Illness is a blockage of slowness somewhere in the body-mind-spirit system. Health occurs when there is a state of unhindered movement or flow.
—Shannon McRae
emotions = e-motion, or energy in motion
For anyone faced with a chronic disease, understanding our emotions is vitally important. This is because emotions are a fundamental form of energy. When we simply notice our feelings (especially the negative ones) and allow them to move freely through us—without trying to deny or reject them—we remain in balance.
When we deny, reject or ignore our feelings, however, problems begin. Rejected emotions stay stuck within us. Over time, they create masses of blocked energy that gradually begin to interrupt our body’s basic energetic processes, creating even more stress.
Sometimes the only way our bodies can get our attention is by creating physical disturbances that force us to slow down and listen to what they actually need from us. When we do, we often discover that our bodies are tired of having to deal with the emotional junk clogging up their energy pathways. They are crying out for us to take responsibility and consciously clear away the debris so they can once again create health instead of disease.
Accessing Buried Emotions
I think that most of us who develop a chronic disease have been ignoring our emotions for many years. From the beginning of my journey into healing MS, I knew that deeply buried emotions lay behind most of my physical symptoms. I understood that in order to heal, I would have to learn to consciously acknowledge my feelings and express them. Unfortunately many of these emotions were hidden from my conscious mind and were, therefore, challenging to discover.
Especially since I have had a life-long pattern of hiding what I really feel.
I think this is a problem for many, not only those of us who have a chronic disease. From childhood we are told “you aren’t supposed to feel that way. . . your feelings don’t matter . . . your feelings aren’t important.” So we learn to bury them until we no longer know what they are.
I know I certainly did.
Coming Home
Once I developed symptoms of MS, I began to search for some way, method or person that could help me connect with the feelings locked inside my body. This search led me to literally “come home” by returning to the U.S. after 26 years in Italy.
More importantly, however, I discovered that my journey was about metaphorically coming home to myself. And it is this that has been the most fundamental and life-transforming change of all.
I’ve learned that what we often think of as a negative (such as a major illness) is actually a huge gift that challenges us to our depths. As we become conscious of our stored emotions and begin to release them, energy begins to flow again. In the process, our hearts open and our lives are transformed.