When we talk about the inside of ourselves, what is it that we mean? Are we talking about our bones, our tissue, our blood, our organs, and our systems? Well, those of us bound by the purely physical may only view our insides that way. But for me, I am fascinated with so much more. Yes, because I am a personal trainer, the physical parts listed above fascinate me, but I am more fascinated with the parts within us that cannot be seen and may never be understood. The parts of us that make us completely unique, yet eerily similar to all else.
I believe there is pure magic that resides within each of us. An entire world, a universe, a collective consciousness that has life of its own, but, at the same time, is also dependent upon the housing, health, protection, and well-being of our body to sustain its life, and vice versa. I believe every cell in our body is alive with its very own consciousness, in a very similar way we understand our own beings to be.
To grasp this idea, one must understand that everything is energy. And when one truly accepts this, a world of possibilities will open-up. Everything we see is energy. Everything we hear is energy. Everything we touch, taste, and smell is energy. Energy, in essence, is just a vibration. And depending on how one thing vibrates, this determines how our senses will interpret that energy. Will it show as a visual picture viewed through our eyes?… or be a sound picked up though auditory receptors in the ears?
The fascinating thing about energy is that, while it can never dissipate, it can be changed, reversed, enhanced, and directed by other energies. Think of energy as the vibrational ripples created by a pebble dropping into water. Now drop a second pebble into the water, but to the left of where the original one was dropped. The ripples created from the second pebble will change the ripples of the first. Now imagine an idea or thought you have as if it was a pebble dropping into water, and every thought after that, is another pebble dropping in. When your thoughts are in alignment with each other, (ie, along the same train of thought), that would be like the pebbles always being dropped into the water at the same spot. When the pebbles drop in at the same spot, instead of creating competing ripples, they create ripples that grow in size and intensity becoming waves of momentum. Now imagine the world as the water. And so just as a pebble influences the water around it, so too do our thoughts influence the world around us. The more momentum we build with our thoughts, the more influence we have on the world. This is how miracles can happen.
But how does this all relate to inside of us? Well, if we can accept that each cell in our body is as alive as we know ourselves to be – each as its own individual, physical being with its own consciousness and ability to think independently – then we can start to understand how truly important respecting and caring for our bodies is. In my profession, I am a bit different than most personal trainers. My goal is to get my client’s body performing as it was intended to – free of pain and with the most effective use of energy. What I have found over my twenty years of experience is that most people have adapted compensation patterns that keep them from achieving that goal. And until that goal is reached, it is often very difficult to achieve the more superficial goals of weight loss, buff muscles, and sport-specific dominance without creating more compensation patterns.
A compensation pattern is just a flow of energy that contradicts the healthy, energetic flow established by the universal norms of human existence and movement. The normal flow would be defined as a flow that uses the least amount of energy, a flow that demonstrates an ease to all function and movement. When our bodies lack inflammation, lack emotional and energetic blocks, are in structural alignment, and have mental clarity, that is when the ever-available, universal energy of wellness can flow strongest to us. Some people are born into a compensation pattern, but for most, we create it by blocking the universal flow. We learn, or are trained into, a new flow that eventually builds momentum with constant repetition of an incorrect movement backed by the reinforcement of a negative thought behind it, (I talk about this in depth in my book, Allowing Wellness, releasing soon). And as I’ve seen consistently through the years, these compensation patterns eventually lead to pain in the body, as any flow of energy that is not following the normal flow of ease, is flowing in “dis-ease.” Quite literally, leading to disease and pain.
However, just as one ripple can affect the flow of another, and one thought can affect all that is around us, so too can we influence our bodies. If we can disrupt the current flow of “dis-ease,” by purposefully thinking and focusing our attention to the ease of movement and function (dropping the pebble in the same spot over and over), we can eventually build enough momentum to change our flow. Now there are many ways in which one can go about this, but the easiest way I believe, is one which I stumbled upon through my own healing. And all it takes is a willingness to go inside, surrender, start a conversation, actively listen, and follow the flow. But perhaps most importantly, there needs to be a belief, an understanding – or more so, a knowing – that all is possible.
In Allowing Wellness, I talk about our “sixth sense of knowing,” arguably the most important sense we should work at developing. Knowing comes from inside, not from outside influences. As brilliant as our regular five senses are, they can deceive us and keep us limited. They, along with human influences, train us at a very young age to accept what we perceive to be real and absolute. Unfortunately, those perceptions limit our possibilities. All brilliant thinkers, inventors, and philosophers had the sixth sense of knowing, and intuitively knew more to be possible. Their “knowing” evolved our species and world to what they are today.
So, how does one develop this sense of knowing? Well, I can only speak for myself. My knowing comes from meditation. For just as every other system in our bodies can fall victim to compensation patterns, so too can our brain and thoughts. We can create flows of “dis-ease” by thinking negative thoughts and by bombarding our brain with stimuli, (a regular occurrence in today’s wifi world), which clutter-up and block the natural, energetic-flow of universal guidance available to us at all times. We throw our brain out of alignment, out of balance. Just as our bodies need sleep, our brains need to rest too. When our brains are allowed to rest, we gain clarity, and insights and ideas can come to light. Our brain enters the theta state during sleep and in this unresisted state, the universal flow just flows. This clear state of mind is where the brain is open to knowing more, to understanding more than what appears possible. It’s the place where dreams are born, where we can finally see the limitless potential all around us. Unfortunately, however, once we wake, most of us forget it all.
The practice of meditation allows us to tap into this theta state of mind while in an awakened state. As is the case with our bodies learning a new movement pattern, consistent practice is the only way to enjoy the benefits of meditation. There is no way to do it wrong, other than not staying consistent. I recommend committing to sitting quietly for a minimum of twenty-one days. This is the amount of time it takes for something to become a habit. Start with sitting for 5-10 minutes and gradually work up to 15-20 minutes. (I usually meditate for about an hour, but you should start small and find what works best for you). While you sit, just let go of thought and any resistance you feel. And don’t beat yourself up if you struggle with that, as that defeats the purpose of just letting go. When you finally achieve a state of meditation, you will know because you will feel your whole body let go – deeply – and you will experience a calm over you and a heightened state of awareness like you have never experienced before. And once you experience this, I believe you will be hooked for life.
While I meditate, my brain connects into the universal flow of energy, into a universal flow of collective consciousness… into a flow of knowing. It’s as if my brain is getting a download, an upgrade to the current system running in my brain, making my thoughts clearer and providing me with keen insights. I have had profound realizations about my body, my reality, my relationships, the universe, etc… it’s absolutely amazing! I would share some of them with you, however, I believe “my knowing” is my knowing. And as it may not be the same for you, you may not understand, or it may confuse your knowing. I believe there is information that is shared by all, but also information that comes uniquely to each one of us for the purpose of fulfilling one’s own higher purpose.
I will, however, share my experience involving my arthritic hip a mere three weeks before I was scheduled for total-hip-replacement surgery. Although I was not aware of the process I was embarking on at the time, I unknowingly started the first step by becoming willing to go inside and sit quietly one Sunday morning. This is the first step in the process of changing a compensation pattern of disease or pain in the body. The second is surrendering. Now this was not as much a mental surrendering as is the case with meditation, but more a physical surrendering of tension in the body, albeit both are necessary. It was very difficult to let go of muscles that seemed to have far more control over me than I of them, but the third step is what made all the difference. I started a conversation. A conversation with my body. With my cells. With the consciousness within me.
This step of “starting a conversation” is really a three-part step. Part one involves asking for forgiveness. Pain is the body’s way of telling you something is wrong, and when our pain screams at us, it’s because we did not listen to it. We either refused to, or we just couldn’t hear over all the internal chatter in our brains. Either way, we did our body wrong and we need to apologize and ask for forgiveness. I imagined shrinking down to the size of my cells, going right to where the pain was in my hip, and hugging each cell there. Sending each vibrations of love and healing. Telling each one I was sorry for not listening, for not taking better care of it. Then I asked for their forgiveness. The inner consciousness can be stubborn and untrusting, but if your intentions are true and you believe and know your actions will have a positive effect, you will feel the tension in your body soften as it opens the door to a conversation.
The second part of the conversation is to ask for what you need, followed by the third part of actively listening for the answer. As a personal trainer for nearly twenty years at the time, I prided myself on my body awareness, but even this was too much for me. Clearly, I was not aware of what my body needed, as if I had been, I surely would have fulfilled that need and ended my pain. My compensation pattern was running so strongly and so automatically though, I could not see a different pattern nor override the current one. But, because this Sunday morning I had reached a place of openness with my inner consciousness, my inner consciousness started to respond. And because I was quiet and mindfully present, I could actively hear what it was saying. Instead of cells fighting in my body, and my mind and body being in a constant competitive battle-state, everything just let go and started to work together. My brain remembered how to connect to the incorrect muscles firing that caused sharp jabs of pain, let them go, and connected once again to the correct muscles that should be leading that specific movement. The correct muscles were weak and atrophied and so couldn’t move much, but as the connections grew and more cells jumped into the flow and momentum I was creating – or, more accurately, just allowing again – I could move more and more and with an ease I had forgotten about. And most importantly, the movement was pain free! I know this may all sound crazy, but my thoughts, my intentions… started changing the momentum of pain running through my body. The energy of my thoughts was creating that ripple effect and positively affecting the energy of my cells.
And that’s when I experienced my miracle. My inner consciousness told me to get into a certain position and move a certain way, and there was a huge SNAP as my bones from my big toe up through my spine twisted themselves back into place and I was suddenly ninety percent out of pain. And the most miraculous part was that all this happened within 30 minutes! I had spent 3 years in progressive pain to the point where I felt I needed surgery, and within 30 minutes, I had started to reverse my “dis-ease” and end my pain pattern. Crazy, huh? I canceled my surgery the next day.
And none of this could’ve happened if I hadn’t been willing to take a journey and spend some quiet time inside… some time meeting my inner beings that make up my inner consciousness, my inner self… some time creating a healthy, working, mutually-beneficial relationship with them… showing them respect, forgiveness, appreciation, and love. My willingness to sit quietly, go inside, and connect deeper to my inner self allowed compassion to bond us and resistance between us to subside. Once the resistance was gone, the last step was just to follow the flow of ease. When our bodies, emotions, and minds are at ease, then we know we are in sync with our inner beings and in the universal flow of energy that connects us all.
Kelly Renda is a certified Personal Trainer and Pilates Instructor and owner of TYM Training. Although a busy mother of two young children, she has found the time to author her first book, Allowing Wellness, releasing soon in 2020. Kelly can be reached at kelly@theyummovement.com.
Thanks for sharing Kelly. Keep the excellent ideas coming.