Your Mind, Body and Language

Years ago, I forgave someone who deeply wronged my family and myself, and within seven days of that forgiveness I lost seven pounds without changing how I ate or exercised.

In my “How to be at Peace with Anyone” workshop, I explain the forgiveness method I teach students, and coach my clients on. I can’t be certain of a causal connection between the forgiveness in my heart and the weight loss in my body. Causality implies physical storage of emotional states. Our language, of course, has long told us there is a strong correlation between mental states and the physical body, as you’ll soon see.

Yogis for millennia say there are seven non-physical centers of energy within the body, ranging from the rectum all the way up to the top of the head. Below is a head-to-toe mind-body language map, in which expressions you use regularly speak to the intimate relationships between what you think and feel and their corresponding connections in your body.

When you have something vital to say to someone you need to give him a “piece of your mind.” If you do, you feel better, having let go of something you were storing in your consciousness, or brain. Did it weigh seven pounds? Most likely not, but perhaps one day a delicate scale will measure the weight of intangible thoughts and feelings.

Taxing people and situations give you “a headache.” Relief is available with ibuprofen. My name being Bayer, I prefer a particular aspirin — said to work wonders.

Sometimes you need to communicate deeply held feelings but get nervous and the words don’t come. People say you’re “tongue-tied,” that your tongue is physically unable to express what your mind wants to say.

Extremely burdensome situations or a difficult person is a real “pain in the neck.” In other words, troubled emotions lodge in your neck.

When you’re very angry you’re “hot under the collar.” Anger has heat, and one day a machine may be able to measure it.

Most of the 300 different massage therapists whom I’ve privately coached say people carry much tension in their shoulders. Micromanagers who think they have to do everything themselves often feel as if they’re “carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders.” Some bodyworkers posit a connection between highly responsible people who often use the word “should” and “should-er” tension.

You have to “get it off your chest,” friends say when there’s something you strongly need to communicate. If not, it festers in your chest, and that can’t be good for your heart. Which leads us to….

Romance novels and epic poetry are full of stories of unrequited love and relationships that crash on the hard rocks of life, leaving delicate people with a “broken heart.” Such literature is also filled with stories of characters who wind up dying of that broken heart.

Frightened people are accused of having “no guts,” making it virtually impossible for them to act with courage, whereas those who “have the guts,” act courageously by drawing from them.

When you don’t tell the truth, you’re accused of being “full of s—t.” In other words, physical constipation makes it harder to be honest.

Demanding situations sometimes stress you so deeply you’re “sick to your stomach.”

Fear can make you literally “weak in the knees.”

Brides and grooms sometimes get such “cold feet” that those feet scamper away from the altar. They might have been weak in the knees, but not too weak to run.

Less localized parts of your body also carry mental states. When you’re angry, your blood “boils,” when you’re terribly frightened your blood “turns cold.” Your bones can be psychic, enabling you to intuit such truth “in your bones.” Arthritis sufferers sometimes predict the rain, which they feel in their bones. And when you’re relieved of a great burden you can feel light as a feather. Perhaps even enough to lose seven pounds.