The division between your body and your mind is in your mind.

When I was in sixth grade, I started getting irritable bowel syndrome, terrible stomach cramps, diarrhea, having to run to the bathroom,

and I would get this mostly in school, such that it would start to disrupt my school days I'd have to go to the school

doctor's office and oftentimes they couldn't really help me they didn't know what was

wrong with me so they sent me home or called my mom or something like that and this was not just a once or twice type of thing this lasted through

All of middle school and all of high school all the way to the first year of university.

So for over six years this lasted.

And sometimes it was excruciating.

It was very painful.

It was also embarrassing.

It was also very inconvenient. having to run to the bathroom

And I had no idea what was going on why this was happening was the food that I was eating or what I tried various kinds of of medicines, but none of them really seem to address the rude issue.

Until one day, six years later, I was driving to university.

I remember this very vividly. In my car in the morning, I'm driving to university. I remember this very vividly in my car in the morning. I'm driving there and I had some big test like I usually do because I was really into academics getting good grades and I felt nervous I felt anxious and for the first time in six years I had an insight and the insight was

Could it be that my stomach aches are related to how I'm thinking about this test?

Could it be that I'm causing this rather than that is something that's happening to me? And in that moment while I was driving, I just kind of experimented with relaxing my mind, letting

go of thoughts about this test, and relaxing the stomach muscles and breathing deep and slow and I just did this for a few minutes while I was driving.

And in those few minutes, my cramping and the need to go to the bathroom,

it all completely resolved, went away, and I never had the problem ever again.

That's the power of body awareness and relaxation.

It's a very powerful thing that many of us don't really understand.

It took a lot of suffering for me to come to the insight

...