Perhaps you have experienced physical symptoms that seem to come out of the blue. Or maybe you've suffered unexplainable recurrences of old symptoms you haven't felt for years. When clients come to me with these problems, I start by asking what is going on in their lives. Triggering events and circumstances usually reveal themselves, and we can quickly trace the symptoms to underlying stress and anxiety.
In the midst of the holidays and economic uncertainty, stress can have many forms of expression. Many times bodies appear to be in balance, yet when pressure hits a certain tipping point, the flood gates open and symptoms appear.
Often there is more going on under the surface than we realize or even recognize. Much like an iceberg, where 90% of the mass cannot be seen at the surface of the water, the symptom is merely the visible part of the iceberg showing/expressing itself. The larger causal factors are below - out of sight and below conscious awareness. Dealing with the symptom alone will not address the cause.
Until recently, I would have told you that I manage stress well. I am strong and resilient and there is little challenge I could not overcome or at least cope with. With this belief system I seldom asked for support or help. I always kept my emotional expression in check, especially the emotions of fear and grief.
My tipping point came this spring when my mother became ill and after only two months of being in the hospital, passed away. It was a taxing experience and I developed frightening symptoms that sent me to the doctor. Chest pains, feelings of panic, body aches, inability to sleep, and digestive problems convinced me that something was seriously wrong. Yet exhaustive medical examinations and testing showed nothing. No diagnosis!
I discovered firsthand how physically real the symptoms of stress can be and yet how these very symptoms can cleverly divert attention from the underlying causes and triggering events. In my case, profound loss, the associated flood of painful emotions and my natural response of attempting to numb the pain ultimately manifested themselves in my body.
Through BodyTalk, I began to address these symptoms by balancing the physiological processes that help my body productively deal with stress. Part of this process involved shedding old belief systems that prevented me from being supported, expressing my emotions, and healing from my loss and separation.
Stress is what you experience when your brain initiates "fight or flight" signals to your body. In the days when humans survival was a daily challenge involving threats from predators and finding food and shelter, the fight or flight mechanism served to activate and protect.
During fight or flight response, a person's blood pressure rises, the nervous system reacts more quickly, breathing accelerates, oxygen is limited to certain areas of the body: all this to get ready to run or fight. Until the perceived danger is past, certain physical and biochemical systems such as the reproductive system, urinary and digestive systems are deemed by the brain to be non-essential and go quiet.
For many people today, fight or flight has become a chronic state of being.
Modern stress can take many forms. Paying bills, gift giving within a limited budget, keeping up with investments, commuting, work, deadlines, not to mention old family patterns, disappointments and memories that the holiday season sometimes brings; all can contribute to seasonal or chronic stress.
Research has revealed the long term effects of stress: high blood pressure, poor digestion, panic attacks, anxiety, foggy thinking, reproductive issues, respiratory ailments, to name a few.
What is not as clear is how to reduce stress and how to make the connection between physical symptoms and the unconscious thoughts, beliefs and emotions that cause them. Mental self-talk and busy schedules will often divert attention from the root causes until the tipping point is reached.
