Listening to the Body’s Signals

by Tjitze de Jong, author of Energetic Cellular Healing and Cancer

During a quarter of a century of working intimately with people—as a social worker, massage therapist, healer, and teacher— I learned one thing for certain: people are fascinating, truly fascinating. They never cease to amaze me. “They” includes myself.

Within the context of my new book, Energetic Cellular Healing and Cancer, the fascination stems from people consciously choosing lifestyles, foods, habits, and patterns that are often detrimental to their health. For decades the mass media has sent forth clear messages about how the imbalance between work and relaxation and the consumption of unhealthy foods add to stress and tension and hence gradually add to the chance of attracting physical disorders. All of this is well known. Still, people are often reluctant to change habits.

Less well known, and gaining less attention in the mass media, are the gradual corroding and festering effects of energetic distortions in the individual’s aura and chakras due to an imbalanced lifestyle. People can almost be excused for making disease-attracting choices. Almost, but not quite.

During my work with clients and students I place a lot of emphasis on “listening.” Listening to the signals and symptoms our physical bodies present us with. Each signal, each symptom we experience, is our body ringing the alarm bell: please pay attention, because something is out of order, out of balance, or festering and corroding, and, in the long run, it can lead to illness.

One ever-so-simple signal I often come across is people grinding their teeth. In Chapter Two of Energetic Cellular Healing and Cancer I introduce Evelyn. In her teens her dentist told her to quit grinding her teeth. But how to do that at night while fast asleep?

The dentist’s message was clear, correct, and overall helpful, moving Evelyn’s habit from her unconsciousness into conscious awareness. Great. One step vital forward. Because the young woman also showed signs of depression (another clear signal Evelyn’s body presented), her medical doctor prescribed anti-depressants. Depression eased. Yet “eased” here only implies that the depression and its cause were suppressed by medication, not cured.

Suppression means that the physical symptom and its cause are being buried into the deeper crevices of the subconscious. There they remain, not being dealt with, not cured, but festering and corroding. They will surface years or decades later most likely in the shape of a more serious physical disorder, such as a thyroid problem or cancer of throat, esophagus, or stomach, all body parts associated with the first stages of our digestive system (like the teeth and mouth, where the initial symptom surfaced).

Which alternative did Evelyn have other than these anti-depressants? Could she have listened? Could she have taken the initiative to pay close attention to the signals of her body? The obvious answer is “yes.” That “yes” is not only Evelyn’s answer, but the answer for all people.

It is precisely this listening that can hold the key to prevention or cure of nigh well any illness. A vitally important prerequisite is to listen in total honesty. Why try and trick yourself when it’s your health, your well-being, your quality of life you’re dealing with? Also, please listen with compassion. The symptoms and bodily signals surface for a reason. The imbalance has a reason and is more often than not a result of some aspect of fear, well hidden, and may well be a fear based upon childhood experiences.

Therefore, listen with honest openness, kindness, and compassion and maybe ask (professional) assistance to support you in unravelling the why, what, and how of your emotional and/or mental imbalance. In Evelyn’s case, her jaw muscles had tightened because in order to keep the peace and not rock the boat within her family, she had learned to remain silent, to not express her opinion and emotions. The tight jaw muscles resulted in grinding teeth.

The rewards of your courage to start listening are a strengthening inner peace, a more open and honest relationship with yourself and others, and a reduction or cure of physical symptoms or illness, no matter how serious the illness may be initially.

Throughout this process try and remain gentle with yourself, as gentle as you would be with a butterfly.