What is Your Body Trying to Tell You?

Many of you know that my daughter, Katelyn, was in the hospital for two nights recently. She got hold of whatever virus was going around Maryville Campus, and it wouldn’t let go of her. Her wonderful roommates got her to the ER and stayed with her, even after I got there, and of course, eventually ended up with the same digestive symptoms that Katelyn and most of the campus had to endure. Thankfully, none of her roommates had to be admitted to the hospital, though one of them did stay in the ER until the wee hours of the morning.

Anyway, besides expressing my gratitude in print to Katelyn’s roomies, this Full Circle E-zine is about connecting emotional components to physical symptoms (mine, not Katelyn’s). Because it turns out that even though I managed to avoid the gastrointestinal distress that she suffered, once she was feeling better and back at school, my body started talking to me about the experience.

You might call this divine intervention since I have recently restructured my coaching practice to help people look at their health from a holistic perspective that considers mind, body, and spirit to be a unified entity. (Or you might call it God having a good laugh by asking me to look at my own life first). Whatever we call it, I thought you might be interested in some of the insights I’ve had thrown into my lap by taking this holistic look at myself.

So the recent symptoms I’ve experienced include dizziness, sadness, and a little bit of muddled thinking (or a lot, depending on whom you listen to). These symptoms make sense in a holistic sense when you consider where I am in my life. I’ve been taking care of Katelyn while she heals and really enjoying having her home. A big part of my identity is as a mother to two of the most wonderful kids on earth. But this fall, John will leave for UTC and Katelyn will begin her ‘real’ life as an adult (hopefully in veterinarian school). Where does that leave me? Dizzy, sad, and muddled.

It’s definitely a time for new beginnings, which can leave us off-balance, shaky, lightheaded, in other words, dizzy. And you want to talk about sad? That one’s a no-brainer. Despite being excited and proud about the new stages of my kids’ lives, knowing that the old stage of dependence is finally ending definitely leaves me feeling a little poignant. Sadly, the muddled thinking may just be a sign of the stage of life that I’m in myself, not a reflection of where the kids are!

What to do with these holistic connections? Well, obviously they are great real life examples for my clients to learn from. But they also point me to a better understanding of where I am right now in the present, which is all we really have. I’m in the midst of a wonderful transition that leaves me dizzy, sad, and muddled, but also provides new opportunities for me to express myself and my calling in the world. Amen to that!