Emotions and Fibromyalgia

The emotional experience for women with fibromyalgia is very challenging.  Often, we experience depression, anxiety and a host of other unpleasant emotions.   Part of rebuilding your health means creating a healthy relationship with your emotions or your emotional body.

The impact of our emotional history

As children, we were often raised in an emotionally toxic environment.  Sometimes filled with fear, anger, sadness and everything in between.  As children, we unknowingly absorb the emotions we are exposed to.  This is especially true if we are empaths; many women with fibromyalgia are empaths.

We are often trained to suppress our emotions.  We were told as children that what we were feeling wasn’t ok or that it wasn’t ok for us to express it. Were you ever told that “big girls don’t cry” or “be a man (or big boy) and don’t cry” or “you have to be strong” or “you have nothing to cry about”?  Sometimes our parents simply taught us to suppress our emotions by not being able to feel their own emotions.

Our emotions are a valuable part of who we are.

In truth, our emotions are a valuable part of who we are.  They empower us when we know how to relate to them in a healthy way.  Blocking, ignoring or suppressing our emotions is never helpful.  To create a healthy relationship with our emotional dimension, we need to feel, honor, respect and listen to our emotions.

If you have a loss, it is important to let yourself grieve and that often includes feeling sad and allowing yourself to cry.   If you feel sad all the time, chances are that there is some suppressed sadness from your past that wants to be felt.  If someone has treated you unfairly or abusively, your anger may be your emotional dimension’s way of communicating this to you.  You anger is telling you that you need to take you power back.   This doesn’t mean being mean back.  It doesn’t mean creating a power struggle.  But it might mean saying no, leaving the situation or communicating in a way that preserves your dignity, integrity and safety.  If you feel frightened, you will want to inquire into the fear to understand if there is a real and current threat or if you are just re-experiencing a painful memory from your past.  Once you know this, then you can respond or adjust accordingly.

Suppressing our emotions impacts our health and happiness

Allowing ourselves to feel our emotions and letting them move through us is always helpful.  Think of an emotion as energy in motion.  If you block it, that energy gets stuck within you and will create a block in your energy flow and can create problems down the road.

These energetic blocks not only block the negative emotion that you don’t want to feel, but also block positive emotions, such as joy and happiness.  If you suppress an emotion, it will continually want to be felt, which give rise to the ongoing experience of sadness or anxiety.  Until you feel the emotion and let the energy move, it will be a drain your energy.  Depression often is simply the experience of a build up of blocked emotions.

Blocked emotions also impact the functioning of our physical body.  When there is a blocked emotion, it also blocks the flow of energy in the physical body, which results in compromised function of the organs in that same area of the body.  Have you every heard of someone having a broken heart and then experiencing heart problems?  If a person can adequately feel and release the grief, the heart problem can also resolve.

The art of feeling emotions in a positive way

Feeling an emotion doesn’t mean acting out on it.  It simply means feeling it and letting it go.  Once the emotion/feeling/energy has moved through you, you will have more clarity as to how to address the situation.  Once the energy has moved through you, you might not need to do anything. Situations sometimes magically resolve themselves.  You might need to communicate to another person or take a particular action.  But that communication or action will come from self love rather than from anger . . . and that is a huge difference.

Another way to bring more balance to the emotional dimension is to practice flowing positive emotions.  You can do this at any time at any place.  One great way to flow positive emotion is to simply smile.  Give it a try right now and notice how it changes how you feel inside.  You can bring to mind a pleasant memory or think of a loved one or a pet that brings you a positive feeling.  Pay another person a genuine compliment or give a small gift to someone.  Feeling and expressing gratitude is a very powerful way to flow positive emotions.

Self Inquiry to understand your current relationship with emotions

The first step in creating a healthy relationship with our emotions is understanding where we are now.  Take some time this week, to reflect on your relationship with your emotions.  Do you suffer from depression?  Do you have high anxiety?  Do your emotions frighten you?  Do you feel joy?  Are you in an environment where it is safe to feel and express your emotions?

You can post comments and questions below or on the Facebook page.

If you would like assistance creating a health relationship with your emotions sign up for a Complimentary Discovery Session.   Together we can explore your needs and work together to find resolution and freedom from emotional baggage.

Happy Healing.   Bindu

All emotions are a gift.  They are a necessary part of who we are.  Our life force is contained in our emotions.  

Anger is a very powerful emotion.  When we are angry it is a sign that our boundries have been invaded or that we are giving our power away.

Years ago, I realized that when I was angry, it was because I was giving my power away to something or someone else.  As I became aware of this, I could make different choices and begin to reclaim my power.

What is the underlying source of your anger?  Have your boundaries been violated?  Are you giving your power away?   Something else?  

This week, contemplate on the source of your anger.  Look at where it is coming from and ask yourself how you can reclaim your power.  

One of the biggest challenges for women with fibromyalgia is feeling heard. 

We go to medical doctors and they might say, “there is nothing physically wrong with you”, “it is all in your head”, “you are just a hypochondriac”.

If you have danced with the new age or positive thinking movement, you may have heard, “take responsibility for your health”, or “you created it”, or “just get over it”.

Family and friends might say, “you’re just lazy”, “your being selfish”, “everyone has pain”, “your overly sensitive”, and on and on.

It just hurts.  What they say hurts. 

Because there are some days that you barely have the energy to get out of bed.  Or perhaps your pain is so bad that it is impossible to function.  Or the brain fog is so bad that clear thinking is impossible.  Or you skin itches so bad that it hurts to wear clothes.

You can’t do the things they think you can do.  You feel their judgement and condemnation.  Perhaps you silently feel the same way, you don’t understand why you feel the way you feel either and you just want to feel better, but you feel helpless to do anything about it and nobody else seems to understand either.

Truth is, they do not understand.

It took me years until I realized that they truly could not understand.  As I lay in bed one day wishing I could die, I realized that if I wasn’t having this experience, I wouldn’t be able to understand either.   The pain and fatigue I experienced and the disabling effect it had on me was beyond understanding.

One day a friend of mine had just come home from the hospital, where he had been for several day with meningitis.  The only treatment they could give him was to keep him hydrated.  The illness had to run its course.   He said to me, “I think I can understand how you must feel.  I was in complete misery for a week and couldn’t do anything about it.”  I said to him, “Imaging feeling like that every day for 30 years and you might be able to fully understand how I feel.”  I did appreciate his comment and understanding.  It helped.

Adopting a healthy attitude.

Once I got how impossible it is for someone not having fibromyalgia to understand the experience I was having, I could deal better with the people who said such things.  I didn’t need to change them.  I just understood that they had no idea what they were talking about.

I adopted these three attitudes which helped me immensely.

1. I didn’t take it personally. What they were saying had nothing to do with me.  They were talking from a place of unknowing.  I knew what I was experiencing and what I could and couldn’t do.
2. I could forgive them for their ‘cruelty’ because I knew that they didn’t know what they were talking about. They were acting and speaking on misinformation.
3. I realized that I had to trust and rely on my own knowing and inner council.
4. I let go of the need for anyone else to understand what I was going through.

This brought me an increase sense of inner peace.

It was still frustrating at times and very lonely. But letting go of the guilt and blame released a great deal of inner struggle and torment.  I was no longer holding myself up to a standard that others held me up to.  I stopped criticizing myself for being sick.  I was able to hear myself and my own pain.

I could share my experience with others, who were interested, but even as I was sharing, I got that they couldn’t really understand without the experience of it.  Just imaging trying to explain to someone what an apple tastes like if they had never tasted an apple.  Do words ever fully describe an experience?

Is this still a struggle for you?

Is there a step you can take to be understanding and forgiving toward the people who say unthoughtful things?  Can you be more understanding and forgiving towards yourself?   What would that look like for you?

I hear your pain. 

When I hear you, I hear your pain.  I have been there.  I am not any more, but I know the experience.  I still have my issues.  I am still healing, but I am so much better than I was.  I truly want that for you too.

Until we meet again.

With love, understanding and compassion,

Bindu

Balance the difficulty with remembering the good.  

Living with fibromyalgia is difficult.  Sometimes we get caught up in the agony of it all.  That is easy to do when we are in physical and emotional pain and when our body doesn’t allow us to do what we want to do.   We can get lost in the pain and despair and think that is all there is. 

Count your blessings

At these times, it is important to count our blessings.  Remember the good things that we are and that we have in our lives.  A good practice is to take a few moments before going to bed at night and bring to mind 2-3 three things that you are grateful for. 

During the worst years of my fibromyalgia, even though I had many blessings in my life, this was really hard to do.  I wanted so much to have and be more than I was.  But I could still be grateful for the roof over my head and the kindness of my parents.  I had two beautiful cats who were bright lights in my life.  They offered me love and companionship.  I was doing work that I loved by teaching yoga.  For these things I could be grateful.

Now that I look back, I can see more fully how important those things were and appreciate them even more.  

Daily Practice

This week, take some time each night before going to sleep and count your blessings.  It is important to remember the good things to help balance out the pain and struggle.  

Wishing you many blessings,

Bindu

The Connection Between Fibromyalgia and Negative Life Experiences.

Modern research shows that 80-90% of all illnesses are caused by stress.  For women living with fibromyalgia, this is exciting news.  This knowledge provides a whole new arena to explore and add to our toolbox of healing protocols as we rebuild our health.

The ACE Study

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study conducted by Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrated an association of adverse childhood experiences (childhood trauma) with health and social problems across the lifespan. In the study participants were asked about different types of childhood trauma that had been identified in earlier research including physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, exposure to domestic violence, household substance abuse, household mental illness, parental separation or divorce or an incarcerated household member. The ACE study found that:

1.  Adverse childhood experiences are common

2.  Adverse childhood experiences often occur together

3.  Adverse childhood experiences have dose response relationship with many health problems.  As researchers followed participants over time, they discovered that a persons cumulative ACEs score has a strong, graded relationship to numerous health, social, and behavioral problems.

4.  About 2/3 of the individuals reported at least one adverse childhood experience and 87% of the individuals who reported on ACE reported at least one additional ACE.

Cognitive and neuroscience researchers have examined possible mechanisms that might explain the negative consequences of adverse childhood experiences on adult health.  Adverse childhood experiences can alter the structural development of neural networks and the biochemistry of neuro-endocrine systems and may have long-term effects on the body, including speeding up the processes of disease and aging and compromising immune systems.

 Stress is the Leading Cause of Illness

Modern research is showing that 80-90% of all illnesses are caused by stress.  Stress can come from many places.   The primary source of stress isn’t what is happening outside of us, but what is happening inside of us.  In his book, The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, PhD, reveals how negative memories residing in our sub and unconscious data banks are a primary source of stress.  Identifying and resolving those hidden memories are an important component to rebuilding your health. When we have a negative life experience, the memory of that experience lives on in our sub-conscious and unconsciousness data banks.    If the memory has not been resolved satisfactorily, that memory constantly sends a stress message to your nervous system.   When this happens, your nervous system is constantly gear up for protection, fight or flight.   This leads to an imbalance in the nervous system.

The Nervous System

The nervous system is made up of the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.  The sympathetic side, revs us up, gets us going, helps us to move effectively throughout the day.  It also helps us to handle any unexpected stress.  The parasympathetic side helps us to unwind, rest, relax and sleep.  This down time allows our body to naturally detoxify, heal and regenerate. When we have unresolved negative cellular memories, the sympathetic side of our nervous system is running all the time do to the ‘danger’ messages that the memory is transmitting.  We are in constant fight or flight, waiting for the next ‘attack’ to happen.  Our body does not get the rest, relaxation and sleep that we need to detoxify, heal and regenerate itself.

Importance of this for women with fibromyalgia

If you have fibromyalgia, chances you are have unresolved negative childhood memories.  Sometimes these memories are apparent and obvious when we consider our childhood.  Sometimes, they are more subtle.  A negative memory can be stored as the result of how you interpreted an experience, even when abuse was not happening.  We can even inherit negative cellular memories from our parents and ancestors. While this may leave you feeling hopeless or helpless, rest assured that is not the case.  There are natural holistic tools that can help you to identify and neutralize these memories.  Mentally coming to terms with a negative childhood is important, but that does not necessarily neutralize the negative vibration of the cellular memory.  There may still be work to do in the sub and unconscious to fully neutralize the memory and its impact on your nervous system. If you feel stressed, pressured, overwhelmed, fatigued and cannot sleep, there is a good chance that you have some negative cellular memories that need to be addressed.  Even with wonderful care of the body, until the cellular memories are neutralized you may very well still be struggling with your health. I have created a free mini course that is designed to guide you through a process of identifying negative cellular memories and the impact they have on your body, mind and emotions.  You can sign up by clicking on this link.

Coming next week.

Next week, I’ll be talking more about hidden negative experiences and their impact on your health from different perspectives including modern research and ancient traditions. Until then, may you find inner peace in the midst of your challenges. Bindu