It’s All In Your Head. And Your Hips and Your Haunches and Your Heart. Pain Part 3.

Psychosomatic pain is a real thing. Psyche refers to the mind. Soma refers to the body. Our minds can cause pain in our bodies, but that doesn't mean that you're imagining the pain. It's very real.

Trauma, toxins, and thoughts waft through our being at every level. Our cells are affected, our cells build our bones, muscles, organs. We are all a magnificent, miraculous conglomeration of cells. Imagine your cells like little factories, working 24/7 to keep your bad self functioning. Now imagine your little factories being infiltrated by stinking thinking causing the equivalent of economic disaster.

Having an unproductive, negative focus on past events can affect our bodies like they are happening today. The painful memories that we continually pull up can create lots of problems in our physical bodies. Having ruminating thoughts means that you frequently recall and get stuck in past events that caused you stress. The trouble is your mind doesn’t know the difference between a past memory and a current thought. That’s why we still cry remembering a heartache of long ago, but it’s also why we laugh recalling joyful moments. Past memories create present emotions.

We all know someone who has had an ailment that is impacting their daily lives. They go from doctor to specialist to healer for tests, medications, treatments, all to no avail. They can’t find anything wrong.

An MRI isn’t scanning traumatic memories. A CT scan isn’t imaging pain and suffering caused by shame and guilt.

The physical pain caused by these ruminating thoughts is real and the cure to these internal causes of pain is right in there beside the toxic troubles.

High blood pressure. Headaches. Back pain. Visual disturbances. Joint pain. Gut issues. Heart problems. Shortness of breath. Swallowing trouble. Fatigue. Insomnia. Anxiety. Weight issues.

Inflammatory responses to troubled minds, broken hearts, gut wrenching sorrow and the weary aftermath of carrying the weight of the world are a reality for many of us.

Empowering patients to explore this isn’t really a strong suit of the mainstream medical community. Finding the right provider is often key to finding relief, one that listens to you and after ruling out a physical cause of an issue, is willing to explore other root causes. If your health care provided reports to you that they can’t find anything wrong with you and stops there, it’s time to move on to another one. I know that can be a struggle since the US government has granted the power of choosing a doctor to insurance companies, don’t even let me go there.

The point is, if your doctor says, “I can’t find anything wrong with you”, and stops looking, then there is something wrong with them. You already know what is wrong with you, you have pain and suffering. Ruling out a physical cause is always going to be the first route, but when exhausted, it’s time to explore other origins. I encourage you to explore the possibility of a psychosomatic cause of chronic pain.

Storing the emotions stirred from events of the past can settle anywhere in your body and cause a myriad of symptoms. While conventional treatment can be very helpful, it may not get to the root cause. If you’re bleeding, you need to stop the blood loss first, but a bandaid won’t fix internal bleeding. So in addition to addressing the physical symptoms, exploring some techniques and tools to address the emotional issues is key to healing.

I have known my share of pain and suffering, and I have done a lot of work focusing on relieving the suffering through mind~body practices. At 15 I had duodenal ulcers causing chronic vomiting. I have suffered abdominal pain related to Crohn’s that I can only compare to labor pain. I have dealt with the inflammatory responses in my body resulting from a chronic illness.

Since I was a little girl I have lived with anxiety that has led to dermatillomania, which for me was chronic finger picking. I picked my thumbs to the point of bleeding and swelling. The throbbing pain of raw bloody thumbs has jerked me out of sleep. I have experienced depression that made me question my existence.

I have also had a doctor and family members explain to me, as a teenager, that I just have a low pain tolerance. This lead me to believe that I should be able to somehow handle any pain that came my way, and it lead to me focusing on storing and hiding instead of sharing and healing.

I have tended to collect and store trauma, toxins and thoughts in my belly. From an energetic perspective, my gut, my sacral chakra, the seat of my soul has historically had a weak disposition. It doesn’t anymore. I’ve done a lot of healing work, a lot of hard work to overcome the root cause. I have used many techniques to get here, I’ve also surrounded myself with people, places and experiences that strengthen me more and stress me less. My gut is strong and plays a leadership role in my life. It is a testament in overcoming and persevering. I want to share with you an exercise that played a big role in helping me to move towards a healing lifestyle.

Through a guided meditation which led me to explore symptoms of anxiety and chronic gut issues, I was able to actually visualize and bring to life the pain and suffering. I virtually discovered a lead ball, a muzzleloader bullet, in my gut. At first it was huge, like a display that filled a room in a museum, complete with velvet ropes to keep me out. But I walked through the ropes and got up close and personal with this thing. It was cold and dark and when I touched it it was damp with a gun metal gray residue. I walked around it and put my hands on it and I asked it questions.

The more time I spent with it the smaller it got, until I was able to pick it up and put it in a basket and move it to a safe place. A place outside of me but accessible to me. It was really heavy and I struggled moving it and I knew I would come across it again, and it would cause that familiar feeling of a lead ball in my belly, but I also now had the power to recognize it and sit with it and talk to it and then put it back in the basket until the next time.

This practice also empowered me to look at ways that I could heal the damage done by carrying this lead ball around in my body for most of my life. Minimizing dairy, avoiding gluten, eliminating most processed and unhealthy non-food substances allowed the irritation to begin to heal.

Meditation, yoga, breathing practices, prayer, exercise, journaling, also became balms to sooth the wounds in my core by interrupting the loop of negative thoughts and the playback of painful memories. These practices, done with intention, can rewire the mind body connection to create a healthier flow that fosters healing.

It isn’t easy to deal with the emotions that have been imbedded in our cells for years, it hurts all over again, but the cure is always in the cause. Leaning into the pain is scary for sure, sitting in the stench of our own proverbial shit sucks, but the other side of the suffering is worth it. Guided meditation through the shit storm was the first step of navigating my own personal process of healing.

I have clients who have discovered the union of emotional pain and physical symptoms through guided meditation, yoga Nidra and breath work. One client experienced a really big, thick black rubber band around her chest that she was able to remove and put in a shoe box. Another uncovered a thick, black crude goo that surrounded his heart and caused anxiety driven chest pain, which he was able to clean and collect in buckets and set outside of his body in a safe secure spot.

These unresolved emotional issues continue to create stress in our minds and our minds share that stress with our cells and our cells are the building block of our bodies. Chronic emotional turmoil can lead to oxidative stress which can cause a whole lotta trouble in our bodies, think of oxidative stress like environmental elements that cause our bodies to rust, metaphorically speaking. Imagine your little factory cells being dilapidated and out of order.

If pain and suffering can have these negative effects on our minds and bodies, then joy and peace and calm can have positive, soothing and healing impact on us as well. It’s time to switch it up, guys. That giant room sized lead ball is now the size of a marble that I can roll around my fingers and hands.

I am now dealing with the effects of storing these emotions in my cells, like boxes of worn and dusty pages sitting in the spiritual attic of my soul, my hips. It’s why I practice yoga, massage and other body work. Stay tuned for the finale of this series where I share how I am discovering and leaning into pain in order to release and let go of years of stuck shit, figuratively speaking.

Recognizing and working through the emotional pain can open the door to then releasing the feelings that have settled into the cells to begin healing the physical symptoms.

It’s imperative for our health that we learn ways to discover, explore and heal this malfunction. There are many options and I encourage you to research, reach out and realize that you have the responsibility to take care of yourself, you also have resources! We can help you find the tools to build a healthy mind, body, spirit through self exploration.