Our bodies can tell us so much about what's going on inside of emotionally if just take the time to listen.  What a lot of people don't realize is that physical symptoms that arise in our bodies in the form of disease, injury and sickness have a lot to do with our emotions and how we do or don't express them.

Think of the neck as a walkie talkie, a two-way communicator, sending messages both physically and emotionally.  What we need to survive, food, water and air are taken in and swallowed down, as is any positive or negative input from other people and the world that surrounds us.  At the same time, emotions, thoughts and feelings are expressed outwardly through using our voice and lips.  Because of this backwards forwards motion, the neck forms a bridge if you like between our thoughts and our feelings, between the mind and the heart space, as well as between the mind and the physical body as it sends signals to act or react.

It is at this junction point (the neck) that we can create a natural mind/body split, where one part of our personality becomes somewhat isolated from the other - the more energy put into one focus of your personality or nature the more lack there is in the other and this junction quickly can become out of balance.  

This junction point when split can create a world of tension or even stiffness in the neck.

Some questions to ask yourself in relation to this physical issue that stems from a possible emotional issue you may be experiencing.

• Do you need to listen to your feelings a little more?
• Do you need to speak from your heart?
• Is there a constriction that you are feeling in life, your neck and you need to be released from? 
• Are you up in your head and have a need to put less energy into thinking and more into physical exercise (the other half of this junction point)?

Another are of thought to be looked at when this junction point becomes stressed and restricted is a possible rejection of your body.  This could perhaps have come about due to past abuse or because of a disability.  This very well may cause that same split of the junction point (neck) where there may be a lack of energy (flow) moving through the neck into the body, a lack of relationship with who you are as a physical being.  Because of these thoughts/conversations you could well be creating a disconnect from mind and body without realizing it or being aware of the core issue that has created it.
Ask yourself this:

• Do you feel like a stranger in your body? Does it feel unfamiliar and something you just drag around with you because you have to, not because you want to or love it?
• Do you feel your body as energetic, vibrant and purposeful in your life?

One of the necks most awesome of jobs is to keep that great big heavy head of ours upright so we can look forward in life.  A head that's bowed low or drooping implies a feeling of hopelessness, giving up on one's self, or an inability to face the road ahead.
Another feature of the neck is it's range of motion allowing us to see from different angles and directions, embracing a much larger space than the one right in front of us.  This implies an openness of mind and acceptance of other's views, not just our own.  Stiffness or little motion indicates resistance, usually to other ways of thinking; it's as if you were wearing horse blinders (blinkers) that prevent you from seeing any other option/viewpoint other than the one right in front of you.  If this is the case ask yourself these questions.

• Are you feeling stubborn and only looking at your own view point instead of taking others suggestions as a possibility?
• Is someone in your life asking to much of you and could be considered a "pain in the neck"?
• Are you feeling resistant or prejudiced toward someone?
• Is your attitude showing signs of becoming narrow-minded?

A stiff/sore neck may also indicate an inability to make a decision (again a junction point or cross road issue) literally not knowing which way to turn.  Such stiffness limits the amount of communication and feeling passing between the mind and body.  The neck contains your voice box, so it is intimately connected to the way in which you express yourself.  If this area is blocked or stiff it creates a feeling of lack of expression from within or not knowing how to speak your truth outwardly.

• Is something or someone emotionally strangling you?
• Are you holding back your feelings?
• Are you afraid you may hurt someone's feelings or that your feelings are too strong to express?

Being that your neck is the most narrow part of your body the flow of energy can get restricted here very quickly.  Your neck is a place where you can hold a lot of guilt.  

• Is there something you need to forgive yourself or someone else for?
• Is your pride getting in the way?

The throat (Voice-box, Throat Chakra, Thymus) is the point where your soul enters and leaves your body.  A blockage in the throat can cause issues of not wanting to stay in your physical body, which directly ties in with that disconnect of mind and body.

If you have stiffness in the neck or are experiencing soreness of some kind look at where in your life you are being inflexible or not willing to look at other possibilities. Just maybe you have your head on backwards steering at the past and judging yourself instead of seeing the big picture and how far you've come.

I hope that this insight into the emotional causes of a stiff/sore neck has sparked some aha moments for you, where you can take a look at what's happening for you emotionally in order for the physical symptom to disappear.   Let me know in the comments below If this has helped you in someway and allowed you to release the tension you may be experiencing through the disconnect of mind and body.

With Love and Warm Blessings

It doesn't mean criticizing, judging,  bullying yourself or feeling guilty.  You are just seeing yourself as you are, observing your body, how you are interacting with the people around you, your mind and how you might be feeling.  The more we begin to notice, the more we realize our bodies tell us so much more than what's sitting on the surface.

Let's take Hay fever as an example.  This can be one of the most annoying allergic reactions around and I know this first hand! Runny noses, watery eyes, itching non stop.  Yes there can be environmental causes at play here, especially when those pollen counts go through the roof.  However if we look a little deeper hay fever can actually be a very physical response to an underlying emotional issue we have not become aware of, or choose not to look at in ourselves.  Go the body for showing us what sometimes the mind can't see.

Allergies can indicate an intense emotional reaction to situations we surround ourselves in, a reaction of withdrawal, resistance in some way, and a fear that comes about leading to isolating ourselves, more often than not induced by stress.  To breathe is to be inspired in so many different ways, not to mention the balance it brings.  When we are clogged up and struggle to breathe what is it that we are pushing away from really?  Ask yourself these questions to draw out the core issue of this nasty bout of hay fever:

• Are you feeling limited in some way or blocked, unable to break free of old patterns and behaviors?
• Are you resisting self nourishment or inspiration?
• Have you been spending to much time up in your head and not acknowledging the balance that is needed within to get back to creativity, playtime and creativity?

Hay fever or when it gets to that intense feeling of Sinusitis (or infection) can also come about when we choose not to deal with grief and the healthy releasement of tears.  The pain in your face can be linked to not expressing inner anguish, the unexpressed grief accumulating inside of you; If you experience a temperature with it, this shows the intensity of the build up of feelings, the heat of any emotion experienced.  Ask yourself:

• Do you feel loved in this moment? Is their a deep need felt within to be loved by someone?
• What do you need to do to release the blockage, to become unstuck and unclogged within?
• Look at any other senses that are being affected, does this tie in with the same internal struggle?

In short....Are you struggling with emotional congestion that has now boiled over into the form of physical issues (hay fever)?

Becoming more aware allows us to move through the physical issue a lot faster by acknowledging what is really going on internally for us.   This way our bodies don't start making the issues on the inside a problem on the outside.

Love and Warm Blessings

Most of us haven’t quite realized there is something extraordinary happening.  
But Gustavo Tanaka certainly has! I love how this Brazilian author strips it all back and lets us take a long hard look at the world we live in.   I've seen an increase in clients seeking holistic healing in the last three years than ever before.  Do you agree with what he shares below?
Have you seen the changes between a decade ago and now?


A few months ago I freed myself from standard-procedure society, I broke the chains of fear that kept me locked up into the system. Since then, I see the world from a different perspective: the one that everything is going through change and that most of us are unaware of that.

Why is the world changing? In this post I’ll point out the 8 reasons that lead me to believe it.

1- No one can stand the employment model any longer
We are reaching our limits. People working with big corporations can’t stand their jobs. The lack of purpose knocks on your door as if it came from inside you like a yell of despair.
People want out. They want to drop everything. Take a look on how many people are willing to risk entrepreneurship, people leaving on sabbaticals, people with work-related depression, people in burnout.


2- The entrepreneurship model is also changing
Over the past few years, with the explosion of startups, thousands of entrepreneurs turned their garages in offices to bring their billion dollar ideas to life. The vortex of entrepreneurship was to find an investor and get funded. To be funded was like winning the World Cup, or the Super Bowl.
But what happens after you get funded?
You get back to being an employee. You may have brought in people not sharing your dream, not in agreement with your purpose and soon it’s all about the money. The financial end becomes the main driver of your business.
People are suffering with it. Excellent startups began to tumble because the money seeking model is endless.
A new way to endeavor is needed. Good people are doing it already.

3- The rise of collaboration
Many people have figured out that it doesn’t make any sense to go on by yourself. Many people have awakened from the “each man for himself” mad mentality.
Stop, take a step back and think. Isn’t it absurd that we, 7 billion of us living in the same planet, have grown further apart from each other? What sense does it make to turn your back on the thousands, maybe millions, of people living around you in the same city? Every time it crosses my mind, I feel blue.
Fortunately, things are changing. Sharing, collaborative economy concepts are being implemented, and it points towards a new direction. The direction of collaborating, of sharing, of helping, of togetherness.
This is beautiful to watch. It touches me.


4- We are finally figuring out what the internet is
The internet is an incredibly spectacular thing and only now, after so many years, we are understanding its power. With the internet the world is opened, the barriers fall, the separation ends, the togetherness starts, the collaboration explodes, the helping emerges.
Some nations saw true revolutions that used the internet as the primary catalyst, such as the Arab Spring. Here in Brazil we are just starting to make a better use out of this amazing tool.
Internet is taking down mass control. The big media groups controlling news by how it suits best what they want the message to be and what they want us to read are no longer the sole owners of information. You go after what you want. You bond to whomever you want. You explore whatever you may want to.
With the advent of the internet, the small is no longer speechless, there is a voice. The anonymous become acknowledged. The world comes together. And then the system may fall.


5- The fall of exaggerated consumerism
For too long, we’ve been manipulated to consume as much as we possibly can. To buy every new product launched, the newest car, the latest iPhone, the top brands, lots of clothes, shoes, lots and lots and lots of pretty much anything we could our hands on.
Going against the crowd, many people have understood that this of way off. Lowsumerism, slow life and slow food are a few excerpts of actions being taken as we speak, pointing out by contradiction how absurdly we have come to organize ourselves.
Fewer people are using cars, fewer people are overspending, and more people are swapping clothes, buying used goods, sharing assets, cars, apartments, offices.
We don’t need all of that they told us we needed. And this consciousness of new consumerism can take down any company living of the exaggerated end of it.


6- Healthy and organic eating
We were so crazy we even accepted eating anything! It only needed to taste good, and everything would be alright.
We were so disconnected that companies started to poison our food and we didn’t say anything!
But then some people started waking up, enabling and strengthening healthy and organic eating.
This is only to get stronger.
But what has this got to do with economy and work? Just about everything, I’d say.
Food production is one of the basic fundamentals of our society. If we change our mindset, our eating habit and our way of consuming, corporations will have to respond and adapt to a new market.
The small farmer is getting back to being relevant to the whole chain of production. Even people are growing plants and seeds inside their homes as well.
And that reshapes the whole economy.


7 — The awakening of spirituality
How many friends do you have who practice yoga? What about meditation? Now think back, 10 years ago, how many people did you know by then who practiced these activities?
Spirituality, for too long, was for esoteric folks, those weird-like and mystic people.
But fortunately, this is also changing. We’ve come to the edge of reason and rationality. We were able to realize that, with only our conscious mind, we can’t figure out everything that goes by here. There is something else going on and I’m sure you want to get hold of that as well.
You want to understand how these things work. How life operates, what happens after death, what is this energy thing people talk about so much, what is quantum physics, how thoughts can be materialized and create our sense of reality, what is coincidence and synchronicity, why meditation works, how it’s possible to cure using nothing but bare hands, how those alternative therapies not approved by regular medicine can actually work.
Companies are providing meditation to their employees. Even schools are teaching the young how to meditate. Think about it.


8 — Unschooling trends
Who created this teaching model? Who chose the classes you have to take? Who chose the lessons we learn in history classes? Why didn’t they teach us the truth about other ancient civilizations?
Why should kids follow a certain set of rules? Why should they watch everything in silence? Why should they wear a uniform? What about taking a test to prove that you actually learned?
We developed a model that perpetuates and replicates followers of the system. That breed people into ordinary human beings.
Fortunately, a lot of people are working to rethink that though concepts such as unschooling, hackschooling, homeschooling.
Maybe you’ve never thought of that and even may be in shock. But it’s happening.
Silently, people are being woken up and are realizing how crazy it is to live in this society.
Look at all these new actions and try to think everything is normal we were taught so far is normal. I don’t think it is.

There is something extraordinary happening.

Gustavo Tanaka  is a Brazilian author and entrepreneur, trying to create with my friends a new model, a new system and maybe helping to create a new economy.
This post originally appeared on Medium.