I was listening to an interview with Adam Heller, the founder of the hugely successful Zero Pain Now pain relief program. I started reflecting on some of the things he spoke about, like the fact that repressed emotions cause physical pain. In a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine, researches found that pain is almost never caused by a physical injury. They did an MRI on a group of people who had never had back pain and found that most of them had some abnormality in their physical structure, like a herniated disc. Despite their physical condition, these people had never experienced pain in that area of their bodies.
Many of the most kind and gentle souls I know have learned to repress their anger and hide their pain.
If pain isn’t caused by a physical problem, what’s causing it then? Many of the most kind and gentle souls I know have learned to repress their anger and hide their pain. Emotions cause a reaction in the body and repressed emotions don’t just magically disappear. Just try it for a second. Close your eyes and think of a time you were really sad. Imagine it as vividly as possible. How does it feel in your body and where do you feel the sadness? Now white out the image in your mind and switch to another memory. This time, relive a time when you were super excited or perhaps deeply in love. Now feel your body. Notice how different the sensations are? These reactions are caused by the different brain chemicals that these memories, and the emotions related to these memories release into our bodies. They also cause physical reactions. When we experience anger for example, our blood vessels contract, allowing for less blood to flow to our tissues, therefore providing less oxygen to the body. This contraction can be felt as pain. If we continue to ignore the pain and the emotions behind the pain, we can end up having a serious health challenge.
This is all familiar to me, as I’ve been working with people helping them release painful memories and limiting thought patterns for many years now. My own repressed emotions caused me to have recurring bladder problems that wouldn’t heal with antibiotics, because there were no bacteria to get rid of! My doctor was baffled when he saw my lab results: there were no bacteria, but still I was having classic symptoms of a urinary tract infection. Intuitively I already knew it was an emotional issue, but wanted to get it checked out. After the diagnosis I turned to alternative medicine that would help me deal with the emotional issues that were causing my symptoms. My daughter had the same kind of bladder problems when my mother was dying. The lab tests showed no signs of infection. I helped my daughter heal herself in 5 minutes using a very simple guided process that cleared the real reason behind the problem.
Long before we experience physical symptoms though, we usually suffer emotionally and mentally. Being very giving by nature, spiritual or religious, dependable and kind, puts us at greater risk of repressing anger, resentment, jealousy, irritation, and other feelings we have trouble accepting. Being kind and considerate, dependable and giving are all very admirable traits, but we should be able to allow ourselves to have all kinds of emotions. It’s only human. In my experience, women are more likely to repress their anger because many of us have been taught to be kind, play nice and not be aggressive. This can lead to passive aggressive behavior, difficulty defending ourselves, setting our boundaries and asking for what we want. How can we expect to get want we want out of life, if we never ask for it?
How can we expect to get want we want out of life, if we never ask for it?
I watched my mother repress her negative emotions all her life. She was very gentle, loving and caring towards everyone else but herself. She would put everyone else’s needs before her own, did not know how to defend herself in a positive way and never had the courage to go for her dream of being a writer. Often I could see that she was stressed or sad, but she would put on her happy face for us. Four days after her 57th birthday she died of cancer. I would have preferred her angry and alive!
So what did I take away from this painful loss? I realized I had learned the same pattern of emotional repression from my mother; I was way too kind and allowed people to take advantage of me in the fear that otherwise they would not love me. I was overly conscientious and took on the responsibilities of other people. This finally got me to a breaking point mentally and physically. I was anxious, stressed out and emotionally unstable, and I started having all sorts of infections; urinary tract infections, eye infections, bronchitis, allergies… It took a while to get to the bottom of what was causing everything, as I had over 30 years worth of stuff to clear, but by releasing emotions I started getting my health back. What’s even more exciting is all the energy and determination I now have to go for my dreams in a big way. All the life force energy that was blocked due to emotional baggage can now flow freely.
In addition to ThetaHealing® I’ve been using a process called The Antidote vigorously to heal past hurts. In the past I’ve also used Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness, as well as EFT or Tapping. The most influential of the different techniques I’ve used for emotional healing is by far Dawn Clark’s work that gets rid of the toxic emotions at the core level. It is my sincere hope that you find the tools to help yourself clear the things that are holding you back so that you can go for the things you want in life.
Wishing you health and happiness!
