Reading Your Body's Wake-Up Calls

Anne: Hello.

Mel: Hey, and welcome to Coffee, Tea and Consciousness. We always want to say "conversation."

Anne: I always wanted to say that too. Yep, I'm Anne.

Mel: I'm Mel. Welcome to our nonsense — call it the, quote unquote, "fuck around" show. All right, today, Annie, what are we gonna talk about today?

Anne: I wanted to talk about some of the signs of awakening — some of the physical signs, I think. Because they can be mistaken. Maybe for some people it is what it is — it is a medical thing — but some of it is not.

Mel: All right, explain what you're talking about — signs of awakening. So if anyone out there thinks they're having a nervous breakdown — maybe you are, but maybe you're awakening to there being more than just this physical world. Annie's got some stories about this.

Anne: Okay. So one of mine is I'll lose hearing in an ear, and that's a sign for me — the buzzing in the ear, like a frequency in my ears. I was getting it where both ears would go out at the same time, and it would cause me vertigo. My mom said, "You've got tinnitus." So I went to an ENT, did all the testing — nothing was wrong. It did go away — well, both going out at the same time did. I didn't know anything about ears; I thought there was like a string connecting them. There's not. They're like your elbows or your knees — no connection. For them to do it at the same time, the doctor said, "That's unheard of. They're completely separate — one ear is its own entity." That confirmed for me that it wasn't a medical thing — that was straight-up spirit alerting me. Also the goosebumps — that's another sign for me. Yesterday I was having major stomach issues, and I got confirmation it was a release of an old part of me that I've outgrown. And Mel's had back issues.

Mel: Yeah. I don't know that I even know the signs of awakening, honestly. What I remember from our first spiritual awakening is I couldn't hold my head up at a normal standing angle — mine would tip back. So much pressure right at the top of the spine, the brainstem area. I looked it up and couldn't find anything on it. I'd have to walk around holding the back of my head with my hand. It was exhausting and annoying, and I still don't know why. I've talked to other people about it and never found anyone with the same thing. If anyone's listening and has had that — let me know.

Anne: I wonder if it was your kundalini.

Mel: Maybe. I also know the goosebumps thing — I used to think, "you just get goosebumps," are you cold, did the temperature shift. Here's an experience: Jimmy, the kids, and I were going to a movie, and we stopped at Sam's Club first. I'm walking through Sam's Club and suddenly I get this overwhelming feeling like we're broke. Now, we don't have a lot of money, but I was afraid to check out. I wanted to call the bank and check our balance — this was back when you had to call, I didn't know if you could even do it online yet. We left Sam's, went to a movie, and the whole time I couldn't enjoy it — all I could think was, "My God, we don't have any money, we're overdrawn, something is really bad about money." This went on for days. It finally stopped when I was at the gas station in the little town we lived in. A woman was at the pump across from me and said, "Hey — funny seeing you here twice in a week." I'd seen her at Sam's and now at the gas pump. And all of a sudden it hit me: it's hers. I thought, "This isn't even mine." So if you get an overwhelming sensation you can't explain, it might not be yours — it might be something you're reading. I didn't think of it at the time as "reading energy," I just felt like I was picking up someone else's signal. When we went in to pay, her card got declined — she had to try a couple of cards. I'm sure that was embarrassing for her, but it was confirmation for me: it wasn't mine, it was hers. Spirit used her as the experience to give me that confirmation.

Anne: That's when you picked it up.

Mel: That's when those things started happening — I'd just know things. My husband Jimmy is an engineer, and his purpose is stability. I couldn't understand why he'd start a conversation with one of our kids when I could tell they were already upset, even if they hadn't said anything or shown it. I realized — he just didn't know. I did. That's probably a sign: walking through the day fine, then suddenly not, and it's not about anything physical — you just know something's off.

Anne: You were picking it up. Yeah — like coming across a car accident once, I left with such a headache and thought, "That's not mine. That's that lady's."

Mel: Right. And when it happens like that — the first time, I remember clearly thinking, "You gotta take that away, it's not mine, I don't accept that." Now if I get a headache out of nowhere, I'll say, "That's not mine — you can take that away, clear that, please." Doesn't mean you have to send it back to whoever it's for, but it's not mine. Do you remember when I used to work as a courier and I'd pull over vomiting constantly? I wasn't sick — I knew I wasn't sick — but I couldn't stop. Some kind of energy moving through, I think. Not saying vomiting is a sign of awakening, but I've had experiences like that.

Anne: Releasing energy can show up as physical pain. I've watched people describe going to the ER, running every test, nothing shows up — because they're in the middle of an awakening. When we first started, after reading the book, I'd get tingles on the top of my head. My feet have been crazy too — I know now it's just energy moving. Feels a little nuts sometimes.

Mel: Yeah, I still get that sometimes. Anytime someone says they're having a midlife crisis — maybe they are. Maybe something's actually wrong and they should get checked out. We're not doctors.

Anne: Right — what I did for myself, I thought maybe I should go to the doctor, then I checked with tarot cards, asked a yes-or-no question, got a no, and thought, "All right, I'll let it ride."

Mel: Annie's new doctor is a tarot deck. I was thinking about going to the dentist, and she said spirit told her I didn't need to.

Anne: I'm just telling you my experience. I got confirmation there was energy moving, and today my belly doesn't hurt — and I'm eating Junior Mints, so there you go.

Mel: Through readings we've done, and from my own experience, sometimes pain is a sign something physical needs attention, and sometimes it's a sign something energetic needs attention. Go with your gut and take care of yourself — but sometimes... I had cluster headaches for years before I knew what they were. They'd put me in bed three to five days, a couple times a month. I used to be a marathon runner, led running groups. Jimmy took me to the ER once, they did a CAT scan — I thought I might have a brain tumor. Eventually a neurologist diagnosed cluster headaches. I believe everything is energy, maybe to a fault. So for years I asked, "What is this? If I'm meant to have these for the rest of my life, fine, I accept it." But I kept asking spirit to show me if it meant something I needed to notice.

Anne: Well, some of it can be tied to your chakras opening too.

Mel: It can be. But if you ask spirit, they have a way of showing you — if it's for you to know, they'll show you. For me, it was that I'd been trying not to be who I am, not saying hard things, or not saying them the way that felt true to me. I'd stifle it.

Anne: They do say disease is your body not being at ease.

Mel: Sometimes — not always. For me, I started getting eye pain specifically when I noticed I wasn't saying something I felt pulled to say, because I didn't want to hurt someone's feelings or sound like a know-it-all. Then I'd say the thing, and the pain would dissipate. Doesn't happen every time — I still keep my cluster headache medicine on hand. I'm not going to lay in bed for three days out of stubbornness. I do think some people's purpose is physical healing that medicine hasn't found yet. The other day I did a reading for someone with dizziness, neck pain, vertigo — she lives a mostly conscious life now. I'm not in her body, so who knows. I like to exchange energy, so I asked what I could do for her in exchange for some plant clippings she gave me. She wanted to know about her neck. I got connected and saw metal — I asked if she currently had metal in her neck. She said no. I think she's going to have a procedure at some point, not because she hasn't done the work, but because she has — spirit wants a clean channel, and there was damage from before she was open that needs addressing.

Anne: I'm not saying skip the doctor either — my mom's an ultrasound tech, always "go to the doctor," and I do too. I have thyroid disease, take medicine daily, had depression and anxiety, still take medication for that. I'm not against medical care. I'm saying some things you experience aren't purely medical — they're energetic. Sometimes energy gets stuck, which is why Reiki healers exist. When we first woke up, I found some energy-work shows online, and one exercise described a magnet pulling off anything that isn't yours or no longer serves you. I felt it leave.

Mel: I couldn't find that link when you sent it to me — I trust that now, but back then I didn't have the ears for it yet.

Anne: There was a study — people needing knee replacements, half actually got the surgery, half just got the incision without the replacement, and both groups did just as well, because it was a subconscious thing.

Mel: Mental. Right.

Anne: They needed to go through the motion to believe they'd feel better. Anyway — that's kind of my point, and the reason I brought it up is my stomach issues had gone away and then flared back up, and I got the message: let's talk about awakening symptoms.

Mel: I think if we could all just stay more curious about the possibilities... I had what I'd call a nervous breakdown last year — our business failed. I really believed I was meant to work hard. I loved working hard, was never the first one to go home, never shirked physical work. And my body kept breaking — since the year I met Jimmy, when I started running, my back started going bad. Physical therapy, massage, running clinics, marathons, specialists, special shoes — all of it.

Anne: I wonder — with the split-soul thing, is that part of what moved you into his house?

Mel: We haven't talked about that yet, but for sure there are layers to it. Spirit's shown me before — like one of those snow fences along the highway, blocking what you can't see — how everything's interconnected. There's never just one reason. I'm sure part of it was that I couldn't work physically anymore and ended up moving in with Jimmy. Part of it was that he was a runner and I fell for him. I've been working my whole life to prove I'm worthy.

Anne: A lot of people carry that — we're taught you have to work hard to get where you want to go, which is also kind of bullshit.

Mel: Total conditioning. For some people hard physical work is genuinely their purpose — the world needs it. But for me, my back breaking was pointing at something else. It's still hard to say out loud: I'm not meant to do manual labor. It's counterintuitive to who I built myself to be.

Anne: That's something I've been working on too — proving my worth through housework and caretaking while Tony worked. This past year I've been putting a lot of that down, asking why it has to be me who handles everything.

Mel: I actually loved the work — that was the tricky part for me. UPS, every day a race, and I loved it. For me it was a lot of "I loved working hard, I couldn't understand why my body was breaking." We ended up buying a pizza shop — I manifested it, working the idea like a job until it worked. And I manifested the most physically painful chapter of my life. I worked constantly, loved it, went in the middle of the night on purpose. It took five years of that, plus 15 years of running before it, before I started wondering if something wasn't right. It wasn't until I lowered my load that my back actually improved. If I overschedule myself now, my body tells me — frozen shoulder, whatever it takes. I knew I wasn't supposed to help my sister set up her business, told Annie as much, went anyway, and broke myself again that same day — crink in my neck, couldn't lift my arm, bruised a rib.

Anne: Physical pain is the only way to stop you.

Mel: Pretty much. My back was completely fine — until our daughter's family, after their rental burned down and they'd been staying with us, wanted to move out, and she asked me to watch the kids while she painted the new place. I knew I wasn't supposed to. That morning I agreed anyway, and we ended up doing this silly kid exercise routine — nothing strenuous, barely anything — and it still gave spirit an opening to remind me to stop. Then another day, same thing, watching the kids again when I knew I shouldn't be. Eventually I had to crawl backward down our stairs, crawl through the ER — Jimmy put me in the back of the car on a blanket. The whole time I knew exactly why it was happening. Nothing was medically wrong with me. I just hadn't listened when spirit said no, because I wanted to help.

Anne: You wanted them out on their own.

Mel: Exactly — I wanted them to have their own space, and I did enjoy the time with them, but I knew "no" and did it anyway. Even now, I remember not being "allowed" to do the dishes, which sounds bananas. I told Jimmy once, "I don't know how else to say this, but I'm being shown I don't have to earn your love by working myself into the ground." I like working. I miss running so much — I used to love it. Now, with the weight I've put on since menopause and an upcoming steroid course, my body looks different, and the truth is: I don't want to be in pain.

Anne: That's a sign for you.

Mel: Maybe you've got your own sign. The point is — stay open to something being different than you assume. Ask spirit to open the door so wide you can't miss it, which is what happened the day I said yes and got "jacked up" for it.

Anne: I didn't know anything about energy until our awakening. I found some online energy-healing sessions, and they'd walk you through an exercise, like imagining a magnet pulling off everything that isn't yours or no longer serves you. I felt it leave. I sent you the link and you could never get it to open.

Mel: Never. I trust that dynamic now — sometimes spirit just takes something from you, and sometimes it's "hey, you're not listening, so I'm going to knock on your door with your body." One time I drove to my father-in-law's knowing I wasn't supposed to go help — I was frustrated watching my husband feel stuck, even though he's allowed to be stuck. I'm a workhorse — put a plow on me and it'll get done. I told a friend beforehand I knew something was coming for going anyway. I got a lot done, left when I felt done, and later found out Jimmy and his dad undid everything I'd done because it wasn't what they wanted.

Anne: They're probably like, "are you gonna get it?"

Mel: It's so easy for me to rush in and just do the work. Spirit's response is usually, "Hey, lay down, lady — have a cup of tea, write a list instead."

Anne: It's the push in you — instead of letting things come to you. We've always been taught to push through, grit your teeth, want it badly enough. You proved that with the pizza shop — worked yourself to the bone with no reward for the pushing.

Mel: Not one bit. I used to joke about wanting my gravestone to say something about never quitting on a run — that girl "won't quit." It was part of my identity, and Jimmy said early on that my willingness to work was one of the things he liked most about me. Sitting still and doing nothing is genuinely painful for me. I don't feel like I need to prove my worth the way I used to, but if I judge myself for anything now, it's for not doing something. For a long time I'd ask Annie, "Can I do this today?" and the answer was always no — just sit in the swing, read another book. I read constantly that one summer, practically lived at the library.

Anne: You did read a lot.

Mel: I can watch a show, but I like to have my hands busy too — paint-by-numbers, even though they're never good enough to hang up.

Anne: Now you get to paint your paint-by-numbers.

Mel: To awakening. I don't know what it looks like for everyone else. Annie, you watch more videos on this — what stands out for other people?

Anne: The unexplained physical symptoms — going through the kundalini meditations, frequency music, I even bought tuning forks.

Mel: They're still in my Amazon cart.

Anne: A lot of it is emotional too, because it goes against everything we were taught — not for everyone, some people came in already aligned with it, but for most of us it means examining where our belief systems came from. Working hard to prove worth, doing things for other people even when you don't want to, just to prove you're worthy of something. I think the hardest part is that it goes against everything we've been conditioned to believe.

Mel: It's so easy to assume every uncomfortable body sensation is purely physical and needs a physical fix. I get it — it's easier for someone to just hand you a pill or a procedure. I take hormone replacement myself; losing estrogen made me genuinely volatile, and the patch helped. So I don't think medical care is wrong — we should absolutely take care of our physical selves. But I also think the timing of my menopause symptoms was meant to push me toward saying the things I'd been avoiding.

Anne: I had to do radiation to kill my thyroid, so there you go. You can take a symptom and ask, "What does this mean spiritually?" Sit with it and see if it resonates.

Mel: I haven't done that specifically, but it's worth trying — when I say "if this is mine, I'll live with it, but if it's pointing at something I need to notice, help me see it." I hope it doesn't take another ER crawl to get the message — especially over a kids' exercise routine. But if that's what it takes right now, okay. I try to listen even when it seems small, and ask for understanding, because apparently I need a big, wide-open barn door instead of a narrow one.

Anne: Our awakening's been — I don't know what's "normal" for anyone else. If you've had a spiritual awakening, what was yours like? We'd love to hear it.

Anne: I've also been going through what people call a midlife crisis, and I understand it better now. I lost myself in raising the kids, being a housewife — so rediscovering what I actually enjoy has been the work. People joke about midlife crisis "signs" like buying a sports car, but really it's about rediscovering what you like. I was told to just try things and see — maybe you like it, maybe you hate it, and that's useful information either way.

Mel: Or you try it and love it but keep stabbing your finger — that might be more my speed. Well, hopefully this was helpful, and hopefully you're willing to share your own experiences. We'd love to collect them.

Anne: That'd be nice. I like hearing other people's stories.

Mel: Me too — they're so varied.

Anne: You can see pieces of your own story in other people's, and it makes you feel less alone — because awakening is lonely. Engaging with people who aren't awake is genuinely difficult. Sometimes I get pulled back toward who I was before the awakening around family members who aren't on the same path, and I don't always want to get into a big conversation about it with someone who isn't going to wake up or doesn't want to.

Mel: It can be lonely doing this alone — and honestly, it can still feel lonely even with someone going through it with you, because everyone's experience is so individually tailored.

Anne: I went into a kind of box by myself for what felt like a long time. I'm finally reemerging — my cocoon's cracked open.

Mel: Look at you — caterpillar to butterfly. I've got a book of butterflies sitting right here.

Anne: A butterfly actually flew by just now.

Mel: Well, that's our little take on spiritual awakenings — or whatever else we ended up talking about. Thanks for listening, if you bothered.

Anne: Appreciate you.

Mel: We'll see you next time — on the flip side.