Why sickness happens.

So, today was another good day...

I am realizing that my mom did a great job at teaching me to not avoid my emotions.. but I suppose she didn't have the knowledge to teach me what to do with those emotions.. why they were happening.. how to use them as tools...

it is only now, through all that I have gone through that I am starting to really understand how emotions are simply tools to teach us and help us along our journey.. and that it is not in avoiding them... but it is also not in getting stuck in them that fixes the situation.

I met a wonderful woman today that for some reason... her energy allowed me to make succinct my thoughts on how illness is manifested... and because it is so readily in my head, before I go to sleep I feel like I should share.


So here is what I think happens to us all.

When we are little we go through trauma... no one knows how to deal with trauma that no one walks us through it... gives us support and comfort... everyone is so scared to do the wrong thing.. or bring up painful conversation that the trauma is avoided...

worse it comes from your parents who tell you basically that your feelings are not valid, that you must obey their rules... it could be as simple as not being able to cry as a kid, to as severe as sexual or physical assault.. no matter what the trauma our poor little selves can't handle it... so we go numb.

It is a defense that our bodies go into a state of shock... its a coping mechanism... and so the pattern continues.. it continues your whole life until something shifts inside.

Eventually the outcome is to come to terms with yourself, your life, your pain and recognize that you have the tools to deal with past trauma... but its way more difficult to get there.... figuring out that your brain actually lies to you... is a whole experience in itself that I won't get into here...

so we shut off.. shut down... and cut ourselves off from our emotions.

emotions are physical... they do not reside in the brain, although reactions happen there... emotions happen in the physical environment, it is how our bodies respond to the outside world...

so we will look at stress... stress, in its most primitive form is the body's signal that something is wrong... and on its very basic level its the fight or flight.. its the innate reaction that a cheetah is chasing us and we must save our lives....

in this day and age stress can come from so many different areas.. but really its the fear of dying. Heart rate goes up, digestion goes down, breathing gets rapid and shallow.... blood pressure goes up... etc.... imagine your body being in a state of "running for your life" for years... imagine what that would do?

So why are we in a state of stress?

when we detach ourselves from the physical experience of emotion we put all the energy in our heads... we try and think away everything... the more this disconnection is supported the more disconnected we get from our bodies...

the problem is that because we haven't learned how to cope with previous trauma... everytime something new comes up... it triggers the old trauma... it triggers the emotions that are trapped in our body.

this may sound rediculous.... but just think of the pressure that exists in your chest.... in your throat... how something so small can trigger an intense reaction... why? because our muscles, our organs.. our body stores the emotions.... why are your shoulders tight? or your stomach bloated?

anxiety.. I believe is then the fear of dealing with those emotions.. and still we are not taught how to deal with it..

Sadly in this day and age we are so scared of our emotions we medicate ourselves.. we push ourselves even further away from our body.. as though we are not our own bodies... as though they belong to someone else.

In my life I have used smoking, drugs, sex, talking, alcohol, the internet... I have used everything I could try to distract myself from my body... to distract myself from what was really going on...

I have realized that smoking has been used.. (not always cause sometimes itsjust habit) to distract myself from the physical experience.... cause lets be honest, grief, sorrow, anger, frustration, unworthiness.. these are not just in our head... these are painful experiences... PHYSICALLY painful experiences...

if we push them away.. the sad thing is that they eventually have to be dealt with.. and to be honest.. I believe that death is more painful for those that are the most disconnected with their bodies...

the more we embrace the experience of our bodies.. of our selves.. of our life.. the more in tune we become to the wisdom that exists inside.. and the less we fear death... because ultimately.. when you become so intune.. you can feel your own spirit.. and ultimately realize that you are something way more than your body... you are spirit having a human experience...

it is through our pain that we are made great.... it is through our suffering that we are able to come to the center of our bodies, our beings, our souls... and find love, peace and compassion.

So what to do?

well for me its been a long and arduous process... one that has been physically, mentally, emotionally painful and exhausting.. it has been correlated with a lot of delving psychologically into myself.. and identifying areas that I still need to work on.. which essentially is this blog...

but if we are to stay on this subject... ultimately allowing yourself to feel the experience of the emotion, counter intuitively actually allows the emotion to disspate. It is in our refusal of feeling that depression and illness settle in... it is our bodies DEMANDING that we look inside... begging us to pay attention.. and the more we push away.. the more the pain is exacerbated.

I have had an anxiety disorder for a very long time... I would say I worry a lot... I have been aware of the severity of my worry for probably 5 years now... but I didn't realize I had an anxiety disoorder until this past summer.

I was reading a text book for nursing school... and when I read the part on anxiety I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that it wasn't normal... I thought everyone worried as much as I did. apparently not so.

but it made sense.. I have essentially been on high alert since I was born. Born to a single mother on welfare.. money has always been an issue.. and thus security. After my mother died... security became the most important aspect of my life.. and I have worried about it 24 hours/ 7 days a week. It is paralyzing... and I have obviously sought other ways to distract me.

The sex? I believe that sex for me has been used as a distraction.. but also, when you are as numb as I have been to the pain of losing my mother and not feeling supported.. or "normal".. sex has been my comfort.. it is the time in my life where I feel close to another human being...

I think this is the craving for rough sex. I believe that the times in my life where I allowed my ex boyfriend to treat me poorly... i.e. rough sex.. it was because it was a manifestation of how I felt on the inside... its wanting to feel ANYTHING... even pain.

we cut ourselves off so much from our physical experience of life.. we don't know we are doing it.. and then we want to feel something.. anything.. so we resort to physical pain....

its the emotions that hurt... and its only in allowing the emotions in... allowing ourselves to accept our lives.. and who we have become that give us the freedom to move forward.

So what happens?

for me what is happening is the more I allow myself to get intouch with myself.. feel.. the more I open up.. the less stressed I am.. the more I can take on.. the more objective I become.

Last week I even caught myself smoking, talking, watching tv, eating... and I noticed and asked myself "you are distracting yourself.. from what?" I sat with the emotion.. and it was fear..fear of what?

there are 4 things in my life that plague me

my weight
my smoking
men
money

4 things that I have such a difficult time looking at and dealing with. They all seem so daunting.

I have realized that I equate my own self worth to these things.. and that because I associate who I am to these things I am left powerless... the more I allow myself the time to sit with how they make me feel.. the more I talk myself into believing that my worth is not caught up in these things.. the more objective I become.

and ultimately I think my quitting smoking will just come.
....

As nurses we ask all the time.. "why can't this person quit smoking?" "why can't this person excercise?" "why can't this person eat properly?"

it is because there is so much underneath these ways of being.. they are covering up the depression.. they are covering up how people really feel underneath their illness.

people are in pain.. emotional pain.. and we pretend like their physical bodies just happened to get sick.. for no reason.

Now I know there are some genetic diseases.. I know that you can catch illness.. bacteria, virus, fungi...

but the majority of illness is preventable.. so why does it happen?

I believe it happens because we are detached from ourselves.

In the medical profession fibromyalgia is a psychological disease. It typically present in a certain "kind" of person.... they are typically described as dramatic, as needy.... and I have heard many times in my life.. if its psychological why can't they just get over it.

Its psychological.. manifested in the body.. just like everything else.

and wouldn't it make sense that if these people are so desperately wanting love... if they have cut themselves completely off from their body.... feelings of no one loving them... then their bodies are screaming for them to pay attention.

I believe that we are ultimately looking for ourselves.

the emptiness we feel... is that we aren't honouring our own hearts.

Depression, anxiety, stress, sadness... these emotions are there to tell us that SOMETHING IS WRONG. We are unhappy... they are tools to say something has to change in my life... but we have so many rules around our lives.. so many expectations for ourselves.. that we don't allow ourselves, our partners, our family members to go off and explore life... find out what makes them happy.

Honestly.. I know.. its difficult to change the circumstances in which you live... but at the very least, start drawing, start singing, start playing an instrument, or painting... find 1 thing that helps you be creative.. and start FEELING...

Ultimately what I believe happens.. is the more we feel, the more we accept our lives, our experiences.. the more courageous we realize we are.... the more accepting we become of ourselves.

Honestly? we all fuck up.... its just realizing that its ok to fuck up... its just whether you can not do it again... so you can't just say you won't do it again.. you have to figure out what caused the reaction in the first place. I bet.. a million dollars.. any poor decision that went against your moral judgment.. that you.. to this day.. regret... comes from a disconnected place.. a place where you heard the part of you that said "don't do it", and then you did it anyways....

I believe people can do this because they are so detached from their bodies.. so detached from their inner experience.... so numb.. that they actually can't feel that they are hurting themselves by going against themselves. Its physical....

When I have allowed myself to become calmer.. allowed myself to feel what I am feeling... the calmer I become.. the more loving I become to myself... the more intouch I become with my own love... with the love that I get just from being alive...

I think we have to peel the layers off ourselves in order to find the love that exists.. the experience that exists underneath...

we have put layers upon layers of sadness, guilt, anger, frustration, lonliness ontop of our inner love... and it is only in allowing yourself to feel those that allows them to dissapate.. revealing the truth.

I think the universe gives you everything to teach you to love yourself... I think it puts every obstacle in your way.. to strip you down and text your unconditional love for yourself.. it makes you feel as Small and as insignificant as possible.. so ultimately you have to laugh in the face of it all.. and say... I FORGIVE MYSELF.. and I will honour myself because I never want to get thatfar away from myself again.

This just popped in my head

Psychopathy.

I believe psychopathy.. atleast that that comes from trauma.. is in fact the result of severe trauma. The child completely cute himself off from his experience of life.. that once older has no compassion... cannot see the pain they are causing themselves... because they are numb... they have not felt an emotion since before they had to protect themselves by shutting off.

The truth is everyone can look for happiness.. but happiness is found in love... and true love comes from within. no one can love you the way you love you. Imagine.. you loving you? you would be unstoppable.. a force to be reckoned with.. and then its just about learning... learning everything your heart searches for.

Looking back I can see the pattern to mylife. abandonment. I have been scared to lose people my whole life.. it has been a driving force.... and when my mom died. I went numb... now luckily my mother had taught me that feeling was important... but what I can see is that I usually have talked about my emotions instead of feeling them... I have smoked them away, drank them away, sexed them away.. lol....

now here's an interesting fact... I have a problem with orgasming. I think its because I don't trust men. I can't really let go with men... I am always on guard.. as though I know they are going to leave... especially the ones I love.

I can't orgasm even alone.. because that would be a total let go of emotions... and they are buried so deep.... I don't trust my body yet.

I have to honour my body in order to trust myself....

the more you allow yourself to feel, the more you feel your pain.. the more you realize it is YOU that is killing yourself.

some people drop dead from a heart attack even though they are healthy. Why? I think its because of emotions.

Emotions get blocked in your body so your body then takes all the shit in the environment and can't process it properly.. I think that if a person is emotionally well, their body works at a higher efficiency.

Now... I'll be honest.. this is all hypothesis.. this is my OWN experience. I know there are people who must not fall under this paradigm.. like the monk who gets sick... but I believe that illness is there to teach us something... that the way we are living our life isn't working for us anymore. we must change.. or suffer.. or die.

We may die anyways... but I believe in reincarnation... so you got to figure it out at some point....

past the pain.. I promise.. is love.

lonliness is a craving for you to honour yourself.. it is US we are looking for. All we want is for us to listen to ourselves.. and become our greatest self.

our home is in ourselves.... its the safest place in the world if you are your own best friend.

honestly.. there are so many facets to this... I could go on forever at how one thing is connected to another thing...

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ok I'll share this too.. just because its what I am thinking now.

our ego - as eckart Tolle would explain- is our heads...

as the ego dissapates, so too does our conversation in our heads.

ok I'll speak from personal experience.

as I started to train my brain to not speak so poorly of myself.. the more time I had to listen to my heart.. ask myself what I wasn feeling, what I wanted.. what was going on.. the calmer I became... the more my body reacted to that.

I have lost weight.. not because I went on a diet.. but because I wasn't snacking all the time trying to get away from my body.

I think the ego pulls us away from our body.. convinces ourselves that our body is somehow foreign... and that its not to be trusted. We don't trust our bodies.. and therefore are disconnected.. and then we disconnect from our emotions.. we become heads on top of bodies.

I think intuition is the connection to the body.. its recognizing that the body is trillions of cells.. of thinking machines.. always figuring out what to do next.. how to manage the environment.. and in order to be in full communication with our bodies we must learn how to feel. How to express ourselves fully.. how to fight against fear, judgement, failure... recognize that our inherent worth is not found from the outside but from the inside.

So if you are fat? well you are probably really sad.. you feel like no one understands you.. no one loves you.. that there must be something wrong with you if people treat you the way they do... so you cover up how you are feeling with eating.. problem is you are not hurting yourself... you are treating yourself exactly the same way as the people you don't understand.. so guess what? now you understand! people do that because they are hurting too. It has nothing to do with you....

people jusge others based on their judgement of themselves.

Marriage is probably the best example and the scariest.

Marriage is a "sacred" bond.. and for those that get married to someone that ultimately pisses them off... they feel obligated to stay. Their hearts are begging them to go... recognizing they made a mistake.. but their moral judgements are saying no. They can leave.. but they are not letting themselves. their happiness is not worth changing their beliefs. They are not honouring themselves. and many people still stay to fulfill obligations that are making them miserable.. when things could bevery different.

Not everything can be changed... but the little things can at first.. and the bigger things next.

honestly? I started with brushing my teeth every day, having a shower every day. changing the roll of TP and putting the new one back on the ACTUAL roll, closing cupboard doors... its the small things.. its recognizing that you actually feel better when you do things for yourself. The more you face your fears of looking at what you want... how you feel.. the more you allow yourself to get past the pain of your life.. and reallize that tomorrow hasn't arrives.. then less scary it gets.

I had always focused on the bad.. because I hadn't let it go yet... it was still there in my space.... the emotions still buried.. and to be honest.. there are still somethings that I am not ready to let go of.. but what I have found is that the universe gives me things to deal with each layer of myself... as I tackle each layer.. it just comes..it doesn't have to beforced.

its  a slow and arduous journey.. but in the end... you are waiting for yourself.... so excited that you found eachother again.

I have to go to sleep..I have clinical tomorrow.
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