Why isn't it working?

One of my favorite parts about healing through The Emotion Code and The Body Code is that with each session I do for myself, I learn more and I can take that new knowledge and use it to help my clients. For several months I have been dealing with unexplained pain on my left side. First, on January 2nd, my left leg felt as though all the muscles seized up and twisted and left my leg feeling heavy and cumbersome to move around. I had to stop exercising, which always makes me unhappy, but I know that pushing through pain always leaves me worse off than before. I used The Body Code in conjunction with chiropractic care and trigger point therapy, and after five days, the pain subsided, but my leg still felt tight. Two weeks later, my left bicep experienced the same pain my left thigh did - it felt as though my muscles were tightly wound and seized up. Any pulling movements, such as opening my car door or closing my car from within was excruciating. The pain then spread to my left shoulder blade and the left side of my jaw started to lock. I continued with Body Code sessions on myself and chiropractic care, and while some of the pain dissipated, much of it still lingered. I finally sat down and rather than trying to fix the symptom, I asked myself, "Is there an emotion that is underlying all of this pain and causing it to hold on?" I muscle tested the answer and it was a strong yes. I thought for a few moments and asked, "Is it guilt?" The muscle test was a strong yes. I then asked, "Do I feel guilty about being a 'bad' teacher?" Once again, a strong yes. With that new information, I did another Body Code session and rather than making the focus "left side pain," my focus was "Releasing the guilt around feeling like a bad teacher." My pain went from an 8 to a 6 after that session and the next morning, I woke up entirely pain free.

I took many lessons from this experience:

1. I need to slow down and check in. Like many public servants, it's easy to ignore oneself and solely focus on others. We all know the oxygen mask analogy, and it's important to remember it.

2. It's okay to try and treat a symptom first because sometimes it does work. But, when it doesn't work, it's important to stay encouraged and start asking different questions.

3. Intuition is magic. When my left side initially began to hurt, I wasn't thinking about teaching or school. When it continued to hurt and the pain spread, I wasn't thinking about teaching or school. Yet, for some reason, it was the feeling of guilt that gave it a stronghold. As I went through my daily life, pissed that my left side was so uncomfortable, I was more focused on something physical I had done to upset my body. Yet, when I finally stopped to check in, all I needed was a few moments and I intuitively knew where the issue stemmed from.

4. This is why my sessions are a minimum of 50 minutes. Sometimes it takes twenty minutes to talk through what's going on and put words to an issue. It takes time to muscle test and ask the subconscious what focus is right for that session. The session length is intended to honor a person's process and allow space for the healing process.

5. This is why it's important to have regular sessions. I would love it if one session was all it took to help anyone in need, and sometimes it does, but most often, the healing is a process and it's like peeling back layers of an onion. Using my own experience as an example, it took me several weeks of trying to fix a symptom to realize I needed to look deeper and that strategy also works for clients. They show up with an issue, we work on the issue, they get to process and observe any changes over the week, and then we get to come back the next week, see what's what, and continue to refine the focus for a presenting issue.