It sounds strange to say there’s an emotional dynamic we have with illness or pain conditions, but it’s absolutely true. Anything we must interact with on a daily basis, which affects our life, causes loss, frustration and alienation, which demands our attention and which we strive to understand, we end up in a relationship with. And just like a person, we end up having feelings about this thing which takes up such a huge part of our lives, feelings we might not like.
Now, no one is going to love their pain or illness. But what ends up happening is that we mistake our symptoms for our bodies, or even ourselves. We end up saying things like, “my pain won’t let me” or “my body isn’t happy today”, just like a person. If you’ve ever said words like, “come on body, what is the problem?!” or “I hate this condition, it won’t let me live my life”, then you may have unknowingly disconnected from your own body. That split happens when being in the body becomes too emotionally painful.
It is completely understandable that this may happen. It is immensely difficult to stay in connection with something that is causing you difficulty, discomfort and a whole host of negative feelings. But it’s you! and that’s the paradox.
The first step to healing this split is to recognize when the split happened. This will tell you the cause – pain, grief, loss, anger, trauma or some overwhelming experience that was “too much” to endure. At some point it all became too big. Now, sometimes this is caused by chronic conditions, and sometimes the split happened well before the condition happened. So, go gently and kindly when exploring this split. Wherever you were when you split is where you’re going to pick up from when you reconnect, so be ready and be supported!
I’ve found over the years that the type of feelings a person ends up having toward their condition is often reflective of an old pattern of relating to some other, significant person or thing. Understanding that precursor relationship helps to shift it in the present. For example, a child who was neglected will often feel powerless, oppressed, invisible and unworthy. If that child moves on, grows up and then develops a chronic condition, those old feelings can be triggered and the adult can end up reexperiencing those feelings again in the new relationship with pain or illness.
So, these dynamics with pain or illness are complex and often deep. They need respect and honouring, as much as any life-changing relationship does. I encourage you to follow along with the self-reflection questions at the end of the blog to gently and curiously inquire into your own dynamic.
The science of neuroplasticity tells us that we can retrain our central nervous systems to reduce pain and illness symptoms. By understanding the science of pain and central nervous system illness you can create an understanding of why your body is behaving the way it is. When you understand that your body WANTS you to survive; that in fact it has a biological imperative to live as long and healthily as possible; that everything it does is in compensation to signals it is receiving from its environment: inflammation, fatigue, brain fog, pain; then you have a pathway out of that negative dynamic. Your symptoms are all symptoms of your body striving to deal with something it doesn’t know how to deal with. But it is trying! It’s not trying to hurt you or make your life hell. It’s trying to regulate, metabolize, heal, grow and reach homeostatis… always. If you can understand that your body is not your enemy, that there is no enemy except central nervous system dysregulation which is a habit developed over time, then you can start to find your way toward healing the system.
And in order to do this, it is helpful to think in relationship terms. Just as you would attempt to heal a relationship gone wrong with someone you love and value, so you can approach the healing of the relationship with your own body in the same terms. The first thing you might do with a person is say, “Look, I’ve missed you. I don’t want to fight. Let’s talk”. That opens up the possibility of healing. If you were to say that to your body, what do you think might happen?
Then, listen. Listen to how hard your body has been trying to heal you, to deal with dysregulation, to compensate for years of stress, trauma, overwhelm, neglected self-care, oppression, alienation; to function even when you have split from it. It has been with you, trying all that time. Now, listen to it telling you, “I don’t know what to do to fix this, but I’m trying”. If you were in a relationship with someone who said, “I don’t know how to fix this, but I want to, and I’m trying”, how would you feel? Would you soften toward that person? Would you reach out to touch them, hug them? Would you feel relief in some way?
Try to understand the science, and hear your body saying the same thing to you. And let yourself try to feel the relief, and the little bit of reconnection it may give you. Your body is on your side.
Self-Reflective Questions (for journaling or pondering):
- When was the last time I felt connected to my body?
- What does connection in my body feel like?
- How old was I the last time I felt whole?
- When I try to come back into my body, how do I feel?
- What emotions are waiting for me there that I’m trying to avoid?
- How do I feel about myself in relation to the pain; victimized? small? helpless? powerless? angry? intolerant? superior? scared? rebellious? or something else?
- What do those feelings remind me of? A relationship with another person perhaps? Or another time in my life?
- If this was a relationship with another person, what would I say to them?
- What could you say to your body about the fact that it’s been dysregulated?
- Would it apologize to you for going off the rails? Would you apologize to it for splitting from it?
- Can you forgive your body? Can you forgive yourself?
- Can you find a way to connect up again in that forgiveness? Even a little bit?
- How does that little bit of connection feel? Is there space in your life for more?
- What would change about your life if you were to allow connection to happen with your body?
- Is that change ok with you?
Please contact us with questions about this. We look forward to helping you.
Megan Hughes, MA, Stillwater Counselling and Pain Management, June 4, 2021