Health Books: The Secret Language of Your Body by Inna Segal
What I learned about my body and how it improved my mental and physical health
In my last newsletter, I shared how I’m redefining my approach to health: Focusing more on the emotional and spiritual aspects. Last week, I started my learning journey by reading The Secret Language of Your Body by Inna Segal.
Below, I share my main takeaways with our health community. May it be a blessing to all of you 💛
The importance of listening to your body
The Secret Language of Your Body emphasizes the importance of listening to our bodies. Our feelings, thoughts, and emotions are all signals from the body telling us something. In these signals, we find many answers to our problems.
For instance, Segal writes that she developed right ankle pain when she had too many responsibilities. Or vertigo when she didn’t rest enough. Each physical problem has a potential emotional cause, not just a physical one.
This is why the book calls it the “language” of our body. Our symptoms are like words we decipher to discover what our bodies want to tell us.
Learning to let go and trust our bodies
Segal encourages readers to let go of negative emotions and embrace positive ones. The art of letting go is something I want to learn too. I have the habit of trying to keep everything under control, making me anxious and stressed. But Segal shows that life is not about being perfect but just doing our best.
Letting go means learning to trust. For healing, we can trust our bodies to handle life’s adversities. We were created miraculously—with amazing healing mechanisms to preserve our bodies.
According to Segal, the key lies in knowing our bodies (“know thyself, heal thyself”) and then learning to trust them to heal. She even goes as far as to say that we can heal ourselves fully—that all healing comes from within ourselves.
I don’t agree fully with Segal’s point of view. We shouldn’t rely only on ourselves since we need God to complete us and other people to thrive. However, I do believe there lies truth in the concept of trusting our bodies more to heal. Believing our bodies are able, is a prerequisite to good health.
Moving from stress to peace
When we believe in our bodies’ capabilities, we move into a mindset that enables healing. It allows us to enter into peace and let go of anxiety. This is a crucial step in our healing process since we enter a state in which our bodies function best.
When we are stressed, our bodies are in “fight-or-flight mode”. This means the main processes are paused (digestion, restoration, reproduction). I discovered that chronic stress was blocking my bodily processes. So the first step in my healing journey is to move from stress to peace.
As Segal puts it:
“Relaxation is the optimal state for healing”.
In short, Segal’s book is all about a mindset shift: From negative to positive feelings and thoughts and from limiting to empowering beliefs. She argues that negative energy causes many health issues. I’ve recently come to a similar conclusion that energy plays a big role in our health.
I experienced a lot of tension, criticism, and other forms of negative energy during my childhood. I didn’t find healthy ways to release it and I was lacking positivity in my environment. The negativity built up in my body and caused more and more health issues.
This is why I’ve been working on shifting from negative to positive energy to improve my overall health. I think Segal provides many useful guidelines to achieve this. I would, however, rely on the true divine healing powers of the Creator of the universe (instead of our “Divine Healing Intelligence”). But that is up to anyone to decide for themselves.
Segal’s ten principles for healing
In The Secret Language of Your Body, Segal describes ten basic principles for healing:
Health is your priority
Allow yourself to feel
Practice conscious breathing
Eat healthy and consciously
Keep your body moving
Listen to your body
Add fun and creativity to your life
Increase colors in your life
Practice gratitude
Prioritize laughter
Which of these ten principles could you use more of in your life? As you can see, the ten elements on the list include physical and emotional aspects of life; to promote a wholesome, harmonious lifestyle.
What I’ll focus on in the coming week
I’ve been implementing what I’ve read and already noticed positive changes. For instance, I’m paying more attention to the signs of my body and I take them more seriously.
To give an example, I often experience discomfort in my abdomen, like bloating. Segal’s description of abdominal issues sounds very familiar to me:
So I will be working on past hurts, future worries, feelings of insecurity, and fears of rejection, failure, and not being good enough.
Further, when my body tells me it needs rest, I’ll listen instead of ignoring it and going beyond my limits.
I’ll also take things less seriously and laugh and smile more. The other day I was tense and developed a headache. Then my husband made me laugh and I instantly noticed improvement. It’s amazing what laughter can do!
What are you doing to have a healthier approach to life? I’d love to know about your healthy habits!
If you’re looking for more materials on the topic of emotional and spiritual health, these are some recommendations from members of our community:
Several books on emotions by Karla McLaren
The Art of Spiritual Healing by Joel S. Goldsmith
Any other recommendations are always welcome! 😊
“we can heal ourselves fully” hallelujah ! This is a belief I hold true too but I didn’t know anyone else did 😆 it’s sooooo good to know I’m not the only one. I’ve recovered from complete disability by illness in 2018. I’ve only ever known pain at the highest end of the scale since 1998 and up until 2022.
Currently living with mild pain and only few symptoms (in the main). I’m at ease if I don’t improve further, I have a great life. Yet I still have this unwavering belief (and stacks of evidence) that I will only continue to heal further.
Prioritising my health and learning to let my body lead were game changers. I’ve created my own top ten ways to unleash the warrior within, based on processing the enormity of what I’ve endured to the depth and extent that I have which I’ve only recently shared so I’m yet to write about it in more detail:
https://warriorwithin.substack.com/p/i-learnt-the-hard-way-so-you-dont