To truly begin to unravel the complicated puzzle of my own physical illness, I had to open my mind to a new way of perceiving my whole being. I liked what I was reading from all these various books, but I had yet to fully grasp the truth of it within my own self. Luckily, experimenting with techniques that come from the mind and result in mental strength is a win-win proposition. I decided it couldn’t hurt to explore the power of my own mind and venture into new areas of understanding – it wasn’t like I was mixing medications. I set out to experiment with my own body and my newly awakened mind.

Needless to say, as you might have surmised from the general message of my blog, the results were astoundingly successful. From where I sit now, on the other side of the process, I can fully see and understand the true power of mind-body healing. I have more than just my excitement, conviction, and hope. Now, I have the final piece of my own learning puzzle: experience. From this perspective, I can share clear and hopefully helpful information with you. Having blazed the trail in front of you, I hope to shorten your journey by sharing the tools and understanding I gleaned from my own experience.

The whole equation begins with emotion. Many of us, my past self included, do not deal with negative emotion in a helpful, effective way. I spent most of my life trying to avoid negative emotion as much as possible. I hated hearing about misfortune, tried not to cry or “break down” in public, kept my emotions on a very short leash, and in general ran like hell from facing anything emotionally uncomfortable. Unfortunately, what I did not realize was the impossibility of truly escaping negative emotion. Emotion is part of the human experience, and negative emotion does not leave me just because I don’t want to face it. In fact, by trying with all my might not to feel it, I actually trapped it in my body.

Now before you shake your head and label me crazy, let me promise you this is not just a theory. Many very scientific, smart people are studying this concept and incorporating it into their understanding of healing. One of these is Les Fehmi, PhD, author of the book The Open-Focus Brain. He gives an excellent description of how emotions remain in the body, which I’ll summarize here. To keep from feeling an emotion, to keep from letting it enter your consciousness, there is only one thing you can do. You must tense and tighten a muscle or group of muscles somewhere in your body. Though this works like a charm – you won’t be dwelling on the negative emotion anymore – it has a major drawback. The very muscle where you are holding that tension becomes a holding spot for the emotion. You can think of emotion as having an energy – it is not “nothing.” If processed, that energy flows through your body and leaves. If it is not processed, that energy has nowhere to go. It remains locked within you, usually in the region of the body you have unconsciously chosen to clench.

As you might imagine, after many years of doing this, day in and day out, your body reaches a limit. First of all, holding a muscle in a contracted position for extended periods of time is clearly not healthy. Nerves lose precious blood and oxygen flow, muscles fatigue, skin does not receive the nutrients it needs to remain healthy, and pain settles in to stay. Your body has to work hard to keep up the emotion avoiding pattern because it actually responds to the negative emotion as though it is under attack. If you are afraid to feel a negative emotion, you are signaling your body to move into fight-or-flight mode to escape this perceived predator. So, muscles tense, heart-rate increases, hormone production is altered, and the nervous system remains on high-alert. None of this is conducive to health and healing – in fact, this is your body in breakdown mode. It takes massive amounts of energy to maintain the fight-or-flight state. Every system of the body can be affected from hormones to nerves to skin to muscles to mental acuity.

When I finally understood this connection, I could immediately see evidence of it everywhere in my life. To avoid negative emotions I spent every waking moment of my life in fight-or-flight mode, which, while adversely affecting my health, also led to constant anxiety. The negative emotion did not leave my body but remained trapped, building up to toxic levels. My body was begging me to accept negative emotions, allow them to be a part of my life, and in doing so, let them go. I was already working with Kathleen Barratt (see her website in the blogroll) and learning how to re-train my breathing patterns to allow full, oxygen-rich breaths back into my body. I discovered that breathing these full, complete breaths helped me draw my focus into my body, realize the places where I was holding tension, and release myself from the anxiety and fight-or-flight trap. Breathing also helped me to allow those emotions to surface, move through me, and leave my physical self at long last.

When I reached this level of understanding regarding my mind, body, and emotions, it was literally only a few weeks before my body began to show signs of healing. I knew my experiment was a success – I could feel it in every cell of my being. I could feel the healing in every breath I took, in every anxiety, tension-free moment, in every emotion that came bubbling up and out to be released. Soon, the vulvar pain and burning sensations faded away, the constant itching disappeared, the urinary frequency lifted, the unusual skin problems vanished, and my hormones returned to normal levels (my previous test results showed up as menopausal even though I was only 26). Now, I am equipped with the knowledge that remaining intimately connected with my emotions, my physical body, and my inner sense of self is the perfect formula for long-lasting health. The experiment continues and I constantly fine-tune my ability to be a whole person, not a mind distanced from its body. I can’t imagine living any other way now that I’ve discovered the fulfilling, energizing, and vivid life available to me.

This is the beauty of working on the mind, emotions, and mind body connection – it only brings positive and good changes into your life.  You feel better mentally, feel more relaxed, and have more tools to use for difficult situations throughout your life.  This can only enhance the healing you are seeking from medical professionals.  It’s exciting to consider all kinds of treatments coming together as a whole to create healing.  When I was journeying toward health, I explored every possible healing modality and created a combination that worked for me.  I truly believe each person can find the right mixture of treatments, and I don’t see any single treatment as the magic bullet for everyone.  You are an individual, and your healing process will be completely your own. 

I’m going to continue discussing the mind body connection because I do think it’s important for you to know about it.  Perhaps you’ll read my posts and find some sort of relief from the constant anxiety, fear, hopelessness, or panic you’ve been feeling.  That is my hope for you, and the reason I am sharing every tool I’ve learned – both as a woman who worked through her own emotional pain and as a trained life coach.  I love sharing these powerful and life-changing tools, and I love writing.  This blog is a passion for me.  I am passionate about spreading a positive message regarding these painful health issues.  When I was wading through the internet, trying to figure out why I was in such agony, I read many scary things about these health issues.  At the time, I did not find anything written by someone who had returned to health, and much of what I read talked about the chronic nature of these diseases.  Every time I sit down to write, I imagine a woman combing the internet, looking for hope and something positive.  I remember the fear and hopelessness I felt, and the resonating sense of connection I experienced when I found someone with a positive message. 

The mind body connection has been explored by many different people, from medical doctors to psychologists to musicians to patients to writers.  Its origins lie in the Eastern healing modalities such as acupuncture, yoga, and ayurveda, to name a few.  Many people consider it an essential part of healing, and many people consider it hogwash.  There’s even quite a discrepancy about how to write the word/words mind body.  I’ve seen mind/body, mind-body, mindbody, and mind body, all used in published texts.  I haven’t yet decided my favorite, though I’m leaning toward mind-body or mindbody.  

I’m certainly no expert in the mind-body connection field, but I do study it constantly.  It is perhaps the single most fascinating subject to me.  I love the feeling I have when I live as a whole being, mind and body merged as one.  I love the messages my body gives my mind when they are communicating freely.  The whole concept has helped me with every aspect of my life, from physical pain to mental pain to emotional eating issues to musicianship (I’m a violinist and Irish fiddler).

The mind-body concept sometimes gets a bad reputation as another one of those “fluffy,” new-age ideas originating in California and slowly moving east.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  The mind-body concept is probably as old as humanity, and has been a part of many cultures including Celtic, Asian, and Native American cultures.  Though different cultures had/have different ways of utilizing the connection, the similarities are often astonishing.  Healers have traditionally incorporated mind, body, spirit, and Earth to help people return to health.  

I’ll be exploring the details of the mind-body connection in future posts, but today I wanted to introduce some of my “friends” who have published material regarding this topic.  As I unearthed more and more helpful information in my own healing journey, I came across many experts whose works became central in my own mind-body connection process.  If you’re interested in researching and discovering more on this topic, you might enjoy the works of Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. John Sarno, Depak Chopra, Dr. Ted Grossbart, and Dr. David Wise, to name a few.  Of course, my teacher and mentor Martha Beck has also written extremely useful information in her book, Finding Your Own North Star.  Her discussion about the Essential and Social Selves reveals a fascinating connection between our health, body, and mental happiness.  Happy reading!