The task of modern holistic medicine is to combine the knowledge of signals sent by the body in relation to the information sent by the brain. Thanks to these sciences, we can find hidden connotations with internal conflicts that have formed specific barriers in the body, creating a disease state.

Science and body language

Evolutionary psychologists point out that we are biologically given only those instincts that we can handle and that serve us. They all work for our self-regulation and protection of individual systems. With the modern level of development of brain capacities, people often lack the courage to open up towards learning how to handle their own minds. Hygiene and the ability to understand one's own instincts, archetypes, and behavioural patterns most often account for all aspects of our lives. When an imbalance occurs, then the body (physical or emotional) brings about, as a matter of protection and self-regulation, an illness (physical reaction) or an attack of crying, aggression, or panic (emotional reaction).

There are many sciences that translate the language of the body into the language of illness, e.g., Recall Healing, Somatic Experiencing (SE™)—psychosomatic therapy, Ayurveda—Hindu medicine or Chinese medicine in the broadest sense—including personality and dominant element classification, reiki, and reflexotherapy. All these disciplines pay attention to the individual meridians, i.e., the energy channels, as well as the locations of blockages in the individual organs that are associated with the ailment. Thus, for example, back pain can indicate a problem of over-responsibility and a connection to the past that has become lodged in the subconscious. Hair, on the other hand, is the antennae of emotions when experiencing trauma—it can stop growing, or, on the contrary, graze or turn grey. The key task is to find these points, as well as to release the tensions lingering in them.

Another aspect in understanding the genesis of diseases is also the reference to the prenatal period. Receptors sent by the mother mark traces in the baby's neuronal system. It is equally important to nurture the infant, including emotionally, so that full integration of its reflexes takes place.Otheplace. there is a risk of the occurrence of, for example, sensory integration disorders or ADHD.

Everyone should learn the language of their own body, which indicates the condition of the autonomic nervous system. If the abdominal nerve is in charge, we feel calm and balanced, being in a state of bliss. If the sympathetic nerve dominates, we want to run away or fight, being in a state of irritation and survival mode. In contrast, the dominance of the dorsal nerve indicates fatigue and surrender; in this state we cut ourselves off from the body. Socrates already pointed that out 2400 years ago.

There is no such disease of the body that is separate from the soul.

(Socrates)

The impact of stress and emotions on illness

The world under current rules can suck the life and chi energy out of us. Being subjected to a 40-hour working week, performing many functions, and meeting the expectations of those around you forces a person to be perfect in many areas. This can give rise to frustration as well as a certain feeling of pressure. A person is thus closer to constantly satisfying other people's needs instead of their own. It looks like we are ostensibly earning money, but we are often robbed of leisure time.

An imbalance of your inner balance and feelings can express itself in the form of excesses of given emotions in particular channels hidden in the body systems (hormonal problems, diabetes, coronary heart disease). These problems become more pronounced the more we hide these emotions from ourselves, and, as it were, they ‘linger’ in individual systems. The human immune system is called the so-called ‘liquid brain,’ and the blood in TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) is assumed to contain hereditary information, so all separation anxiety and repressed emotions automatically pass into these systems.

The phenomenon of dissociation and the exclusion of our emotions, such as anger, grief, loss, or loneliness, is nothing more than the repression of these feelings. Dissociative strategies appear in the body in the form of a tightened diaphragm, which reduces the breathing capacity and thus the feeling of emotions (including the sense of our well-being) is blocked. It is said that often the body tells its own stories for us. Every illness is a form of story carried by life experiences. The body and its condition sometimes become our non-verbal, inner voice. It is in the body that information is encoded. This is because our mind implements our beliefs on a bodily level. Often anger subconsciously accumulated towards another person is shifted onto ourselves; this is how we become self-critical, breeding an inner critic within ourselves. The transfer of emotions onto oneself can therefore be expressed through the body and the illnesses it experiences.

There are also times when being ill is an internal form of subconscious attention to oneself. For some people, the time when they were ill in childhood was the only time their parents stood up to their task by being caring. Such a subconscious program may tell us to be ill in order to experience someone else's care again. Sometimes illness is also a form of escape. When, for example, we don't want to face something, then we prefer to avoid confronting a multitude of responsibilities, or we simply feel overloaded with work, so illness becomes an ideal excuse to rest. So, as it were, we attract it ourselves by the power of the inner voice: ‘Rescue!’.

Problems with so-called separation and co-dependency are also often a source of illness. Being in a natural relationship with the biological mother at the time of the life of the foetus, we sometimes fail to step out of this role in the future. This is how phenomena such as taking on the suffering of the parent—bearing something for them—can occur. All the more so because a parent in a state of suffering actually creates a closeness that is only superficial; in fact, it creates a certain emotional distance. Such separation even the youngest child is able to sense unerringly. It may also be that the child does not want to show the parent his or her suffering, so as not to add to it and cause as little trouble as possible in a perceptible crisis situation. This is how he adapts, and the cost of this adaptation can build up over the years.

The problem is that, often remaining dissociated from the body, it is not easy to see the price one pays for this assimilation. Under stress, one may forget how much energy the art of survival has cost. This memory, however, remains in the cells; it is called cellular or non-verbal memory. It also happens that some children become ill in order to subconsciously draw the attention of the dissociating parent to the problem of suffering in the family system. This can no longer be unnoticed.

A not inconsiderable role is also played by stress itself, which causes our body to shut down and become a fortress into which, on the one hand, no nutrients can pass and, on the other, toxins and superfluous metabolic products have difficulty getting out. Stress is also a form of certain escape; it is a substitute subject into which one can easily escape in order to continue to disconnect from the body-soul relationship.

Illness is man's most effective teacher. As Sarah Ban Breathnach quotes Flannery O'Connor's words:

Sickness is a place that teaches much more than a long trip to Europe, and there is always a lack of company there, because no one can go there with you.

It is worth remembering that our corporeality is a favourable tool, not a verdict. We have to learn to cooperate with this tool, to listen to it, but usually we have knowledge in relation to its basic handling. Indebtedness to the body requires regeneration. The body is not a wish-fulfilment tool; it is not a goldfish. You may cooperate with the body in the utmost respect for it and gratitude.

References

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