5 situations that may be asking you to look beyond the physical aspects of your health concern
When we get sick, many people assume that the roots of the health issue are physical in nature. They make dietary changes, take medications or supplements, and attempt to address the physical symptoms. In practice I have found that this approach, while common, can be incomplete. Often the roots of our concerns are found on deeper levels of our being, hidden in past trauma, hidden in our dysfunctional relationships, our unhappiness at work, our anxieties, or our separation from our authentic self. Below are 5 common situations I see in practice, that usually indicate that a person’s physical concerns stem from something deeper than a physical issue alone.
You’ve been diagnosed with a chronic or 'incurable' illness. In situations like this, there is almost always healing that needs to be explored on deeper levels than just the physical.
Physical symptoms get better for a short period of time but never fully resolve despite good treatment and good practitioners. That old injury that just won’t resolve even though you’ve seen the best physiotherapist, osteopath, and chiropractor in town and followed their directions perfectly. Sometimes when this happens it’s a message letting us know that perhaps what’s keeping the injury alive isn’t just our physical body, but rather what our body is holding onto. Our bodies hold on to all sorts of memories, patterns, belief systems, emotions, experiences and pain. Until we’ve explored and dealt with them, the body will store them.
You’ve experienced stress or trauma in the past but have never dealt with it. This one is more or less universal. Most of us have dealt with some level of stress in our lives (whether we recognize it that way or not). Unfortunately, since we don’t live in a culture that encourages us to resolve, or even to truly look at our lives, it’s seemingly easier to just sweep it under the rug, tough it out and move on. The problem with that is that the body remembers and holds onto it. Eventually there is an overload and it becomes too much for the body to handle- that’s usually when we start to see symptoms on the physical level. Remember that this can be anything that happened at any point during your existence (from ancestral trauma, to your time in your mother’s womb, all the way through until your adulthood).
You have an intuitive sense that there is more to your health concern but you’re not sure how to explore it. Countless times I have heard patients say something to the effect of, “I just know that this is somehow associated with [insert experience, situation, relationship, event, etc] but I don’t know how exactly.” Trust that intuition.
Physical treatments just aren’t working. You’ve tried all sorts of dietary changes, supplements, medications, and physical treatments but nothing seems to shift anything. This is usually a good sign that it’s not the physical level that needs to be addressed right now. It is entirely possible that the physical will need attention at some point, but healing happens in layers and sometimes we must explore the emotional or mental before the physical will be able to shift in a meaningful way.
What Methods can be used?
In my practice the ones that I turn to most are NET, herbal medicine, homeopathy, introspection, and some combination of ritual and ceremony. The point is to find a therapeutic modality that addresses the deeper issues AND helps the body to release old patterns.
