Though the human body is impossible to completely understand, that does not mean it is hard to fix. In fact, it can be quite easy. If you work WITH your body, instead of against it, you can heal mental, emotional, and physical symptoms without the use of any pills. Not all the time, but often enough to have made me re-think the mechanisms of health and disease that I was taught in medical school.
What do I mean by work WITH your body instead of against it? Let me give you an example.
Howard came to me with a diagnosis of proctitis. For a year and a half he had been having fairly regular episodes of blood in the stool, and an uncomfortable “bloating and upset stomach.” Essentially, after an exam and a colonoscopy, what he was diagnosed with was an inflammation of the end of his large intestine. He received the standard medical treatment of an anti-inflammatory and another drug that slowed down his digestive process; an anti-cholinergic drug.
This is a perfect example of the medical model that I describe as “working against the body.” Whether you are on a pharmaceutical or a natural supplement, chances are good that the intent of the pill is to stop some bodily process that is uncomfortable.
The nice thing is that, quite often, this “anti-” approach works. The symptoms can be reduced. They usually don’t go away, but people can feel a difference. In Howard’s case, the symptoms were improved, slightly. He was still uncomfortable, though, and didn’t want to be on the drugs for the rest of his life. He came to me looking for another option.
When we spoke about his condition, I told him that I could offer him a natural alternative to some of the drugs. Aloe vera juice, for example can be quite effective for healing intestinal inflammation.
However, I also said that, if he was open to it, I could offer him a completely different perspective on his illness. Instead of deciding that your colon is doing something wrong and try to stop it, we can instead ask why you are feeling this way? In other words, is there something your body is trying to tell you?
He seemed interested in what I was saying, so I went on. I said, “for example, there could be underlying stresses in your life that are contributing to your inflammation. Correcting underlying sources of mental and emotional stress would allow the symptoms that you are experiencing (the bloating, the upset stomach, the blood) to be healed by your body’s natural mechanisms. That is not to say that the physical symptoms that you have are not real! It’s just that the mind can influence the body and they often need to be healed in tandem.”
I continued, “I think of body symptoms as red flags, or notes, waved in front of us that say, ‘Hey, there’s something wrong down here- get some help!’ Once underlying problems are fixed, the body can often heal itself.
Howard agreed to work with me, but we ended up having just one session. That’s because his symptoms were gone after working together once, and he is now off of his medication.
What happened? The simple answer is that I worked with what his body was telling him instead of trying to stop the symptoms at all costs.
When we worked together, I gave him one very simple instruction: notice what was happening in his body and let himself feel it. When I asked him what he was feeling in his body, he said that his “stomach felt tense.” I asked him to let himself sink into that “tenseness” and pay attention to whatever else came up- whether physical, mental, or emotional.
It turned out that Howard is public school counselor, and his job is to try and help kids with extremely complex problems navigate the school system. There are rarely easy answers, and he found that he was getting very stressed out by the job.
When we started working, he noticed the tension in his belly was similar to the tension he felt at work. When I asked him what the hardest part about his counseling job was, he said that it was like, “trying to find the perfect piece of the puzzle to fit the problem in front of him. The problem is that I know that the perfect piece doesn’t exist, but I can’t help but keep looking for it. In my mind I know I can’t solve the puzzle, but part of me won’t let me stop looking. It’s exhausting!”
Meanwhile, he felt the tension move through his body. From his abdomen, it moved to his chest, then his neck and shoulders, and then back to his upper abdomen. Finally it moved to both his hips and his face and then was gone.
When I asked Howard what it said about him that he couldn’t find the missing puzzle piece, he said that he felt like it was his fault. There was a part of him that took the responsibility for solving the problem with each student and when the perfect solution remained elusive, it felt like it was his fault and that he had failed.
He had an inkling that he was putting a lot of pressure on himself, but now he saw clearly that he was trying to take responsibility for the massive problems in a huge public school bureaucracy. When I asked him to completely sink into the feeling of being at fault, he felt a deep awareness of his true role at work, and a deep release of the feeling of failure.
Howard’s bleeding has stopped and he only rarely gets abdominal discomfort. His job stress has declined significantly as well.
How did this happen? The details of his physiology are still a mystery, but it is clear that I helped Howard work with his body and not against it.
In my practice, I have seen that tremendous things can happen when the processes in our bodies are respected. That doesn’t mean that we don’t need any medications or physical interventions; sometimes the physical damage is extensive enough that we need some repair help. But healing the underlying cause of that physical damage is powerful medicine in its own right, and the most important tools of healing are the ones that you already own: be present and listen.
Please call me if you would like to find out how working with your body can change your life. You can schedule a free 15 minute consult or a full appointment. I’ll let you know if I can help you, and if I can’t, I will refer you to someone who can.