A few days ago, I was talking with my friend Nell. She mentioned that for the most part, she really enjoyed reading my book You4Truths: How Beliefs Impact Your Life. But she had a hard time buying into the chapter about physical symptoms of stress. The part about the mind-body connection seemed a little far-fetched. I get it – it’s difficult to believe that something in your mind can be that closely connected to something going on in your body.
Stress can make you sick
I think most people understand that there is a relationship between chronic stress and certain physical conditions. And they would probably agree that stress is caused by beliefs about the situation causing that stress. But there seems to be a big leap from understanding that and seeing the connection with many of the things going on with our bodies.
Trauma can cause stress
Trauma is one of the ways the subconscious develops beliefs. During the period of 1995 to 1997, Kaiser Permanente conducted research to try to identify the causes for certain health conditions. What they discovered was a high correlation between childhood trauma and certain chronic health problems, mental illness, and substance use problems. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has information about this here.
Stress causes migraines
I have seen many instances with myself and my clients where changing a belief has resulted in a physical symptom going away. On several occasions, I’ve been in meetings where another attendee has told me they were going to have to leave because they had a migraine headache. I always offer to see if I can help with that, and they always accept. In every case, they’ve been able to find and change a belief, and the migraine has gone away. It’s still astonishing to me how strong a connection there is between the mind and the body, even though I’ve seen these changes many times.
What about other symptoms?
In another case, I had a client come in for a particular reason and we were able to address that before the end of the session. I asked him what else would he like to change since we had more time. He immediately said he’d been suffering from sciatica for years and asked if I could help with that. We were able to find the primary belief connected with that symptom. Once he changed that, he said the pain wasn’t there anymore. This client had bought a package of sessions from me, so when he came back a few weeks later, I asked how his leg felt. He said that pain never came back and that everyone at his workplace and in his family had noticed that he wasn’t limping anymore!
Environmental triggers
Back to my conversation with Nell, she experiences physical reactive responses to environmental triggers like pollen. And she has a difficult time believing that this could be connected to anything in her subconscious. I understand! It seems like a stretch when there’s such an obvious cause and effect. After our conversation, I remembered reading about cases where people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) – formerly known as multiple personalities – can have different reactive responses among their different identities. This fact sheet from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is one place I found information about this. To me, this is a clear indication that the responses are tied to beliefs since these identities are all connected to the same physical body.
Your body is like a dashboard
Since I’ve found PSYCH-K® I’ve become convinced that symptoms are just your body’s way of letting you know something needs to change. If you ignore the symptom or just treat the symptom instead of looking for the root cause of it, you increase the likelihood that the symptom will get worse or your body will find additional ways to try to get your attention.
You don’t choose your subconscious beliefs!!
Sometimes when I talk about these things, people misunderstand me and think I’m saying that they have chosen to have their particular condition. Nothing could be further from the truth. We don’t consciously choose our subconscious beliefs. But when you notice patterns or symptoms, you do have a choice about how to respond to those. If you find something you want to explore and change, I’m here to help! You can book a session here.
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