The longer your body has kept a feeling or memory down, the fiercer your body will fight to keep it hidden. Not because it’s good or bad, but because it’s a pain pattern, a habit.
This is one example of when you’ll need to homework, either with journaling, with meditation and prayer or with a counselor. Explore with these techniques, or a counselor to find out **WHAT YOU NEED TO FEEL SAFE**. And remember, there is safety for the mind which can be different from safety for the body.
Then, use what you have learned about safety to ground yourself and reassure your body that letting this go won’t kill you. Because often, your body LITERALLY FEELS like IT’S GOING TO DIE if it lets this stuff go.
Your Body Hides Pain From The Mind
Your body sometimes “hides” things from the mind, like physical pain in an athlete so they can keep playing. We discuss this in more depth in another article.
When a person is stressed for years at a time, overwhelmed with their daily obligations, the body doesn’t have the energy or support to process any stuffed emotions.
BUT, once a person has the extra time, and things are a bit more calm in their lives, this stuffed pain can come out quite strongly.
This is why emotional pain can show up years later, “FROM NOWHERE”, because the body has been hiding it from the conscious mind. A common statement from clients who show up with this kind of pain pattern is: “I was feeling fine last week, and now I have terrible neck and chest pain from no-where! Everything is going great in my life! There is NO explanation! No car accident, no fall, I didn’t sleep wrong or hurt myself in any way.”
Even if you are doing “all the right things”, great diet, great spiritual practice, positive self-talk, plenty of rest, daily exercise, etc, sometimes, there are things “we don’t know that we don’t know”.
It might take some support from the outside to help you listen. This does not mean that you are any less of a great person, or any less positive to yourself. We all need help sometimes, and maybe that is the gentle lesson for you.
Unfortunately, many people ARE NOT LISTENING to their bodies. At all. Instead of trying some simple options to help their body, they try meds, surgery & other drastic measures to calm the pain. When simple Self-Care may have helped to first gain awareness & then start to re-train the pain pattern.