Healing the past is so important for whole body healing. Learning where trauma hides in the body and what you can do to release your pain is an important part of releasing it. In this article, I share how physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma from the past can be the cause of your pain today.
1. Physical: How past emotional and physical trauma can contribute to your chronic pain.
Trauma in the body remains caught in the physical body and in our cells. Many times we “think” we have moved on but our body is always telling us the truth. Physical pain shows up to let us know that there is a part of us that has not moved on. Usually we are holding on to some sadness or anger or guilt, some emotion that is still residing in our cells and our body. That emotion needs to be honored before it can let go.
Have you ever noticed during the holidays when you visit your family and the days following you experience pain in your body? Maybe you were even exhausted and wiped out?
Do you notice that when you are with them you find yourself reverting back to your childhood and feeling like you have to be a certain way to fit into the family. You end up doing certain things because that is what they expect from you?
In that moment we find that we do things because of our programming and not because we want to. It is after a few days that we start to wonder why we did that, why we acted that way.
Then the pain shows up as we criticize ourselves for how we acted or what we said. Criticizing ourselves again for not being true to ourselves. For not speaking up. For not saying no.
How Past Trauma Can Show Up in Your Body
For example, my client Terry had had pain in her body for 30 years. And every day she felt the effects of fibromyalgia, arthritis, shoulder pain, and low back pain. It all started from a back injury picking up a child from the floor in her classroom. She had been to doctors, been on medications, and had physical therapy to reduce her pain. Yet, her pain intensity level was still a nine out of ten…every single day.
As we worked together she discovered that she was doing a lot for others, all the time…putting their needs before her own. Even when she was in a great deal of pain she was always doing for others.
As we worked together it became clear that she was angry that she never got recognized or appreciated for what she did, although that was not why she did it. Terry really loves doing things for other people and helping everybody, but deep inside, there was a part of her that felt that she didn’t matter. That led her to believe she ‘should’ do these things for others.
As we transformed Terry’s beliefs of obligation: “I should…, I have to” and ‘others come first’, Terry’s physical pain started to decrease and has continued to decrease year after year.
REFLECTIVE QUESTION: Where in your life are you not being you? Can you relate to Terry?
2. Emotional: How your self-sabotaging beliefs and thoughts affect your chronic pain.
When we experience trauma, little or big trauma, in that moment we create beliefs about ourselves and about the world around us. We make decisions about the people around us and the world around us.
What’s the decision you made in that moment about yourself, your life and the world because of that experience. What decision did you make in that moment. That’s the beginning of a story, a thought attached to a feeling attached to a persona or a voice. That created the voice that is manifesting this pain cycle.
That seems for most people to be a paradigm ahha ..oh the first time I felt this pain was when or maybe it was the day after I just had a fight with, or this certain event just happened and they connect the physical pain to an emotional experience.
Then what is the story that you created? What’s the persona you created to manage this disappointment or anger or fear? Or grief?
If your pain makes you feel annoyance, look back and when was the first time you felt annoyance in your life? What was happening? And that is a story that you have been carrying with you forever.
It’s how that story has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. How that persona is determined to be right and that decision colors your perspective, your world view, impacts your choices, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Every aspect of your reality is affected and impacted by your decision.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
Because you made that decision it impacts every aspect of your life and even predicts your future.
How Your Self-Sabotaging Beliefs Can Be Causing You Physical Pain
For example, my client Barbara came to me with low back pain and hip pain. She had had that pain for years. Even after years of massages and Bowen therapies she was still experiencing the pain. No matter what she did to relieve it, it was still present.
During one session she was especially upset about it and the pain was intense. As I asked her about her pain, she mentioned that she was in a car accident and she was very upset. As she continued on, she mentioned that the driver of the car had been drinking and that he could have really hurt someone.
She also mentioned that her mother was an alcoholic and she was always worried that her mom would hurt someone. You see she had made the decision that alcoholics can hurt people. Being in this accident confirmed that when we drink, we hurt people. We worked on healing her anger towards her mother. As we did that, she was able to release the anger she was having towards the other driver. Her physical pain went away and has not returned. She has also had a better relationship with her mother.
REFLECTIVE QUESTION: What beliefs and self-talk do you find yourself believing in regard to your pain story?
3. Spiritual: How your, and your family’s energetic patterns keep you in chronic pain.
As individuals there are energetic patterns that are passed down from generations to generations, it is in our DNA. Sometimes we are not even aware of it. We just know that we have certain patterns and that we do certain things. We believe that our lives are the way it is, that we can’t change it. As the saying goes, we all have issues.
In each family, usually there was an event or trauma that happened years and decades ago and from that moment the beliefs and thoughts were embedded in the family. Those beliefs, thoughts and programming were then passed down from one generation to the next.
There is usually one person or a few who carry that energy of the family. They carry most of the anger, resentment or sadness from whatever the ancestor family member created at that time.
I have found these people to be empaths and very sensitive to energy.
They carry the shame, the sadness, and grief of the family.
How the energy you unconsciously absorb from others affects your pain levels.
For example, my client Lucy had felt a lot of sadness and grief for her entire life. Along with years of pain in her low back and hip. As we worked together it was clear that she had had a hard life. Her mother was really tough on her from an early age.
Lucy then began to see how hard her moms’ life was. She was constantly hard on herself and her children. Criticizing everyone around her. This energy of sadness and grief was passed down through the generations.
We worked together to heal and clear that energy from her ancestors and from her energy system. Once we did that Lucy was able to be more herself. She was then able to decide how she wanted to live her life. Free of those feelings and beliefs. She is now able to be herself. The person she was meant to be. Lucy’s relationships have improved and basically everything in her life has improved since then. Her health has improved, she has more energy, better relationships and she now gets to create and design her life without all those negative emotions.
REFLECTION: Begin to notice if certain people, places and circumstances increase your pain levels. This awareness will help you help you in reducing your pain levels.
If you are ready to dive deeper schedule your complimentary Happy, Active Life Session today.
