The world of mind-body medicine is a fascinating one, and is an area that I’ve studied and explored in depth over the past thirty years. My journey into this world started in my teens and I worked with some incredible healers very early on that opened my mind to the power our emotions have to transform our physical body. I have been privileged to witness the sometimes quite miraculous healings that come from a massive internal shift, when a person awakens to a truth that changes everything they believed to be true. Although we don’t know exactly how this works as yet, there is definitely something very powerful about the process of healing on an emotional level as a conduit to healing the physical.
Just this week an interesting article was posted on www.elephantjournal.com called The Emotional Warehousing of Fat. It was one woman’s perspective of gaining of weight in a particular area of her body, that seemed to come on in response to the devastating end of a relationship. A quote in the article states: ““Unresolved or undigested emotions store in our cell tissues as pain, fat, dullness or disconnect.” This thought is very similar to the ancient Chinese saying “The organs weep the tears the eyes refuse to shed”, suggesting emotions that are not expressed, validated, understood and healed, can affect the function of the physical body.
Whether it is purely weight gain from a metaphysical level, or whether the stress response due to emotional trauma invites hormone imbalances that lead to weight gain, the underlying lesson we can get from this is that losing weight is not purely a physical experience where “eat less and exercise more” is the sole answer. There are many facets on the emotional and spiritual level that can impact why a body has chosen to store fat as a means of keeping itself safe. We have to remember that the body doesn’t make mistakes, and that gaining weight is merely a symptom of imbalance. Learning the language of your own body can lead to a state where emotional wounds are healed and the physical manifestations of disease or disorder are seen as messengers for the truth our body is trying to share with us.
Rather than trying to whip our body into submission with restrictive diets and internal reprimands, a more gentle and nurturing approach would lead to a much more holistic solution. Unravelling the cords that have trapped you in a body that is not displaying it’s potential in strength, energy and vitality is a journey into yourself that can be one of the most powerful and insightful journeys you could ever make. As the article finishes:
“It’s an inside job. When the pain, dullness, and disconnect in your body diminish, the outward signs of it can evaporate too. And that’s the part of “weight loss” that is so rarely discussed. No wonder—it’s difficult to document as real.
But it is. As Carolyn Myss says, your biography becomes your biology. We’re often just too close to see it.”
Leisa
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Our paths are brightened and more clear when we delve into our bodies and what is ailing us. Our body tells us many aspects, such as when we are anxious, depressed, in physical pain and so on. I recently began to become more clear in my path, my purpose, and with rest and alternative medicines I was able to control my depression and increase my energy and fatigue levels. When we combine our mind and our bodies we find out even more.