50% of all people who have a heart attack can describe at lease one emotional trigger that may have led to their illness, according to Dr. Alex Lickerman, MD, former director of primary care at the University of Chicago hospital.
When someone has hurt or angered you, your sympathetic nervous system springs into action to protect you, unloading
stress chemicals to prepare you either to
fight or flight. Unfortunately, the sympathetic nervous system has no way of knowing whether the perceived threat comes from an immediate danger or from something that has happened 20 years ago (the subconscious has no concept of time). Every time you relieve a painful memory, your automatic nervous system rises up to fight the oppressor until it final
exhausts itself and gives up.
Repressing the hurt or anger only makes things worse. When you vow not to think about your pain, you may be "letting go" of it mentally, but it reality you are pushing it
deeper into your body and heart. This causes
physical tension which becomes
very habitual and we don't even notice how much we are holding our breath, locking our knees, clamping our jaws, which eventually shows up as
physical pain.
- an excerpt from a writing by Linda Sparrowe
The mind + body connection is an area of focus in my practice and I believe it is one of the most important connections to begin to understand physical pain. Read this over a couple times today and let is sink in. Notice what comes up for you...
