What if the pain you're feeling isn't just physical?

Body Pain and the Body Blueprint

In this episode of The Holistic Health Show, Amy interviews Jodi Scholes, author of "The Body Blueprint." They discuss the connection between pain and emotional or mental stress. Jodi explains how traditional Chinese medicine views the body as a map, with different areas corresponding to different emotions and responsibilities. 
 
Listeners can learn how to explore the root cause of their pain by cultivating quiet space, asking their body questions, and utilizing the free "Body Blueprint Map" offered by Jodi. 

Key Points

• Traditional medicine often focuses on the physical cause of pain, while Eastern medicine explores the mind-body connection.
• The body can be seen as a map, with different parts representing specific emotions or experiences. For example, shoulder pain could be مرتبط (mortabet – connected to) with carrying the weight of the world (responsibilities).
• To understand the root cause of pain, it's important to cultivate quiet and listen to your body's messages. Techniques like meditation and breathwork can be helpful.
• The book "The Body Blueprint" offers exercises and questions to help people explore the potential emotional causes of their pain.
• Jodi Scholes provides a free "Body Blueprint Map"

About Jodi

Over the last 25 years, Jodi Scholes has put her hands on over 20,000 bodies. She has a deep understanding of the body and the hidden roots of pain. She shares that knowledge as a full-time speaker and educator.

In her wildly popular talk, ‘The Body Blueprint, How Our Pain Tells A Story’, Jodi reveals how pain is actually a messenger. Pain in not just physical. To truly heal we must look beyond the physical to the mental and emotional layers that could be causing the stress. She offers the current research as well as real life examples of clients that finally healed by listening to the story their pain was telling them.

LINKS TO OTHER SPEAKER RELATED INFORMATION
Body Blueprint Website: bodyblueprint.com
https://jodischoles.com/
https://www.instagram.com/bodyblueprint_social/
Teaching for a different population on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/ @JodiScholes  

Author:Amy (Host)
Guest Speaker:Jodi Scholes
Category:Health & Wellness, Alternative Medicine
Duration: [18.34]
Transcript: www.bodymindki.com/podcast

Transcript

[00:00:00] Amy: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Holistic Health Show. It's been a while and I'm really excited to be back with you today. We have another guest on the show, Jodi Scholes, and she's the author of Body Blueprint. Now, today we're going to talk about pain, and as you all know, I love it when the guests introduce themselves because who knows them better but them.

[00:00:21] Amy: So, Jodi, I'd love for you to hop right in and tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do, and talk about the book. 

[00:00:29] Jodi Scholes: Absolutely. Amy, thank you for having me. My name again is Jodi Scholes and I'm the author. I am 30 years a licensed massage therapist and I've drawn on that experience of over 20, 000 individual sessions to share some wisdom about the body in the book, The Body Blueprint. It is a book about how, well, the subtitle is How Your Pain May Be Telling a Story.

[00:00:57] Jodi Scholes: And so I love to dig beyond the surface, beyond just the physical pain and look at potentially the mental stress or the emotional stress that might be making the pain worse. And that's what this book explores. Something that in traditional medicine they call the biopsychosocial model. 

[00:01:18] Amy: our pain could be caused from something that's mental or emotional rather than, you know, I bumped my arm or something hit me. Of course, those things will cause [00:01:30] pain, but perhaps maybe there's a chronic pain with an underlying symptom that's not necessarily physical.

[00:01:36] Jodi Scholes: exactly. Exactly. And. In Eastern medicine, they talk about how the body is a map. And so that's why I named the book, The Body Blueprint because we can look at the body. And in fact, I love how the holistic health show intersects traditional medicine with other medicine, energy medicine and Eastern philosophies.

[00:01:59] Jodi Scholes: In traditional Chinese medicine, you know, we look at energy medicine and we look at the body in a little bit of a different way. And I invite the reader to explore what if a mental stress is showing up in the body in a very specific way. Can I offer an example? 

[00:02:15] Amy: Yeah, I would absolutely love that. 

[00:02:17] Jodi Scholes: so let's say for example there's shoulder pain.

[00:02:20] Jodi Scholes: Well, shoulders represent responsibility, the weight of the world on your shoulders. And so when there's chronic shoulder pain, we look at rotator cuffs and deltoid problems and joint problems, but then we also take a look at, Hmm, is there an imbalance in the responsibilities in your life?

[00:02:40] Jodi Scholes: Are there responsibilities that you have that you willingly took on, but now maybe are starting to kind of say, I wish I didn't have to do that. And so there are questions to be asked around each body part. And so for the shoulders, we look at the weight of the world on your shoulders, the responsibilities in your life and, [00:03:00] and where are the imbalances if there are any. 

[00:03:02] Amy: 

[00:03:02] Amy: And I'm thinking, 

[00:03:03] Amy: when you talk about The map of the body. My mind immediately went to, you know, the meridians. Like when you think acupuncture, it's kind of mapped out in a sense where they put the needles in specific spots for specific ailments. Is that what you kind of mean when you talk about the body as a map? 

[00:03:22] Jodi Scholes: Absolutely. So from a point of view that incorporates meridians, it also incorporates like the energy centers of the body, the chakra system of the body. And we know that when there are imbalances that it shows up as dis ease and sometimes as disease. But there is if you take the map out. out just a few more steps.

[00:03:47] Jodi Scholes: You see that Eastern medicine has outlined this stuff for like 2000 years, but in the West, or if we didn't grow up with Ayurvedic medicine, you know, those types of Eastern philosophies or traditional Chinese medicine we didn't, we don't get much exposure to that. Another kind of fun example is That's, you know, now and then my clients will come, Oh, I've got such a crick in my neck.

[00:04:11] Jodi Scholes: I've got such a crick, a pain in my neck. Well, what we find is that oftentimes that pain in the neck actually has a name and that in a metaphysical way, in an energetic way, it's manifesting in a physical way in our bodies. 

[00:04:27] Amy: I recently heard someone say, If you go to your [00:04:30] doctor and they're offering you tablets and tablets and tablets and not looking at the root cause, which is kind of where the Eastern medicine really falls into play, then you have a drug dealer, not a healer.

[00:04:41] Amy: And that was really, that really spoke to me. You know, , you see people just taking tablet after tablet and causing more symptoms, but never fixing. You know, maybe temporarily relieving pain and things like that. So when you're talking about This body blueprint, you're talking about getting down to the root cause, whether that be physical, mental, emotional. So what does that look like? If I come to you and I have shoulder pain and we start talking about my responsibilities or maybe this person in my life who has a pain in the neck, do you go from there? How do you begin that journey of discovery 

[00:05:19] Jodi Scholes: ? 

[00:05:19] Jodi Scholes: Oh, the loaded question, I love it. So we explore by going to the quiet. We explore by going into a time where there's no distractions. For some people that's meditation. For other people that's a walk in nature. And for some people it's the shower, because that's the only place in their life right now that, you know, things are quiet. 

[00:05:41] Amy: You know, I do my best thinking in the shower. Okay.

[00:05:44] Jodi Scholes: there's a reason that good ideas happen in that quiet space where there aren't interruptions. And so to cultivate some quiet is a great place to start. And we can even ask our body, what am I supposed to be learning? Is there a [00:06:00] lesson in this? If there's a lesson, please make it really obvious.

[00:06:04] Jodi Scholes: That's usually. The way I ask. I'm like, if there's a lesson in this, please, it's going to have to be super obvious. And to then listen, because we can ask and then, you know, get busy again, or we can ask and sit. And so even in maybe if yoga is something that, you know, is comfortable for your listeners, those are some places where we can really explore our inner landscape.

[00:06:31] Jodi Scholes: to see what, what's eating at me. I mean, cause isn't that all disease, something that eats at you. And so 

[00:06:37] Jodi Scholes: we bring that forward. So we start with the cultivating the quiet. Yeah. And then there's usually one answer that comes up all the time. 

[00:06:46] Amy: And that itself is a hard step, sitting in the quiet. I don't know if you saw this particular episode there was a woman on the show, Lindsey, and she had read, I don't know if it was a study or an experiment, but it asked people, what would you rather do, sit quietly with your thoughts for 15 minutes or receive an electric shock? And there was no definition of this electric shock. There was no saying of, you know, how high or how hard that shock would be. Most people selected the electric shock because they did not want to sit quietly with their own thoughts. And I found that really eye opening. And it can be hard. It's a difficult thing to [00:07:30] face yourself.

[00:07:30] Amy: You know, you face your fears, your doubts, you know, sometimes your, your reality as it is in the moment. It's such an important step. I really believe that in life we're presented with the same situation or we make the same mistakes until we learn from it. It may not be day after day after day, but if you find yourself in a similar situation, feeling the same way you felt last year, sometime, then, maybe you didn't learn from that lesson last year when it was presented to you because you didn't take the time to sit with it as you're saying. 

[00:08:07] Jodi Scholes: It's very true. Very true. And. We get the lesson over and over again until we get it.

[00:08:15] Amy: And isn't that frustrating?

[00:08:16] Jodi Scholes: You know, that's where the body comes in because then the body sometimes stops us in our tracks and says, no, you're not going to be able to go, go, go. You're not going to be able to wear 10 different hats.

[00:08:28] Jodi Scholes: You're not going to be able to be all things at work, all things at home, because we're going to stop you in your tracks. So that you have a chance to think about this and sometimes that's what's happening with chronic pain or with pain in general That it's the body trying to get our attention 

[00:08:46] Amy: It's kind of screaming at us, isn't it?

[00:08:48] Jodi Scholes: it It can be and sometimes it is a your appendix is about to burst, you know, yeah, sometimes it is that but more so It's a way that the body has to relieve the mental or emotional [00:09:00] stress , in fact, in the seventies, there was a movement to look for traditional Western medicine or traditional medicine to look at the biopsychosocial model.

[00:09:11] Jodi Scholes: And I write about that in the book and you mentioned, you know, Hey, if you go to the doctor and you know, all I want to do is give you a tablet, then how can we as patients, as clients. about how to initiate the conversation about, Hey, we got to look beyond my biology on this one. I'm really stressed out about this.

[00:09:31] Jodi Scholes: In fact gastro and technologists, so doctors who take care of the gastrointestinal track, the belly over and over again when I interviewed doctors who deal with dysfunction of the, of the digestive system, They told me that stress is a huge factor. Flareups of irritable bowel syndrome. We know this. 

[00:09:54] Amy: Yeah.

[00:09:55] Jodi Scholes: I mean, and so when we put two and two together, we say, okay, how can we impact the stress? Well, that's where we're gonna have to sit for a minute. 

[00:10:05] Amy: For some people, again, it's even harder than diet modification or lifestyle changes, it's the sitting with yourself. 

[00:10:12] Jodi Scholes: well and you in, in the entry level points of, of meditation or just sitting, we do kind of a body scan. And just see, okay, how's my body actually feeling? How am I feeling? And then we introduce the breath. In fact, in every chapter of my book, I give an exercise [00:10:30] to address the symptom, to address IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, to address neck pain, low back pain, to address these things.

[00:10:40] Jodi Scholes: And we have a series of questions in the book as well. That helped to investigate. Is this more than just physical? Is there a story? 

[00:10:50] Amy: And it's great that you offer that because you really do need guidance when on this journey, whether your experience, you've done it, you're used to checking in with yourself or not. Guidance really is key just to help you see a little differently perhaps than you would otherwise. And you mentioned about this check in and I'd almost encourage everyone listening right now.

[00:11:13] Amy: You know, just pause,, however you're listening, and ask yourself, when is the last time I took a second? and checked in with myself. And I bet you so many people will say, I've just been so busy. I haven't had time. I haven't done my meditation practice or my self Reiki practice, or, you know, my 10 or 15 minutes quiet walk, or even had a long hot shower.

[00:11:37] Amy: When was the last time you did that and listened to your body and your mind? You'd probably

[00:11:42] Amy: be surprised.

[00:11:43] Jodi Scholes: Beautiful invitation Amy to do to just pause and in that pause Consider the breath as well Sometimes just taking a nice deep breath holding it for two or three seconds [00:12:00] and Then exhaling Maybe even exhaling with a little noise, like,

[00:12:06] Jodi Scholes: it can help to reset the nervous system.

[00:12:08] Jodi Scholes: And that's where we get a little of that frantic energy, that frantic feeling is from our nervous system. So calming down our nervous system is very beneficial, even if it's only temporarily. 

[00:12:22] Jodi Scholes: , . And some, sometimes my clients are a little resistant, you know, about this whole body, you know, mind and emotions. And so I like to frame it in both ways, you know, that we, that we look at also the biopsychosocial. So in traditional medicine, in medicine itself, they look at our biology, they take blood tests, we get MRIs, you know they look at our biology.

[00:12:48] Jodi Scholes: But, when we look at the biopsychosocial, what's happening with our psychology? What's happening mentally? You know, are we facing a big deadline? Are we really having to stretch at work? Do we have to wrap our minds around something? And then also social, biopsychosocial. What's happening socially, have we lost a job, have we had to move and are we divorcing our partner?

[00:13:16] Jodi Scholes: Is there something happening , that there's a social pressure as well? Because these do affect our body's perception of pain. 

[00:13:23] Amy: And I think too, when you were talking about the social, I'm reminded of a over committing to [00:13:30] social events even, you know, it's, it's fun and it's relaxing to go with friends and socialize, but I find that there can be a line where you're over committing yourself and suddenly you feel like you have to be attending every event and. It's not going well for you, you're not getting your rest, you're, you're, you know, you're underperforming at work because you're tired and you're thinking about what you have to do next 

[00:13:56] Jodi Scholes: Yes, absolutely. You just dumping all that energy there was a, doctor in Japan who's researching. social pressures. In fact, he's researching something specifically called the broken heart syndrome that's now called Takasubo syndrome after this doctor and broken heart syndrome is when couples who've been married for quite some time and one of the partners passes away.

[00:14:22] Jodi Scholes: There's an uncanny phenomenon that The other partner too often passes away within six months. Colloquially, it's called broken heart syndrome and doctors are now studying it because this social change, this emotional event has actually caused a physical symptom. So, these are things that, you know, when we look at that social pressure.

[00:14:51] Jodi Scholes: Whether it be to dump all our energy or we've had a massive change that we, we went everywhere with the same person for the last 40 years and now we're going [00:15:00] alone. It's a real shift in the body's 

[00:15:02] Jodi Scholes: ability to adapt. 

[00:15:04] Amy: Jodi, I know that you are graciously offering listeners the map. The body blueprint map. And I want you to please direct them to where they can get that. 

[00:15:18] Jodi Scholes: absolutely. So the body blueprint map is a cheat sheet on what do the body parts mean? Yeah. And that can be found on my website. It's my name, jody scholes.com, or you can type in body blueprint.com to get to the same site. And on that site you'll see the body blueprint map. And when you sign up for my newsletter, you actually get a free PDF of the Body Blueprint.

[00:15:48] Jodi Scholes: Map the cheat sheet on. Okay. What questions could I be asking myself about the knees? About the low back, about the ankles, about the wrists. So all of these things, about headaches, about IBS. There are, so there's a cheat sheet that you can get to dig a little deeper to see if there's anything under the surface. 

[00:16:12] Amy: I'm going to go get that right now for sure and next time some of my friends complain about particular ailments, I think I might send them in your direction to have a look at this cheat sheet and see just what, what might be causing it. So thank you so much, that's really, that's a valuable PDF that you're sharing with everyone today.

[00:16:29] Amy: I [00:16:30] appreciate that.

[00:16:30] Jodi Scholes: You're very welcome. Yeah, it's like the the cliff notes for the book. Laughter.

[00:16:36] Amy: That's perfect. Everybody loves a CliffNotes version , but I am excited as well. I know that your book is currently for sale. Where do we get that?

[00:16:45] Jodi Scholes: Yeah, there's links on the website to both Amazon and Barnes and Noble, depending on where your favorite bookstore is. You can ask at your local bookstore for them to be ordered. They're globally available. The e book is also available. And in 2025, the audio book will be available too, in case that's your jam.

[00:17:04] .

[00:17:04] Jodi Scholes: . Plus we do some some guided meditations in the audio book that are of course written, you know, in the book. But I, I love the idea of being able to guide people through a meditation. 

[00:17:15] Amy: Yeah, I look forward to that. Jodi, is there anything else that you'd like to share with us today? 

[00:17:20] Jodi Scholes: You know, I just want to encourage people that there's always hope. We all know someone, well, I shouldn't say we all know someone, many of us know someone who is in chronic pain who is absolutely having physical symptoms. And yet, the doctors can't tell them why. And so, I would encourage people to maintain hope that the answers are on the way.

[00:17:42] Jodi Scholes: And and there is a pathway to, to, to health. To health and to a vibrant life. To pain free living. 

[00:17:50] Amy: Thank you, Jody, and I hope that that resonates with somebody listening here today. And for all you listeners, everything that Jody mentioned today will be linked in the [00:18:00] description of the episode, so you don't have to look too hard for it. But remember, you can always search bodyblueprint. com and you'll get straight to all those resources.

[00:18:10] Amy: Thanks again, Jody. I loved having you on the show today.

[00:18:13]