Deb Shapiro suffered from deep back pain, intense muscle spasms that triggered excruciating sciatica, which dragged on for about a year. The body communicates messages from the mind, she believes, so she started to ponder her life.
She had moved four times in five years, most recently from England to Colorado. Her stepfather died, her mother needed support, and a family member had a nervous breakdown. She was traveling constantly for business.
“Sciatica implies that there are emotional issues affecting the back and legs, and that these are deep, inner issues,” she writes in her new book, “Your Body Speaks Your Mind,” which explores the impact of thoughts and feelings upon the physical body.
“These may be issues to do with being able to stand up for yourself. Perhaps something is happening that you cannot take anymore, and it is making you want to go in a different direction. Or perhaps you desperately need more support and cannot cope with everything on your own anymore.”
The Boulder-based author says she eventually healed herself with a series of deep- tissue massages and by learning to release deep layers of emotional stress.
She’s part of the wave of Americans fascinated by the new field of psychoneuroimmunology, or mind-body medicine. This pop culture trend is reflected in movies like “What the Bleep Do We Know” and books like “Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine” by Dr. Candace Pert.
So it’s ski season in Colorado. Let’s say you hurt your ankle on the ski slopes.
Accident – or not?
“Sports accidents do happen,” says Shapiro, who works as a corporate consultant for stress management.
But maybe there’s a deeper meaning.
“The part of your body that’s damaged can also be psychologically weak,” she says, “already psycho-emotionally impacted from what’s going on in your life.”
In body-mind language, ankles symbolize support, both from others and from your inner support system. A sprained ankle suggests a lack of flexibility for the direction in which you’re headed: The strain is too great, causing the energy to twist or collapse, going in all directions at once. A broken ankle, on the other hand, indicates deep conflict about your foundation in life.
“The skeleton is the foundation upon which we build, so a break indicates a deeper place of breaking within us, a deeper conflict,” she says.
Got allergies?
The immune system is treating a foreign body – the allergen – like the enemy, so psycho-emotional causes suggest an inner need to withdraw, and put up resistances.
Ever wonder why so many of us suffer from sore shoulders?
“It’s because we’re all trying to achieve so much – the bigger house, the bigger mortgage, which means we have to work more,” says Shapiro.
“Shoulders carry the weight of all we’re trying to do, and the fears or stress of not being able to do it all.”
The shoulders also speak of lost or buried dreams. A banker who secretly wants to be a painter, say, will feel that desire blocked in the shoulder.
“What we want to do comes from the heart, out through the shoulders to our hands where we express that energy,” she says. “But how many of us are doing we want to do?”
Learn to communicate with yourself. Listen to what your body is trying to say. This is the realm of healing, Shapiro says, because you’re tapping into the intelligence of every cell in the body.
“You may not be able change the circumstances in your life,” she says, “but you can change attitude toward them.”
And this, as the sages of the world will tell you, is the secret of true happiness.
Staff writer Colleen O’Connor can be reached at 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com.
