If you’ve been struggling with physical pain or symptoms in your body and nothing seems to be working to resolve the issue, the perhaps it’s time to address the underlying emotional connection.
Yes, physical pain and symptoms can have an emotional root-cause, meaning they are the result of emotional stress (a.k.a. unresolved emotions) which is affecting your body. You might be aware of the mind-body connection when you get so nervous you feel sick to your stomach, or when you are excited and feel butterflies in your stomach – the connection is easy to make because it’s simultaneous. But what about when the physical symptoms don’t show up for weeks, or even years after the emotional stress occurred?
In this article, I’ll explain how the mind stores unresolved emotion and four common ways that emotional stress manifests physically in the body, and how you can potentially resolve these physical symptoms with hypnotherapy. This is Part 2 of this series; you can check out Part 1 here.
What is Unresolved Emotion?
Unresolved emotion becomes stored in the mind and body when we aren’t able to fully process our emotion. This could be because it was too overwhelming, or simply because we didn’t have to tools to do so.
Children are especially susceptible to storing unresolved emotion because as a child we’re still learning how to feel, express and handle big emotions. For instance, if a child goes through a stressful experience that causes her to feel very big, overwhelming emotions and didn’t receive support or reassurance, that emotion can become suppressed, meaning it’s stored instead of released.
When we suppress emotions, they don’t just go away. They continue to be felt within our minds and bodies. Emotions are the link between mind and body. When you feel an emotion, it creates a chemical reaction in your body, and therefor, your body feels it too.
A negative emotion such as shame, fear, or anger can cause your body to release stress hormones into your blood such as adrenaline and cortisol, essentially putting your body into a stress response. This stress response can affect every part of your body, from digestion to your immune system.
Our body is meant to move in and out of a stress response. When your body is in a stress response, its main priority is to get you to safety. However, when that emotion is stored, your body can continue to function in a stress response, even after the traumatic event is over.
Our bodies are not built to live in a constant stress response. Over time, it starts to affect the function of our body and although it may take months or even years for us to notice the effects, at some point the effects of living in stress may show up in the form of pain or illness.
The following are 4 (more) ways that unresolved emotion can manifest physically in the body.
4 (More) Ways Unresolved Emotion Can Manifest in the Body
1. Inflammation & Inflammatory Diseases
Inflammation is your body’s natural way of protecting itself and is typically associate with physical injury or infection. However, chronic stress can release cortisol and adrenaline and cause inflammation in your body that’s not related to an injury or underlying disease.
Inflammation can show up in many different parts of the body causing pain, fatigue, or swelling, among other symptoms. When inflammation becomes chronic, it can result in diseases such as asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.
2. Autoimmune Disease
To piggyback off the last point, chronic inflammation can also lead to autoimmune diseases as well. This includes lupus, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, and more.
When the emotional cause is addressed and resolved, it can reduce the inflammation in the body, therefor, reduce symptoms associated with these diseases. Resolving the emotional cause allows your mind and body to feel as though the “threat” that it was reacting to (a.k.a. the stressful experience) is finally over, allowing it to move out of a stress response and into a parasympathetic response.
3. Allergies
When your body reacts to an allergen, it’s trying to protect you from potential harm. However, allergens such as pollen, cat dander, or gluten don’t actually pose any real danger. Essentially your body is reacting to something non-threatening as if it is very dangerous.
When you think about it like that, it becomes clear that emotion is involved. Your mind and body are fearful and therefor are overreacting to something non-threatening. When we get to the emotional cause of an allergy, we usually find that in the weeks or months leading up the first allergic reaction, there was some form of emotional stress present.
An example of this could be a divorce, suffering a loss, enduring an abusive relationship, financial struggles, the stress of college or university, etc. The allergy itself may seem unrelated to the stress, such as a pollen allergy while dealing with financial stress, but during that time, you were exposed to pollen while experiencing stress and your mind created an association between the two.
Perhaps the financial stress was extremely overwhelming in the spring when the pollen was in the air. Or perhaps your abusive ex had a cat and your mind created an association between the stress of the relationship with the cat dander.
When we get to the emotional cause and release the unresolved emotion, your body can react to the non-threatening allergen properly. When your body reacts appropriately, there is no allergic reaction.
4. Panic Attacks
Panic attacks can come on at seemingly random times, and are very scary for the person experiencing them. It is a very physical reaction to perceived danger. However, sometimes there is no clear cause of the panic attacks and no clear threat at all.
When we get to the emotional root-cause of panic attacks we often find unresolved fear. This could be from a traumatic or fear-inducing experience that happened long before the panic attacks started. Resolving the unresolved emotion releases the stored fear that’s causing the panic attacks.
Releasing Unresolved Emotion with Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy is an effective technique for releasing unresolved emotion. When you enter a state of trance, you are more easily able to access memories and emotion stored in the subconscious. Hypnotherapy is great for addressing physical pain and symptoms because there are no negative side effects and can be used alongside any other form of treatment.
When you use Hypnotherapy to release unresolved emotion, you may find pain and symptoms start to clear up, and as a bonus, you may find your mental health improves as well!
Next Steps
Hypnotherapy can be used on a wide range of topics. I personally work with individuals on chronic pain and disease, along with many other emotional issues. You can check out my Chronic Pain Protocol which was specifically designed for those suffering from chronic pain using a combination of Hypnotherapy and Pain Reprocessing Therapy. For those with chronic diseases that aren’t associated with chronic pain, you can check out my Hypnotherapy services to address the emotional root cause.
If you’re new to the idea of using Hypnotherapy to release pain and symptoms but are interested in this healing modality, you can book a Free Consultation to speak with me directly and ask any questions.
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