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Health & Fitness

The Link Between Pain and Emotions

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In this series, I have been talking about low back pain and hip pain, and alternative approaches to reducing chronic pain issues. We are exploring how you can alleviate and, perhaps identify the root cause of the pain with other means besides or in conjunction with, traditional medicine. Earlier in the series, we looked at the physical aspect of pain, and I offered you a breathing exercise to help ease pain and discomfort.

Today, I want to discuss the emotional aspect of pain. We have emotions that we store in our bodies, from past experiences we have held onto. These stored emotions are hanging around within our bodies because they have never been expressed or released. If we continue to ignore them, these stored emotions will find ways to get our attention. Usually, it will show up in pain and illness, frustration or explosive emotions. When these unexpected emotions are triggered, it is a signal; a sign that it is time for us to address something we have not addressed. Our body is telling us to pay attention; to acknowledge an experience that we never did.

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Emotions are actually healthy when we give them the attention they require. The challenge is that most of us have been taught that it is not okay to feel or express our emotions. So, each time an emotion comes up, we learn to ignore it, stuff it down, and do not validate it. We try to pretend it does not exist and tell ourselves why we should not feel anything. We are taught that we should be happy and positive at all times and it is not okay to feel negative feelings and have negative thoughts. Well, research is telling us, as well as my own experience with my clients, that it is imperative that we acknowledge our emotions. I have discovered, in my work, that it is so important to have an awareness of all our feelings and honor even those we were taught to tamp down. We have the right to choose how we want to show up, think, and feel; yet ignoring our true feelings actually interferes with our choosing a better state of mind.

A small percentage of our cognitive mind is actually creating our experiences. If there is misalignment in our emotions with our conscious mind, it is feeding into our thought processes, unconsciously affecting our thinking. We cannot possibly be creating and manifesting, or, showing up in our lives the way we want to be, if we are struggling with suppressing these old emotions. By acknowledging and giving validity to the negative emotions, as well as the positive, we are realigning our emotional state. Thus, we realign our ability to consciously manifest and create, powerfully, in our own lives, and showing up in a way that we choose.

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Pain is signally that something is wrong, and often our emotions provide clues. They give us the opportunity to look at something we need to look at or, release something that needs to be released. Or, perhaps, there is a perception we have held onto that needs to shift. Oftentimes, we do not know that these emotions are hiding out or, that they need to be addressed until they show up as pain, stiffness in our joints, pain in our hips or a feeling of heaviness within our body.

We can use many different approaches in energy healing to address the issue of pain in the body and release of the emotions that may be the root cause of the pain or stiffness. I did an energy healing session with a female client who was experiencing significant hip pain. I explored the chakras to find where anger and anxiety was stored within her energy centers. By working with her chakras, we discovered that she was holding onto certain experiences in her past causing her to feel anger and anxiety. We also discovered that it was not just her own emotional energy she was feeling. Much of her anxiety and anger was corded into and attached to her as lineage energy. Also, she was feeling the emotions of her daughter. I was able to clear that energy and she immediately felt release in her lower body.

EFT (Tapping) is another of my favorite energy tools. I hold workshops at yoga centers where we combine yoga with EFT to facilitate the release of emotional energy held in the hips. Some of the emotions stored in the hips have a lot to do with mother energy, grandmother energy and female energy in general. When we start to explore and ask questions, we can bring about great relief and release through the hips with tapping on those experiences and feelings, which relieves pain and allows for greater mobility and movement.

So exploring your emotions and finding what they are trying to tell you can create an opportunity the release the impact it may have on pain and stiffness in your body. Conversely using pain to ask what emotions am I holding can also help.

I am going to wrap up the series with a Tapping sequence to tie it together. Stay tuned. I look forward to helping you release pain and emotions that are keeping you stuck. In letting these emotions go, you will be able to move forward and create your life as a pain free, healthy being with plenty of energy to create and bring your visions to life

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