Every Wound Has It’s Own Logic

We are impacted by one another in ways that are more common place than mystical. So much happens to us when we are in the presence of another human being that goes unacknowledged. The exchange of energy that was once relegated to the metaphysical is now easily explained through the scientific evidence of how hormones like oxytocin and dopamine are exchanged, and endorphins stimulated in the presence of another.

We manage to keep ourselves in denial about this deeper reality because of the moral imperative in our culture to be independent to a fault. That seems to work fine – until Existence hits us with a reminder that there is a whole other operating system in place, for instance, like when Carrie Fisher passed away followed by her mother Debbie Reynolds the very next day!

There was a collective sigh as we all reflected on the poetry and synchronicity of these deaths, but then the media spin doctors once again tried to offer any kind of rational explanation to over-ride the awe and beauty of the event.

I found myself becoming irritated as I watched an interview on CBS This Morning with a doctor, asking the question, “Can someone really die of a broken heart?”

“YES, you can die of a broken heart!” I yelled at the TV. You can also have excruciating back pain from not feeling supported as well as lumps in your breast from undissolved anger and sore knees from feeling disempowered and weak kneed.

I felt compelled to post on my Facebook page, “Really, it’s 2017 and people are still asking these questions, as if there is no connection between one’s health and one’s emotions, as if we are not intimately connected to one another on a soul level?”

Needless to say it inspired quite a spirited discussion with my friends. As I read each response I felt thankful that all my friends were on the same page on this subject, but I could not help but wonder are there that many people off-page not understanding that our environment, our life experiences and other people have a profound impact on us, especially in relation to how we FEEL about it all.

Depending on the power of the emotional impact, it can remain memorialized and etched into our cell tissue, setting us up for possible health conditions in the future.

I learned about these connections in the seventies with books like Heal Your Body by Louise Hay, and later with Karol K. Truman’s, Feelings Buried Alive Never Die. When I had a bodywork practice, my awareness of the body/emotion link grew even more. As my work expanded over the years, I saw how significant the impact of trauma and early childhood adversity was on the body, nervous system and the psyche.

So it is no surprise to me that I often find myself with clients who after seeing many practitioners over the years, tried several kinds of cleanses, alternative diet and health plans, find themselves still in the hell realm of being loaded with lots symptoms, but no accurate diagnosis. Often they are clients who after years of being scared sick, are told by a friend, “Try Voge.”

I have lived through this frustrating helplessness. My persistence kept me searching and it was not until I had my first Releasing Session back in the eighties that I experienced for the first time what a calm and neutral nervous system felt like.

Since then, fortunately there is much research, knowledge and information that was not available when I was struggling.

Tests like the ACE quiz developed by Drs. Vincent Filitti and Robert Anda can truly put things into perspective. Their groundbreaking investigation into the impact of adverse childhood experiences, shows how abuse, neglect, and violence creates high health risks in later life. This study, originally conducted at Kaiser Permanente from 1995 to 1997, continues to this day.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/index.html
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/about.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean

When an innocent child is exposed to a constant barrage of threats, it is not only soul crushing, but it has a life-changing impact on the nervous system. A daily dose of fear puts one in a constant state of either fight, flight or freeze. The stress of this has a life-long effect on every cell.

Pierre Janet described this phenomenon brilliantly in 1889 and recently I heard Bessel van der Kolk MD speak about this in an interview which I paraphrase here.

“All traumatized people have their lives fixed, stopped, at the moment of the trauma and have a hard time going on. They get stuck there on multiple levels: somatic, mental, physiological and perceptual, so that your immune system may continue to fight something that isn’t even happening any more. Your mind keeps getting angry about things that happened in the past – but you project it on to people in the here and now. Your whole being gets stuck some where back there, interfering with being fully alive in the present.”

So if you can imagine an organism that is in a constant state of fighting something that is no longer a threat, you begin to understand how this creates breakdowns in the body later in life. Unfortunately this usually gets dismissed as part of the aging process.

To put things in perspective here is just a partial list of diseases that researchers at the Center for Disease Control suspect are a direct result of living with emotional adversity as a child:

Addiction to drugs, alcohol and nicotine
Anorexia nervosa
Anxiety and depression
Cardiovascular disease
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic pain syndrome
Crohn’s disease
Cushing’s syndrome
Fibromyalgia
Hypertension
Irritable bowel syndrome
Morbid obesity
Osteoarthritis
Osteoporosis
Susceptibility to forms of cancer (including breast and melanoma)
Type 2 diabetes
Ulcerative colitis

The bad news is that these conditions are reaching epidemic proportions. The good news is that there are now more healing modalities available than ever before to antidote this epidemic.

So for example when a client came in with knee pain and I had them say:
I release the energy of sublimation from my knee,
I release my fear of standing fully in my power,
I release my fear of appearing weak-kneed in front of God,
their knee pain was released!

Or when a client complained of neck pain on the left side of their neck so bad they couldn’t turn their head in that direction, I had them say:
I release turning away from my feminine energy, not trusting it will support me.
I release my over-reliance on my masculine to support me.
When they turned their head to the left the pain was gone. Just another day at the office.

A client also came in concerned at finding a lump in her breast and I had her say:
I release all the lumps of undissolved anger I’ve stored in my breast from all the outrage I experienced as a child, feeling helpless and powerless to do anything about it.
I release all the ways I still feel powerless to change the circumstances of my life.
I release all the ways I feel powerless to speak up.
That was then and this is now. After a few weeks of working with her, the lumps disappeared.

It is here I bring forth my experience and knowledge of how trauma, stress and the effects of early childhood adversity show up in one’s life as an adult. 

If you find yourself at the effect of lingering undiagnosed symptoms, lumps and bumps or the lingering inability to bring forth your heart’s desires, I remind you: “Every obstacle to your heart’s desire is rooted in a wound from your past. Every wound has it’s own logic that keeps that obstacle in your life.”

Perhaps it is time to unpack that logic.

Perhaps it is time to heal it.

As always, if this post resonated, provoked thoughts,  feelings, questions, please leave a comment.

Recommended Reading:
Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease
by Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
by Bessel van der Kolk MD

When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection
by Gabor Maté M.D.