Your body is incredible. It gives you the means to experience what it’s like to be conscious and alive on earth. And sometimes that hurts.

Emotional trauma and mental stress isn't just something that happens to your body -- it's remembered by your body. If left unprocessed and untended to, it gets locked away in your cells and muscles for safe keeping. And that ongoing struggle is REAL.

If you’re still dealing with old pain or a recent injury, use these affirmations (here's my first affirmation print, by the way!). They’ll support whatever else you’re doing to heal.

But first...

Try this visualization.

Relax and loosen up whatever you’ve been storing (so important):

1. Pay attention to your breathing. Inhale through your nose. Exhale through your mouth. Your belly and rib cage expand on the inhale. Your shoulders drop a touch with each exhale. Do this a few times until your breathing gets fuller and you feel softer.
2. Focus on the place that hurts. Try to be kind. No judgment, you’re only looking.
3. Inhale and imagine your breath extracting the tension, trauma, and soreness. You’re not breathing into this place; you’re breathing in what’s there and taking it away.
4. Exhale through your mouth and imagine sending all that energy away. This could be a heavy sigh or make a sound like you’re fogging up a window.
5. Keep doing this. In and out. Extracting stuck energy and sending that buildup away.
6. Your inhale extracts not only tension but thoughts of people who stress you out, emotions tied to this area, anything negative that’s coming up while you’re doing this.
7. Your exhale is a release. Off into the ether it all goes to disintegrate. It’s absorbed by a cloud or integrated into the light. Either way, it’s away from you.

Practice breathing like this for as long as you need, whenever you need.

Healing your body is a process. It takes time and a lot of figuring things out. What works for you now. What doesn’t work anymore. Trusting and respecting that evolution takes heart.

When you’re ready to drop deeper into your own healing, use your favorite affirmations.

Thinking and saying these words to yourself can help you trust that evolution a bit more, not rush it along.

If they make you feel better, they’ll help you heal better...

3 Affirmations for Healing Your Body

1. I'm grateful just to be here.

Thank you, body, for letting me know what it’s like to be here. I'm alive, breathing, calling this place home for a while. Even pain is a product of that kind of miracle. Even pain is something I can learn to love my way through. And even pain can't take away the glory of my being here.

2. My body is a blessing.

I give my body the blessing of respect. Birth equipped me with this self-healing system that allows me to breathe, break, repair, and discover the universe from a unique point of view. My body is a precious expression of an otherwise invisible miracle.

From my book, Morning Affirmations! Click here to get the book with 199 more phrases like this.

3. My body is my friend.

My body is listening to me, absorbing every energy, spoken or unspoken. I am the life breathing through this instrument of expression. The morning new, I teach my body an important lesson: it's a companion on this earthly voyage, the vessel carrying me home.

Another one from the book, Morning Affirmations! Get the book here.

. . .

By the way…

You don’t need to heal fast (whatever those people on Instagram say). You might do that, you might not. But respecting your body wherever it’s at? That’s a strength like no other.

Tell me:

Did any of this help or inspire you to think differently about your body? Which affirmation will you use today?

Tell me in the comments -- I read every single one, and I'd love to know!

Love,

Jen

P.S. Feel better in your own skin with my book Sleep Rituals: there are 100 practices in there to help you “rest and digest.” When you get it, try the visualization called “The Altar Within.”

P.P.S. Today’s theme song is “You Can’t Rush Your Healing” by Trevor Hall. Press play after you’re all done with this practice… and listen. Trust me.