There’s a growing body of research suggesting that illness is often a reflection of unconscious emotional energy, or buried stress.
Our language expresses our intuitive understanding of this process when we say, “She’s a pain in the neck”, or, “This job is eating away at me.”
A 2004 meta study by Segerstrom and Miller that evaluated over 300 studies from a 30 year period, revealed that 85% of all illness was the result of chronic, unconscious stress. This makes sense, especially when we have an understanding of how stress upsets the functioning of the autonomic nervous system.
The key piece here is that stress has the potential to create illness when it’s ‘buried’, or ‘unconscious’. This would suggest that becoming ‘conscious’ of what’s bugging us just might be a healing balm in itself.
Dr. John Sarno, a renowned Manhattan Orthopedist, has an 85% success rate when treating fibromyalgia patients. That’s unheard of in a clinical setting. The key to his treatment is that there is no treatment.
Dr. Sarno helps patients to understand how the psyche and body have conspired to create physical pain as a defense against emotional pain. He bases his understanding of this Mind-Body dynamic on the psychosomatic literature from the early twentieth century. Through understanding and self-help processes he assists his patients to help themselves.
Some of you may be familiar with Louise Hay and her books linking physical symptoms to emotional causes. One example would be the experience of low back pain linked to financial insecurity.
Flash forward to Dr. Geerd Hamer, a German oncologist who has used CT scans of the brain to map the connections between specific qualities of emotional shock and specific tissue and organ changes in the body.
Do we need to schedule a brain scan in order to identify our buried shocks and traumas? Nope.
Our bodies tell stories. Our challenge is in learning how to listen to our body’s communication.
In an interview years ago on PBS, Bill Moyers asked the noted mythologist Joseph Campbell, where stories came from, since the same stories were told by cultures separated by thousands of miles of ocean. Joseph Campbell said that stories come from the energy that runs our organs.
We are all natural storytellers, if we slow down enough to listen to what’s coming from our bodies. ‘Focusing’ research that was conducted initially in the 1960’s at the University of Chicago, revealed that sensations and feelings in the body will express themselves symbolically … in words and pictures … if we give them time.
The research on Focusing showed that as symbols were flowing, brain waves were balancing. My work with Heart Rate Variability shows that when we listen to the body and allow energy, experience and symbols to flow, there’s a corresponding improvement in the balance of the autonomic nervous system.
When the body’s storytelling capacity is ignored … usually because we’ve never been taught the inner art of listening to the body … to our heart … the flow of symbols and energy is blocked … and physical symptoms are created.
While there are some very specific processes, like Somatic Focusing, for eliciting the body’s wisdom, any activity that slows us down and that invites a mindful awareness of our body would be a good place to start. Yoga and meditation are perfect.
Dr. Templin offers online courses and consultations, and sees patients personally in his office in Lakeland, Florida. You can learn more about his course Bio-Energetic Focusing: A Revolutionary Medical Model for Self-Healing! here.
Steven Templin, D.O.M., Dipl. Ac., is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, specializing in MindBody Medicine. He is a certified META-Medicine Health Coach and nationally certified acupuncturist. He shares the underlying science and more importantly, the practical tools for resolving the unconscious energetic and emotional roots of illness. In his online course Bio-Energetic Focusing: A Revolutionary Medical Model for Self-Healing! he provides training in Self-Regulation skills, that include Bio-Energetic Focusing, HeartMath and Energy Psychology techniques, Energy Medicine modalities, and Gastrointestinal repair for enhanced immunity, mood, and mental clarity. Dr. Templin is in private practice in Lakeland, Florida, at the Natural Medicine Center of Lakeland.
Steve is a retired Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Acupuncture Physician, and HeartMath Trauma-Sensitive Certified Practitioner with over 35 years of clinical experience in Energy Medicine, Energy Psychology, and Biofeedback.