A Blueprint for Healing
by Audrey Doepker

I was a girl who had visions of the white picket fence, the flawless husband, and two perfect kids. We would go to church on Sundays, golf on the weekends, and drink chardonnay on the deck with my best friends on Saturday evening. It would be an unblemished, spotless life. Right? I didn’t take into account the near fatal disease I would develop. Or that I needed to leave my husband when my two perfect kids were only five and seven years old. Or that I would be a single mom living paycheque to paycheque for more years than I care to count. I didn’t include the fact that career and life stressors eventually separated me from those great friends with whom I used to drink paralysers and laugh (turns out chardonnay was boring!).

I have done my share of healing in this life and I have had great success, for which I am very thankful. If I had to do it all again, what would I want to know about healing (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual)? I would want someone to tell me that there is an undeniable connection between my body and mind, and how my attachment to my past was making it difficult to move forward. I would want someone to take the complexity out of healing and make it much simpler. I would want that person to tell me to never give up! And I wish, when I was smack dab in the middle of my life, I would have known what I am about to share with you.

The first thing I must tell you is that your body is a master of communication! Have you ever had a fever or the flu? Or perhaps you’ve experienced goose bumps, or butterflies in your stomach? Perhaps you have heart disease, anxiety, or cried tears of grief or happiness. I will take this one step further and offer that your body is the perfect barometer to what is going on in your life. Every moment of every day your body is speaking to you, telling you if things are good, or not so good. It tells you when you are uncomfortable in a certain situation or with certain people. And it tells you when you are in love by the way you feel. I suffered for years with Crohn’s disease and felt much pain. But I did not listen. The body does not lie. The first step is to learn to listen to yours.

The second thing I must tell you is regarding an alternative philosophy that old emotions, experiences, and belief systems are stored in your body—in muscles, organs, and body parts. Seeing your body as a symbol (or metaphysically) can be very helpful in interpreting the reason for your aches and pains, injury or illness. For example, your back is all about support. Your knees are for moving forward in life. Your adrenal glands are all about survival, and they work hard every day. Consider where your issue lies and how that might be tied to what is going on in your life.

Once you know these two secrets, then number three is of utmost importance! Your body is nothing short of miraculous in its ability to heal itself! If you’ve ever cut your finger, broken a bone, or recovered from surgery, then you’ve experienced this without even thinking about it. Imagine the healing you can achieve by putting more focus into healing. I am blessed with this knowledge and it has helped me enormously in the dance with my disease.

There is a missing piece of the puzzle though. Through all the years of my healing journey, I tried everything to heal physically and emotionally. The realization that movement helped me to recover and feel great convinced me to become a personal trainer. That was not enough. So, I dove head first into meditation and the healing arts, becoming a BodyTalk practitioner and Reiki practitioner. I have been a committed and passionate teacher of mindfulness for over a decade. But in my experience, mindfulness hasn’t cured me. Mindfulness helps my body prepare for discovery, but it was not able to resolve my issues.

What I needed was to work through internal conflict, my past story, and why that was holding me back. I needed to get to know, love, and appreciate me. The answer, Life and Health Strategic Coaching. Personal coaching and training led to many an a-ha moment regarding the patterns I have had my whole life that I had not been able to see and “interrupt” on my own. Once you have uprooted some deep issues, you will release a tremendous amount of personal power—and now mindfulness, movement, healing therapies, and coaching strategies together have tremendous power to actually heal you. Healing is less about fixing yourself than it is a practice of letting go.

Sometimes not getting your life blueprint is the best thing that ever happened. Because the disappointment drives you to find something more important inside of you. Or, not getting it makes you search for another aspect of your life. A spiritual aspect maybe, a family aspect, a physical aspect, a healing aspect.
Trust that life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you. As I have found peace, I find I like myself more. What if you could heal yourself?

Audrey Doepker provides the missing pieces of the healing puzzle by offering a one-of-a-kind blend of training, Strategic Coaching, and healing tools to help you thrive. Whether working one on one (remotely or in-person), through speaking, groups, courses, or workshops, Audrey is dedicated to helping you grow, and getting you to that next level of health, no matter where you are in your journey right now. Ask her about Strategic Coaching! Look for Audrey’s Health Workshops coming this fall. 306-230-8315. Email: contact@audreydoepker.com or visit www.audreydoepker.com. Also, see the display ad on page 31of the 22.2 July/August issue of the WHOLifE Journal.