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While reading last night from Christiane Northrup's book, "Goddesses Never Age" she wrote about pain and the emotional connection.

"Goddesses Grieve, Rage, and Move On"

"Several years ago, I developed what we call "frozen shoulder."  It's very common in midlife women and, like just about everything else, it's believed to be related to hormone levels and menopause – but I knew that wasn't my problem.  The pain started one day, seemingly out of the blue, while I was picking up a piece of wood to place in the wood stove.  I developed immobilizing pain in my left shoulder, dropped the wood, and actually fell to my knees. The next day, I could not stretch my left arm behind my back very far without wincing in agony, and the pain continued day after day. Because I hadn't suffered an injury, I felt that the cause had to be emotional, and that he pain and immobility, real as they were, were ultimately rooted in unresolved emotions.  The brain doesn't recognize the difference between emotional pain and pain caused by a physical injury. In fact, brain studies have demonstrated that emotional pain registers in precisely the same areas of the brain as physical pain."

…."With the help of a holistic chiropractor and my Pilates teacher, I spent months trying to open my rib cage and move my shoulder, which helped ease the pain and expand my mobility slightly.  But I knew that the key to complete recovery lay in releasing the blocked emotions related to my heart."

"For several years, I had been romantically involved with a man I loved deeply but who was not emotionally available to me.  I desperately tried to fix the relationship, which in many ways mirrored my failed marriage.  Because I couldn't get this relationship to meet my needs, I was doubting my desirability as a woman- an old issue for me. Could it be that my shoulder pain (and the occasional chest pain I had had about once a year for a decade) had something to do with my relationships with the important men in my life?"

"Much as I idolized my father when I was growing up, he was busy taking care of my mother and her needs, as well as earning a living.  It was a time when I needed my desirability  validated by the number-one man in my life: him. I remember one day when I was around middle school age, I was waltzing in the kitchen with him, trying to learn this skill.  My father was a good dancer, and as we ended our dance together, I asked him what he thought, hoping he would approve of my moves. He replied, "You'd do okay if it was dark – and the man was drunk."  My Scorpio dad's barb hit me very deeply, right in the heart.  He made similar criticisms of my tennis playing even though I practiced for hours and tried so hard to please him by being a good player.  He didn't take the time to teach me or arrange for me to take lessons from someone else, but simply criticized me in his forthright way."

"I'm sure his comments were the result of being irritable from overwork, or simply thoughtless in the way all of us can be at times.  And I know many women who have suffered far worse things than I did.  But that doesn't mean I should have made excuses for him or downplayed the emotional impact on me – "Oh, for heaven's sake, that was decades ago! Are you still holding on to that?  Just get over it!"

"No matter what happened to you – or how long ago it happened – you must do the healing work that only you can do.  Failure to do so just perpetuates the pain and dis-ease. My father's insensitive jokes and comments had created a wound that became buried in my tissues.  Now that the old theme was playing out in my adult life, all these years later, the old emotions I had felt as a child were expressing themselves as pain and immobility in my shoulder.  My body was telling me to heal old hurts."

"I didn't realize this right away, however.  It began to dawn on me during a session with Doris E Cohen, Ph.D., author of Repetition: Past lives, Life and Rebirth. Dr. Cohen has been a clinical psychologist for 40 years and also works on the spiritual level and with dreams.  For a few years now, she had been suggesting that I look at my father issues, but until this point I hadn't been ready to face that possibility. It took the repetition of the original heartbreak with my father – in the form of an adult relationship – to bring the issue to the surface by bringing on physical pain.  The severity of my discomfort made me willing to look again at my emotional issues surrounding my father and begin a program of healing, as Dr. Cohen suggested to me."

"For three days in a row, I set a timer for 15 minutes to do an anger and grief release session. During the first five to ten minutes of each session, I imagined my father sitting in front of me and let my rage fly.  I just let him have it. I shouted at him for making those thoughtless, hurtful comments years ago.  I swore at him, crying, "How the f— could you talk to your daughter like that?  What were you thinking, you bastard? In addition, I took a hand towel and snapped it agains some sturdy woodwork, all the while yelling expletives of rage until I was spent."

"After a few sessions – and sometimes, just a few minutes into them, I often found myself lying on the bed, curled up in a fetal position weeping and crying out, "I want my Daddy." It was a cry of a little girl whose heart had been running her relationship life on some level for decades.  My level of grief surprised me. But underneath anger there is nearly always hurt. My ever present "witness" self stood watching while I went through these steps of releasing pure, unfiltered anger, getting in touch with my grief and letting it out, and nurturing myself and my body afterwards. After this process each day, I took a bath with Epsom salts. As I sat in the warm water, I imagined all the toxins in my body and mind leaching out of me and down the drain."

"For three consecutive days, I used this anger and grief release process, and then spent five to ten minutes a day for the next two days doing "active imagination" work, imaging exactly how I wanted my father to respond to me during the times when he was so critical.  I imagined him dancing with me in the kitchen, praising me for my beauty and grace, and skill as a dancer. I imagined myself glowing with pride, awash in his praise for my desirability."

" Having cleared the toxins from my cells, I was now reprogramming those cells with a new story. It was like removing rocks from the soil and cultivating it before planting new seeds.  I also did some of that towel work and raging to express my frustration, anger, and give about the emotionally unavailable men in my life.  Within about two weeks, the shoulder pain and limitation were nearly gone. It took about another month for full range motion to return and all pain to completely resolve, but then I was pain free even during my Pilates sessions."

"One of the insights I had during my healing process, which I developed over the course of a few months, was that the imprint of lack of love toward myself was being mirrored in some of my closest relationships.  People were reflecting my own beliefs about myself back to me! My well-developed intellect wouldn't let me see that at first. But working with my dreams, with Dr. Cohen, with the exercises of releasing my feelings about my father, I came to appreciate my role in keeping myself stuck in old beliefs and behaviors that no longer served me. Notice, I didn't sayI had no right to my old feeling, or no right to see my father as cruel in some ways, or no right to my defensive behaviors and choices – such as getting and staying involved with an emotionally unavailable lover.  I said I rid myself of what was no longer serving me. I stood up for myself and my own worth.  I declared that I deserved better, and that had to start in the only place I have any control over: how I treat myself. The fact that you are entitled to your hurt, grief, and defensiveness doesn't mean it's working for you.  You get to decide whether the payoff of holding on to all that is worth jeopardizing your health, feeing, lousy, and pushing away new opportunities because of your distrust, or cynicism, or avoidance behaviors. It's up to you to make the choices. I just advising you to let all the crap go so you can flourish."  Christiane

So, while reading this, I thought of my aching hip and lower back and wondered what chakra it signified?

I googled it and found this by Christiane Northrup….

"Your first chakra health is related to your upbringing and early life. This includes your immediate and extended family, race, social status, education, family legacy, and family expectations. Organs: Physical body support, hip joints, spine, blood, immune system. – See more at: http://www.drnorthrup.com/your-chakras-a-roadmap-to-vibrant-health/#sthash.VYImc6FF.dpuf"

Also, I found this….

"A healthy root chakra connects you with vitality to your family of origin, your immediate society and to the global community. If your 0-7 years were challenging and without love, then this damaged root chakra will function much differently. Issues of survival such as emotional dysfunction, stress, anxiousness, and restlessness will plague you."

I wonder, if I were to give voice to my parents, just as Christiane, vented at her father, would my pain go away?  Would it be released?  I believe, that I have touched on the voice of the little girl, but only to scramble to safety, to put up boundaries, but I am not certain I have allowed her to vent and release.

My intention is to allow her to speak…for the pain of her early years may be in my hip….eager to be heard.

More from "Goddesses Never Age" by Christiane Northrup

"Radiate Pleasure"

"Your nature is joyous radiance. You don't have to ask permission to seek or receive pleasure. Your happiness serves the world and yourself, keeping your vibrational energy high."

" Here's how it works: Your heart's electromagnetic field reaches out from your body and interacts with the field of energy we all share – you're actually wired to reach out and connect to pleasure.  This energy field radiates throughout the universe via the electromagnetic field. Scientists know about these fields, but don't necessarily think of them metaphysically.  They've discovered the Higgs boson particle, which is the evidence theoretical physicists have been searching for because it explains how energy coalesces into matter.  Unity Minister Catherine Ponder's term for the Higgs boson is "divine substance". Other's have called it "the God particle."  When you have fun, your energy changes and so does the field around you, and that shapes physical reality – creating nitric oxide and endorphins in your body. How that energy of pleasure manifests in the physical world outside of your body is a marvelous mystery."

"So adapt this motto: Fun is important.  Fun is what keeps you ageless. Dream up a pleasurable adventure, get out there and do it, and chances are someone else will do it with you…."  Christiane

What I love about this, is that we are actually wired to reach out for pleasure….and yet how often do we keep this desire under wraps?  How often do we just throw caution to the wind and connect the wires of our pleasure….even for the small things in life?

It isn't like we have to re-wire ourselves to find the things we enjoy, but instead unkink the wires and give ourselves permission to enjoy that which we feel drawn to…

And secondly, to stop connecting to the things that displease us.

We can't enjoy the more pleasurable things in life if we are connected to the things we don't like.

Even if we were to spend half the week or day doing what we love, our planet would feel and see such beautiful joy radiating from so many folks.

Last night as I had on a fun pair of leggings and a comfortable top, I felt like a kid again….added fuzzy slippers and a cup of tea and I was in joy!

Today the exercise is to feel the wires of joy…and make a connection!  Or at the very least don't connect to something that is joyless!

It is up to you what kind of energy flows through you.  I love the joy connections!

On the next page was this quote…..I totally agree…

"Women, delve deep into your primal power, beyond the appearances, customs, and religions of this day.  Delve into the knowing that you have always had and always will – a knowing that no religion can ever encompass and that no culture can ever define. Delve deep into your belly and brain that lies there: the primal brain, your original voice, the voice that will never betray you, and will always lead you to the truth of love in action, the being of joy and peace: The Voice of Life itself."  Padma and Anaiya Aon Prakasha, "Womb Wisdom: Awakening the Creative and Forgotten Powers of the Feminine

As you go about your weekend, here are some words from Christiane Northrup….and "Goddesses Are Ageless".

"Over the years, we develop a finely calibrated BS detector. We recognize that some people are not being honest with themselves about what they are doing to create their own problems. If they pressure us to rescue them, or try to make us feel guilty for not changing our plans to accommodate their latest crisis, we find it's easier than ever before not to give into their emotional threats. Alpha Goddesses recognize that "No" is a complete sentence.  How liberating!"

"I see this a lot in women with aging mothers or fathers who have placed far too many unreasonable demands on them.  This is the time when you learn that being a good daughter doesn't mean letting yourself become depleted by your parents. They brought you into this world and took care of you, but making your life about their needs is not necessary or healthy for you or them. Very often, what older parents really want is to feel independent and useful.  When you say no and you ask them to help you out in some way, however small, you restore balance in the relationship.  It's a gift to realize you truly are on a journey separate from your parents.  Your paths intersect, but you can't be responsible for their lives.  The same is true for your adult children."

….and further into a chapter called "Goddesses know the Power of Pleasure."

"The biochemistry of pleasure can counteract the biochemistry of aging.  Nitric oxide is the uber-neurotransmitter that increases and balances levels of all the others: endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin (a bonding neurotransmitter released while breast feeding, experiencing orgasm, or even enjoying the company of others0, and DMT, which is generated in the pineal gland in the brain and probably plays a role in dreaming.  Although we tend to think that neurotransmitters are generated and used only in the brain, we actually have cells throughout the body that can both produce and receive them. The gut produces more serotonin than the brain does – generated largely as a result of the huge number of healthy bacteria that live in what's known as your microbiome. When you have a visceral negative reaction to something – you can't "stomach" it – that's your neurotransmitters sending you the message "this doesn't feel right for me."  Conversely, you can get a warm, happy feeling in your belly when neurotransmitters that affect your mood are released as a result of a positive experience, thought or feeling.  The idea is to create that warm feeling through the emotional experience of genuine pleasure that supports your well-being, health and agelessness."

Here is an exercise for you:

"A Brag, a Grateful, A Desire."

First, identify something to brag about. What can you be proud of right now.?

Second, identify something that you appreciate or are grateful for. What blessings in your life would you like to acknowledge?

Third, identify something you desire.  If money, time and the laws of physics are no object, what you desire right now?

Try doing these exercises daily, answering the questions in your journal and reflecting on them.  And share this experience with others in conversation….  

Christiane 

Happy Saturday!