hmm (affirmative).
Doctor Neha: It’s almost like leaning into the discomfort. That’s on a physical level when you’re moving my arms and helping me get loosened. I’m going to have you do that on a physiological level, so physical signals that are coming from your body. Go ahead and close your eyes.
Take a nice deep breath. You had to trust yourself to even do that, which is really good.
Doctor Neha: Take a nice deep breath in. When you say, “How am I going to learn to trust again, trust in a relationship again?” where do you feel that in your body? Where does trust show up or not feeling like you can trust?
Anne: It comes from here [points to the middle of her abdomen]. In my solar plexus.
Doctor Neha: In our solar plexus area. What does that feel like? Describe the physical sensations.
Anne: It feels guarded.
Doctor Neha: Protected?
Anne: Very protected, guarded, cautious.
Doctor Neha: Okay, so stay there in that guarded, protected place. If you could allow it to have a shape, a density, sharp or smooth… How could you describe that guarded, protected place inside you? What shape would it be?
Anne: It’s a shape that is covered, swaddled in a blanket.
Doctor Neha: So it’s protected and swaddled in a blanket like a baby is swaddled. What is the weight of it? Does it feel light? Heavy?
Anne: It feels heavy.
Doctor Neha: What shape is it?
Anne: It’s an oval shape.
Doctor Neha: Almost like a baby would be?
Anne: Yes, like when we would swaddle ourselves to protect ourselves.
Doctor Neha: Now you have a heavy, oval shape, swaddled space in there, right?
Anne: Mmm-hmm (affirmative).
Doctor Neha: Is there a color to it? A charismatic of is it rough, is it smooth, or is there any color?
Anne: I just sense the warmth.
Doctor Neha: Okay. What would you name it? Give it something really simple. What would you call that place inside you? That swaddled, warm, heavy, oval-shaped space inside you?
Anne: Nurture.
Doctor Neha: Now, take a nice deep breath in and out, and imagine sitting in a purple velvet chair, and “Nurture” is sitting in a purple velvet chair across from you. If you could ask it a question, what do you want to know? What would you ask nurture? This is that part of you that’s learning to trust itself again.
Anne: How will I learn, or how will I feel when I do trust again?
Doctor Neha: All right. Listen for what nurture says to you. Allow the answer to just come to you. “How will I feel when I learn to trust again?” What’s coming to you?
Anne: I will open my nurturing to connection with another being, “Nurture” will open and welcome that person in.
Doctor Neha: You’ll be unguarded.
Anne: Yes. I’ll be able to share and be able to open and no longer feel guarded and protected.
Doctor Neha: You’re going to be able to trust yourself enough to open that swaddle and embrace who’s there. Do you feel that crowded space? First you felt a really tight, guarded, protected space that looked like an oval swaddled that was heavy. You gave it a name, and in fact, it is your friend. That part in your body is not something to get rid of. It’s actually something that you could communicate with and will give you your answers. Does that make sense?
Anne: Mmm-hmm (affirmative).
Doctor Neha: Great job. Let me explain what I just did with Anne. She asked me a question, which was, “How is it that I learn to trust again?” A lot of times, what people say is, “Well, other people aren’t trustworthy, so I’m not going to have love again.” The truth is, somewhere in you, you lost trusting in your own guidance. That’s what you don’t trust again. You don’t want to be surprised again. You don’t want to be thrown off guard again….
Anne: I don’t want to feel the pain or the hurt.
Doctor Neha: Yeah, you don’t want feel the pain again. Because somewhere along the way, I don’t trust that I should have picked this and I didn’t. So what I just did was to go back into your body because it has so much wisdom.
Anne: Yes.
Doctor Neha: Feel that part of you that is trying to protect you. Get really clear about the weight, the size, the color of what that space feels like in you instead of doing what we normally do, which is block it out or numb it. Once you get a good idea of what it is, you can actually do this as a journaling exercise where you’d write a letter on each line like A, N, A, N, (for Anne, Nurture, Anne, Nurture). So Anne would write, “How will it feel when I trust again?” Then, you just let your hands keep writing. N: “Well, the swaddle will open.” A: “What do you mean?” N: “Well, you’ll feel like loving again, and you won’t question yourself.” You could actually have a whole dialogue on journaling.
Anne: Oh, wonderful.
Doctor Neha: Do this for yourself when you’re not on camera, and when it’s a little more relaxed and it can flow through you. Thanks for trying that.
Anne: Thank you, Neha.
Doctor Neha: To all of you that want to learn how to trust yourself again or want to learn how to love again, a simple exercise of having a dialogue once you tune into your body can help. The first five chapters of Talk Rx are actually all about your body. They are going to teach you how to get connected or reconnected with it again. Anne, you are really connected to your body. This is just a new way of doing it through emotion.
Anne: Yes.
Doctor Neha: Any takeaways?
Anne: Yes, to center myself and know that I am in a protected place right now. I need to listen to and acknowledge that. And when I engage in a relationship I need to be aware of what’s going to feel right for me, and then when it begins to feel right, I can give that permission of myself to open that up with trust.
Doctor Neha: Yeah, open the swaddle.
Anne: Yes, the swaddle can embrace that person and have a nurturing relationship again.
Doctor Neha: I love it. The deal is, you’re not waiting to trust someone else, you’re actually learning how to trust yourself. If something doesn’t feel right, you trust that you’ll navigate what comes next and change direction. I hope this helps and I’ll see you again next week. Thanks again, Anne.
Anne: Thank you, Neha.
Send me your questions — drop me a tweet at #AskDoctorNeha or write your question and comments down below.
Awareness Prescription
Having a “Dialogue with A Symptom”
(Note: For this exercise, you will need a place to journal.)
- Identify a wound or a place in your body where you feel discomfort. Give it a name (e.g., if your heart is racing, you might name it “HR” or if you feel a pit in your stomach, you may name it “Heavy Pit” or “HP”).
- Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Imagine that part of your body as a separate entity sitting across from you in chair.
- Ask whatever you want to know of it (e.g., Why are you here? What do you want me to know? What will make you go away?)
- Listen for answers. Trust what you hear.
- Start writing the dialogue between you and your body. Don’t think about it, just keep writing as questions and answers keep coming until the conversation feels complete.
In love we trust,
