By the time I was twenty-one I was teaching meditation. It had become my way of life, my focus, and my healer. I had had a difficult childhood, with an emotionally abusive father.
Eventually, I was able to observe my feelings without identifying with them. This enabled me to heal an enormous amount of the pain and confusion.
Eastern medicine is based on detailed maps of energy, the meridians, that flow through the body. These maps chart the type of energy flow as well as where and how to access it. Each patient is also diagnosed according to the elements: earth, water, wood, metal, and air. Each element is seen as relating to specific functions in the body and when out of balance can manifest as symptoms. Illness is recognized as an imbalance or blockage in the flow of energy caused by poor habits, stress, or negative emotions. Balance is therefore sought through adjusting the energy flow.
In The Web That Has No Weaver, Ted Kaptchuk highlights this difference when he explains that a Western doctor will ask, “What X is causing Y?” while the acupuncturist will ask, “What is the relationship between X and Y?”
And Dr. Andrew Weil has made integrative medicine—which takes into account the whole person, not just the symptoms—completely mainstream through his books and medical practise.
Part One Finding Meaning In The Midst Of Chaos
One: MIND & MATTER UNITE
In other words, each part or system of your body is listening and responding to your mental chatter, your every thought and feeling. “We can no longer think of the emotions as having less validity than physical or material substance,” writes Candace Pert in Molecules of Emotion, “but instead must see them as cellular signals that are involved in the process of translating information into physical reality, literally transforming mind into matter.”
Pushed down it becomes illness, depression, addiction, or anxiety; projected outward it becomes hostility, aggression, prejudice, or fear. The clearest way to see how the mind directly affects the body is through stress. The cerebral cortex in the brain sounds the alarm whenever there is a form of perceived life-threatening or stressful activity.
When you focus on your fear about what might happen, it plays as much havoc with your hormones and chemical balance as when you confront a dangerous situation in real life.
SELF-PERCEPTION In itself, stress is neither good nor bad. Rather, it is how we respond or react to stress-creating factors that makes the difference. Some people will respond to pressure or crisis with an increased sense of purpose. Others will respond with panic, denial, or fear. Faced with a deadline, one may find it spurs him or her on to greater creativity, while another becomes frozen into inactivity. The difference is in our perception of our coping abilities.
Be aware of times when you are irritated or frustrated. Take note of where you are experiencing those feelings in your body. If you are stuck in a traffic jam, a client is late for an appointment, or the children keep interrupting your conversation, what happens to your breathing, shoulders, back, or stomach? Observe anxiety reactions. What happens in your body when you are worried or anxious about something (perhaps a child is late coming home, you have to give a presentation, or you are about to receive the results of your partner’s blood test?) Where do you hold the anxiety? What physical effect does it have? Do fears about the future create a pain in your stomach? Or in your legs? Watch your reactions. If your boss or your partner shouts at you, what happens to your heart, your head, your insides? Is your headache because you were shouted at, or because you feel insecure or angry? What do you do with angry feelings? Do you express them, or is there somewhere you put them? Do you swallow hard, clench your muscles, or get constipated?
Analyze illness and injuries. Think back to past illnesses or times when you were hurt. Note the parts of your body that were involved. Have you always held your stomach muscles in tight? Have you always had recurring headaches? Have you always hurt on the same side of your body?
WHO CREATES YOUR REALITY? There is one catch in all this: the more you understand the bodymind relationship, the easier it is to think that you must be responsible for everything that happens to you, that you are to blame for being ill, that you have brought this state upon yourself, even that you have “caused” your own illness.
However, the moment you start thinking you are responsible for your own reality in its entirety you develop an inflated sense of self, a belief that you are all-powerful. This generates egocentricity and self-centredness, both of which set the stage for guilt, shame, and failure.
Believing that you create your own reality—both cause and outcome—implies that “I” am in complete control.
You are not alone on this earth. Rather, each one of us is an essential component of an interwoven, interrelated whole that is constantly changing and moving. Reality is co-created through our mutual dependency. It is this intimate relationship with all other things that gives life its depth and beauty.
As Treya Wilber, quoted in Ken Wilber’s book Grace and Grit, says, While we can control how we respond to what happens to us, we can’t control everything that happens to us. We are all too interconnected, both with each other and our environment—life is too wonderfully complex—for a statement like ‘you create your own reality’ to be simply true. A belief that I control or create my own reality actually attempts to rip out of me the rich, complex, mysterious, and supportive context of my life … to deny the web of relationships that nurtures me and each of us daily.
Through illness your body is giving you a message, telling you that something is out of balance. This is not a punishment for bad behaviour; rather it is nature’s way of creating equilibrium.
But we do not need to identify with difficulties, whether physical, emotional or mental, or become the story they tell as, in essence, they are not who we are. We can be aware, do the inner work necessary, while staying connected with who we really are, which is free.
Two: THE LANGUAGE OF THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS
“The most common blocks are the negative attitudes that a lot of people carry around all the time … In order to become healed, a person has to throw out hatred, envy, jealousy, and other destructive attitudes and feelings. Although such factors start within the mind, they quickly manifest in the body, becoming a stiff shoulder, a sluggish liver, cancer, or other illnesses. I believe that all genuine healing addresses the problem of unblocking negativities in one way or another.”
PSYCHO/EMOTIONAL FACTORS Emotional pain is just as real as physical pain and can be far more invasive. Long-held resentments, anger, bitterness, hurt, fear, guilt, and shame, all play their role in debilitating your energy. You may feel shame or guilt for something you did or didn’t do, or long-held resentment or anger for something that was done to you. You may feel unworthy or lacking in confidence, overcome by fear or panic, helpless, depressed, or full of grief. You may spend many years building a wall around your heart in order to protect it from being hurt, but in so doing you also wall off your own feelings of love and passion. Eventually, you become isolated, locked into separation, unable to love for fear of being hurt, unable to forgive due to past resentment, unable to achieve success for dread of failure. All these feelings have their effect in the body: on your immune system, your blood circulation, your digestion, and so on.
This led to an increase in clogged arteries, except for one group of rabbits that unexpectedly displayed 60 percent fewer symptoms. It was found that the keeper of this particular group was very fond of rabbits and was holding and stroking each one before he fed them.
felt like I had not been hugged or touched for years. In rejecting food I was confirming the rejection I was feeling inside.
Falling in love eventually proved to be my healer. It brought up all my fears and anxieties, but my partner was unfazed by anything I threw at him. Slowly I learned how to open my heart, and it unleashed in me a tremendous desire to live.”
Therefore, every emotion that is repressed is invariably due to our experience of love—either being hurt and rejected by those we love or simply not being loved at all.
It also showed a far higher incidence in those who had experienced an ACE having negative habits such as drinking, smoking, overeating, or sexual promiscuity, behaviour that can be a way of self-medicating unresolved emotional pain. Emotions that are repressed, ignored, or denied, that never find expression, or were never fully acknowledged, are the ones that go deepest and need your greatest attention.
Many different emotions get repressed, such as hurt, anger, and betrayal, to name but a few. Every time you “swallow” your feelings you are potentially dooming them to repression or denial. Rage is the most obvious of the emotions to be repressed, whether arising from childhood trauma, from the way you have been treated, from the way your mother dealt with her rage, from the losses you have incurred, or the difficulties with which you have had to deal.
“To take responsibility for our anger means to relate to it instead of from it,” writes Stephen Levine. This is especially true for rage that is buried in the unconscious.
RAGE REVIEW Find a quiet place to be. Lie down and close your eyes. Follow your breath as you relax. Slowly begin to scan your body. Ask where your rage is stored. See if you can find those places where you keep your rage. Watch as rage arises. Observe the effects on your body, your mind, your heart. Can you hear what it is saying? Rage often acts as a mask. Beneath it you may find tender feelings of loss or abuse, of insecurity or fear, of intense grief or shame. Find these feelings. Give them a voice, accept them as a reclaimed part of you, and see what happens to the rage. Release. When you are ready, take a deep breath and let it go.
Grief is also repressed: grief at what has been lost or at what might have been but never will be. Few of us know how to fully grieve, thinking that we have to “pull ourselves together” or “get back to work,” without taking time to acknowledge the inner pain. That pain is real, and when repressed it can lead to heart or immune issues, or a change in eating patterns.
Emotions that are denied can disappear for a very long time, as denial is like a large and heavy blanket.
“Not only does the mind have strategies for walling off psychological conflict,” writes Marilyn Ferguson in The Aquarian Conspiracy, “it can also deny the illnesses from the first round of denial.”
The event itself may have gone, but the emotional impact can stay with us for many years, affecting us on the cellular level. As Stephen Belgin says, “Whatever we don’t bring to consciousness comes back to haunt us.”
Your body is constantly changing. Seven million red blood cells die and are reformed every second. Every seven years your body is completely rebuilt. So why are your cells reformed in the same pattern if that pattern is an unhealthy one? It is because the inner programming has not changed.
4). If you have a recurring illness, then see if you can relate the same questions to when you were previously ill, so as to find the issues that have not yet been resolved. In the past few weeks/months have you experienced more emotional stress than usual, such as conflicts with your spouse, parents, or children, or financial or job insecurity? In the past two years have you experienced anything traumatic or profoundly upsetting? For instance, have you been separated or divorced, had children move away, lost a close relative or friend, lost a job, or moved house? Have you been grieving or feeling particularly sad about something? Have you been feeling like a failure, unworthy, or invalid? Do you feel guilty or shameful? Are you beating yourself up for a past mistake? Is there anyone you want to get revenge on or make feel guilty for what they have done? Do you feel you are being punished for bad behaviour? Have you had this sort of illness before? Were you experiencing similar emotions at that time? (Try writing a brief synopsis of your life, noting any physical difficulties and illnesses you have had and any traumas or emotions that occurred around the same time.) What does the illness stop your being able to do? Does it stop your being able to make love, deal with conflicts, make decisions, or go to a family gathering? What does your illness enable you to do? Does it mean you can have time to yourself, avoid personal problems, or avoid unpleasant issues? Is the illness actually hiding a fear of failure or a lack of self-esteem? Have you been doing too much—or feeling unsupported—and not asking for help? Are you able to express your feelings, to say what your needs are? Does your illness mean you get extra attention? Is it keeping your partner there when he/she might have already left if you were well? Has your partner gone through a recent crisis or change? If so, have you acknowledged how you feel about this or how it affects your life? Do you like yourself? Do you care for yourself? Do you have time for yourself? Do you acknowledge that you too have needs?