What messages might our bodies be sending through illness, disability, or limitation? What wisdom lies beneath the surface of our physical challenges?
Caroline Born, a movement practitioner with over four decades of experience, takes us on a remarkable journey through her 34-year relationship with a progressive hand disability. Rather than pursuing surgical interventions to "fix" her contracting fingers, Caroline chose a path less traveled—treating her body as a messenger carrying profound wisdom.
Through a practice called the Life Art Process, Caroline has created 50 paintings and drawings of her hands, translating her somatic experience into visual expression. This "kinetic visualization" allowed information to emerge that surprised even her conscious mind. "The symptom has been a gift," she reflects, acknowledging that without this physical challenge, she wouldn't have deepened her self-understanding in such meaningful ways.
What makes Caroline's story so compelling is her radical honesty about the emotional landscape of disability. When asked if she loves her hands, she responds: "That's the journey. I have hated them and I have loved them." Her exploration led her to discover unexpected connections—rage stored in her shoulder blades, dreams offering guidance, and the fascinating link between her little finger (the first to contract) and the heart meridian in acupuncture.
Most remarkably, Caroline's progressive condition stopped progressing after five years of deep embodied work. This outcome wasn't achieved through focused effort to "fix" the problem, but through a process of creative engagement and acceptance. "No change—that's what's changed," she observes with profound simplicity.
Caroline's journey illuminates the crucial distinction between curing and healing. While curing typically involves a single intervention aimed at removing symptoms, healing encompasses a more comprehensive process of transformation. By listening to her body instead of attempting to silence it, she discovered a pathway to peace that transcends our cultural obsession with perfection and fixing.
Have you considered what messages your own body might be sending? What would change if you approached your physical challenges as invitations rather than obstacles
Course Content
Organisation
This learning is avaibale in Onlinevents FREE Student Hub. Access Curated Content From Onlinevents ProfessionalDevelopment Library to Support Your Training & Professional Growth
Presenter
Malcolm Stern has worked as a group and individual psychotherapist for more than 30 years. He was a co-founder of Alternatives at St James’s Church in London and runs groups internationally.
He is the author of Falling in Love / Staying in Love (Piatkus 2004) and Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020). He co-presented Channel 4’s relationship series, ‘Made for Each Other’ in 2003 and 2004 and sailed on the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ with Greenpeace in the 1980s. The book he is currently writing is an exploration of the shadow and its necessity in our evolutionary development.
To become equal to the dream sewn within us, our heart must break open and usually must break more than once. That’s why they say that the only heart worth having is a broken heart. For only in breaking can it open fully and reveal what is hidden within.” – Michael Meade
This is a series of podcasts based on the premise explored in Malcolm Stern’s acclaimed book of the same name, that adversity provides us with the capacity to develop previously unexplored depths and is , in effect , a crucible for self reflection and awareness. Malcolm lost his daughter Melissa to suicide in 2014. It slowly dawned on him over the following few years that he was being educated and an opportunity was being presented where new insights helped him forge a path through his grief and despair. As part of that cathartic journey, he wrote “ Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020 ) where he was able to describe some of the practices that had helped him shed light on a way through the darkness.
