Modern science is beginning to get excited about what ancient Greeks practiced in Athens and Crete, and indigenous people all over the world have known for thousands of years. Science is proving that mind and body are clearly not only interrelated, they are one. We are bodymind.
Candace Pert, Ph.D., an internationally known and highly respected neuro-biologist has proven that emotion is not generated in the brain; it is generated in the cells themselves -- all over the body. Therefore our bodies are truly our subconscious minds. Dr. Pert, author of 'Molecules of Emotion', with her husband Dr. Michael Ruff, were the first to begin study in what is now well known as psychoneuroimmunology. Pert says that emotions are chemically instigated at the cellular level, which is where unexpressed emotions are stored.
This overwhelmingly indicates that mental, emotional and physical trauma, and shock, when not expressed at the time the event occurs, creates energetic blocks which lead to later problems.
We now know that what Sigmund Freud termed the 'subconscious mind' is actually a measurable physical process. Freud explored awareness outside consciousness and showed that when we banish traumatic experiences to our subconscious mind, they later emerge as physical and mental ailments. Our suppressed emotional events influence our physical well-being.
On the cellular level, emotions are literally created chemically. As we store unexpressed emotions on a cellular level, illness can be caused by this stored and trapped information. Therefore, it stands to reason that to heal from our ills, we must express the information accumulated in our bodyminds.
Wilhelm Reich, MD, a student of Freud, is world renowned for his innovative therapy which treats human beings as living, moving entities full of the life energy, that he called orgone. Reich stated that when life energy is blocked due to emotional distress, illness is produced.
Dr. John Pierrakos, a student of Reich, creator of Core Energetics, has studied the interface between held emotions and illness, for over 40 years, and has taught that specific developmental wounding creates specific disease processes. Dr Pierrakos' book Core Energetics: Developing the Capacity to Love and Heal, explains how Core Energetics combines psychology, new physics, spirituality, and energy field and charka system theory. Once considered to be only in the realm of the spiritual and metaphysical, Dr. Candace Pert's research is now revealing the scientific underpinnings of the charka system. Pert says that charkas are 'minibrains': points of electrical and chemical activity that receive, process, and distribute information from and to the rest of the body.
Alexander Lowen, MD, also a student of Reich, co-creator of Bioenergetic Analysis, with John Pierrakos, MD, writes extensively on the interface and impact of the emotions on the body. In his book, Love, Sex and Your Heart, Lowen explains that difficult childhood experiences impact the human body and particularly the human heart.
Many people in our culture suffer heart disease. Certainly diet and modern day stresses contribute to failing hearts. Most importantly, says Lowen, children who suffer lack or loss of love in childhood suffer heartbreak. To survive they suppress their pain by rigidifying the chest wall, which limits breathing, movement and feeling, therefore creating a continuous stress on the body. Dr Lowen says, 'It is the existence of this kind of stress, in my opinion, that predisposes so many people to heart disease.' He goes on to state clearly that 'Only a person who is not afraid to love can be reasonably secure that his heart will remain healthy.'
It is well known that people with 'type A' behavior are statistically 7 times more likely to have heart disease and heart attacks. People with 'type A' behavior have tight mouths and jaws, tense bodies and body postures, rapid finger tapping, are competitive, compulsive, etc. People who exhibit these behaviors are defending themselves from painful childhood histories or current emotional stressors and can help heal themselves by expressing held emotions which will soften and relax their entire bodies, making them less likely to be physically and mentally ill.
Examples of bodymind influence from my own practice are numerable. Two representative cases are: a 40 year old man, who presented with serious long term irritable bowel syndrome/colitis, was able to express his unresolved childhood pain of his mother's death, and his physical symptoms resolved in just a few months. A thirty five year old woman, who for years, had daily severe migraines, was able to release the energy that was blocking her emotions, rage at an abusive father, and her headaches soon vanished.
Physical symptoms of dis-ease are clearly emotionally connected. Working energetically with the deep emotional and spiritual issues can move and transform the stuck energy that creates dis-ease such as, fibromyalgia, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, some types of chronic pain, migraines, sexual dysfunction, and TMJ among others. Working with the Body and its energy also helps to heal the issues we commonly consider psychological, such as, panic attacks, depression, anxiety etc. People who work with all aspects of themselves, report feeling more alive, having more sexual feeling, singing better, and being more spontaneous and joyful.
What can assist you in your quest for healing your bodymind? Many modalities assist the bodymind healing. Bioenergetic Analysis, massage, Rolfing, osteopathic and chiropractic are among them. Healing modalities that work the emotional, mental and spiritual levels of existence are Homeopathy, Acupuncture and Core Energetics. Among them Core Energetics uniquely addresses the psychological, emotional, and spiritual directly through work with the bodymind.
