HEALTH | Uncovering the Mind-Body Connection Causes of Health Conditions
Over one billion prescriptions have been given out in England each year since 2014, which, incredibly, is small in comparison to the USA, which currently leads the way as the most prevalent users of prescribed drugs. Consuming 75 percent of all pharmaceuticals, despite only making up 5 percent of the world population. Millions of people are heavily reliant on drugs, which is regrettably unsurprising due to what we’ve been conditioned to believe about health and healing.
Growing up, at the early signs of sickness, my I would be taken to the doctor’s surgery to be given a diagnosis and pick up a prescription. Sound familiar? The consequence of this conditioning is an unhealthy dependency on doctors and a helplessness to heal without the popping of pharmaceuticals.
Go beyond the conditioning to be a victim to conditions
When you fully appreciate the immense and immediate impact that your mind is always having within your body and life, it becomes clear that physical wellness and emotional well-being are intimately connected.
Consequently, physical health complaints don’t necessarily have purely physical causes and unhealthy beliefs and emotional unease can be the common hidden causes to many chronic physical conditions and persistent life problems. Ignoring the underlying causes is a bit like attempting to flatten a turbulent river without first removing the jagged rocks sitting below the surface; you can try all you like, but without removing the rocks it’s going to make very little long-term difference!
Medical professionals, taught by classical institutions, are often trained to view the body as separate from the mind and focus on finding physical reasons for physical conditions. Diagnoses are generally given based upon the collection of symptoms showing up within the body. If you have swelling, stiffness and pain in your joints, then you’ve got arthritis. If you have tiredness and weight gain then your thyroid may not be working properly.
Or if you have abdominal pain, bloating, cramping and/or undesirable bowel habits, you’ve developed Irritable Bowel Syndrome (I.B.S.), which his commonly said to be caused by food intolerances or stress. Although it sounds like these medical labels are providing diagnoses as to why you have the condition. Upon examination, these explanations are not diagnosing the cause, but are only offering a medical name for your group of symptoms or diagnosing symptoms of other symptoms, with the real root-cause(s) remaining unknown.
Look beyond medical labels to explore the hidden cause
When working with clients with physical conditions, I will usually begin by asking what diagnosis they have received from their doctor. Then, having been given the medical name for the condition, I will enquire what they were told is causing their issue, with the answers usually including: age, ‘wear and tear’, ‘because it just happens’ or ‘bad luck’. For me, these answers do not satisfy my curiosity when wanting to understand why.
Taking the above examples further: being informed that you have painful joints because you have arthritis is not being told the cause; it is only being given a name for your symptoms. Or receiving the diagnosed of a thyroid condition as the cause of your weight gain or I.B.S. due to food intolerances also falls short. Why has the thyroid stopped functioning or why has the body become allergic to certain foods? When you get the answers to these questions, you move much closer to finding and resolving the cause, which is often a conflict experience.
Understanding your mind-body messages
Due to the immaculate mind–body interconnectedness, your body is constantly responding and adapting to the mental and emotional climate in which it exists. With the prime objective of surviving, it does everything it can to sustain life.
Now I accept this may not always appear to be the case, especially if it looks like your body is malfunctioning, feels faulty or is heading in the direction of its own demise. However, if you take on board that your body is not against you, then you can be in a better position to understand why it’s doing what it’s doing and help it to function how you want.
Think of your body, as your life-long friend who’s doing its best to keep you safe and encourage you to live fully and completely. Knowing your body is on your side, you ask better questions. Instead of feeling a victim you know your body is on your side and ask: What is my body trying to tell me with this physical condition?’ What in my life is causing my body to adapt to help keep me safe? How might my body be mirroring something in my mind or life right now?
To help you move into a more inquisitive mind-set for understanding the different ways the body adapts to survive, let’s explore some examples that have come from my observations during clinical practice:
Psoriasis - The body is creating an extra thick skin. The skin is the external line of defence. Commonly, people I meet with symptoms of psoriasis are feeling under attack, bullied or have unresolved past events that have caused them to fear for their survival. To explore this, you could ask: Why might my body believe it needs to create a thicker skin? Who have I felt, or do I feel, bullied by? Where in my life do I feel threatened or under attack?
Constipation - The body is holding on and/or not letting go. Very often people who want my help to heal constipation are attached to someone or something in their life and/or resisting letting go. A loved one may have died and the person is still mentally and emotionally attached to them. Or they are scared about or resistant towards losing someone or something important to them. For instance, this may also include worrying about losing a pet, a home or a job. Or they may have concerns around not having enough money for example, which is making them hold on to the limited funds they’ve got. Overall, their body is reflecting the tendency to hold on and/or not let go. To investigate this, ask: What am I holding onto? What am I not willing to let go of? What am I worried about losing? What’s happening in my mind or life that would make my body hold on?
Fatigue - The body is lowering its energy levels. It is common for people presenting fatigue to have a situation in their life that they feel they have failed to fight or can’t stand up to. They’ve also tried to ‘flight’ by running away, but feel stuck and unable to get away. So the body has turned to the third way of protecting itself by freezing i.e. playing dead. One way it does this is by reducing energy levels. Retreating to rest with the intention of getting away from the past or present person or situation is therefore a common cause of fatigue. To explore this, ask: What have I been struggling against in my life over a prolonged period? What in my life have I not faced up to or got away from? What stressful situation(s) do I feel stuck with?
These are a just three quick examples to illustrate the incredible ability of the body to adapt to the emotional and environmental conditions that it encounters. I hope they help you to start exploring the stunningly symbolic ways in which the body changes to help you stay safe and sustain life. Ultimately enabling you to get calm with the life issue and help your body function in a more preferred way.
Questions for exploring the possible mind-body connection cause:
What is happening within my body, i.e. what is my body actually doing?
If the physical condition was trying to send a symbolic message to me, what might it be saying?
If the physical condition was a negative emotion, what emotion would it be?
How does having the condition make me feel? Where in my life have I been feeling this way and what's been happening that I do not want?
How might my body be mirroring my life?
What was happening in my life during the 12–18 months leading up to when I first noticed the physical condition? What bad things were happening? What good things were happening? What problematic situation was resolved?
Here’s a helpful video sharing 3 ways to use these questions to move from feeling helpless to being empowered to heal. I hope you find it helpful.
