The Bridge to the Body Cards
Your Body Remembers What Your Mind Forgets
One of the most revolutionary insights in Elevating Your Origins to Love is Susan Drury's understanding of the body as a living map of our entire life experience. This is not metaphor. It is a description of how the body actually works. Every experience we have - from the moment of conception through birth, infancy, childhood, and beyond - is recorded not only in the brain but in the tissues, the fascia, the organs, the bones, and the fluid systems of the body. The body is a library, and every cell is a book.
This understanding, developed through Susan's decades of practice in cranial sacral therapy, shamanic healing, and hands-on bodywork, forms the foundation for her Elevated Body cards - a set of twenty-one cards, each corresponding to a major body system, that serve as a practical tool for accessing and healing the stories held in the body. The book provides the theoretical and experiential foundation; the body cards provide the daily practice.
Susan explains that different body systems hold different types of experience. The heart and circulatory system hold our experiences of love, connection, and heartbreak. The digestive system holds our experiences of nourishment, assimilation, and what we could or could not "stomach." The skeletal system holds our experiences of structure, support, and what we have been "carrying." The respiratory system holds our experiences of breath, freedom, and the space we have been given - or denied - to exist. Each system is a chapter in the body's autobiography, and learning to read these chapters is a deep act of self-knowledge.
Reading the Body's Story
Susan describes how she learned to read the body's map through her cranial sacral practice. When her hands rest on a client's body, she can feel the places where energy flows freely and the places where it is held, restricted, or blocked. These restrictions are not random. They correspond to specific life experiences - a birth trauma held in the cranial bones, a childhood loss held in the heart space, a pattern of suppressed anger held in the jaw and shoulders. The body tells its story through sensation, rhythm, and the quality of tissue under the practitioner's hands.
"Your body is the most honest storyteller you will ever encounter. It cannot lie. It cannot pretend. It simply holds what is true, waiting patiently for you to listen. When you learn to read the map of your body, you discover the complete story of your life - and within that story, the key to your healing."
But you do not need to be a trained bodyworker to begin reading your own body's map. Susan's book includes guided practices that help you develop body awareness - the capacity to notice sensation, tension, openness, and restriction in your own body. She teaches you to bring gentle, curious attention to different body areas and to listen to what they have to tell you. This is not analysis. It is listening - the same quality of listening that the Tao Te Ching describes when it speaks of the sage who "listens to the belly rather than the eye."
The Elevated Body cards extend this practice into daily life. Each morning, you can draw a card and spend time with the body system it represents - bringing awareness to that area, noticing what you feel, and allowing whatever needs to surface to do so. Over time, this practice creates a deepening relationship with your own body that transforms not only your health but your entire experience of being alive. You begin to inhabit your body in a new way - not as a machine to be managed but as a wise, living partner in your journey of transformation.
Body Systems and Their Stories
Heart and Circulation
The heart holds our deepest experiences of love, connection, heartbreak, and belonging. When the heart space is open, we feel alive and connected. When it is guarded, we may feel isolated even in the company of others.
Digestive System
The gut holds our experiences of nourishment, assimilation, and what we could or could not 'digest' emotionally. Digestive issues often reflect unprocessed emotional experiences that the body is struggling to assimilate.
Skeletal System
The bones hold our experiences of structure, support, and what we have been carrying. Chronic back pain, for example, may reflect the weight of responsibilities or expectations that were placed on us before we were ready to bear them.
About the Author
Susan Drury - Reading the Body's Wisdom
Susan Drury has spent over thirty years learning to read the body's map through cranial sacral therapy, shamanic healing, and hands-on bodywork. Her Elevated Body cards - a set of twenty-one cards corresponding to the body's major systems - are the practical expression of this understanding, offering a daily practice for anyone who wants to develop a deeper relationship with their body's wisdom.
Explore the body's map through the Elevated Body cards, private sessions, or Susan's membership program.
Learn More About SusanFrequently Asked Questions
How does the body store experiences?
Experiences are stored in the body through multiple mechanisms: the fascia (connective tissue) holds physical and emotional tension, the organs store emotional patterns, and the nervous system maintains a complete record of every experience through neural pathways and somatic memory.
What are the Elevated Body cards?
The Elevated Body cards are a set of twenty-one cards created by Susan, each corresponding to a major body system. They serve as a daily practice tool for developing body awareness and accessing the healing wisdom held in each system.
Can I develop body awareness on my own?
Yes. Susan's book includes guided practices for developing body awareness. The Elevated Body cards provide a structured daily practice. And Susan's courses and membership program offer ongoing support for deepening this work.
How does this connect to the book's other teachings?
The body-as-map teaching is the bridge between the book's theoretical framework and the practical application of the Elevated Body cards. It shows how the neuroscience, the Tao Te Ching wisdom, and the healing modalities all converge in the body itself.
Begin Reading Your Body's Map
Your body holds the complete story of your life - every joy, every wound, every moment of grace. Learning to read this map is one of the most striking acts of self-knowledge you can undertake.