Are Your Emotions Making You Sick?

Sue walked into my office without an appointment.  Her face looked frazzled.  She apologized for not calling beforehand, but said she was desperate.  She said she felt extremely ill and that regular doctors were ignoring her cries for help.  She was just sure that if I gave her some vitamins and a good diet to follow that it would make her sickness all right.  But, I knew better.

I didn’t have time to have an actual consult with her, but I had a suspicion that there was something else going on – something much deeper than just her physical symptoms.  I started asking questions and quickly found out that I wasn’t the one she needed to be talking to.

Many times, my clients are surprised when I start asking questions about their childhood, their marriage and the stress in their life.  Most think that since they came in with physical symptoms, that I should be asking questions that only deal only with their physical body.

I explain to them,

“Health isn’t just what we eat and drink or how our body feels. It is what we think about and if we have a spiritual connection with God.

Our health is WHOLE HEALTH: Mind, Body and Spirit.  If one is not balanced, the others are affected. Click to tweet.”

Sue had major emotional issues that were leading to her inability to sleep and also had feelings of depression.  She admitted to me that there had been trauma in her childhood, that she had had an abortion 20 years ago and that she had thoughts of hurting herself.

The look in her eyes spoke so much to me.

I said to her, “Sue, I can put you on an excellent diet plan and some supplements to help you sleep.  But, I honestly don’t think they will do much.  You see, you need emotional and spiritual healing.  Unfortunately, I am not equipped to give you what you need in this area, but I can refer you to someone who can help you walk through this.  Then, when you feel peace in your mind and spirit, we will work on that diet plan.”

I handed her the number of my friend who is a professional counselor who deals with both the mind and spirit.  Then I assured her she would get better and that I would be praying for her.

There have been many other times when I had to make that judgment call and refer my client to a counselor.  Because I understand the power of the mind and what it can do to our bodies, I feel like I would be cheating them if I didn’t refer them for more emotional and spiritual help.

If one is filled with anger or fear, no supplement or food plan is going to fix that!  It might take the edge off, but the root issue is still there.

Natural medicine is about getting to the root of the problem, and that root is not always physical.

A More Excellent Way

My mother in law gave me a book several years ago called, “A More Excellent Way.”  It is a book written about the emotional roots of diseases and has bible scriptures that tie into each one.  When I started flipping through the book, it illuminated the emotion-diesease connection I had feared addressing because people might think I was crazy.  I don’t agree with everything the author says, but I have begun to see much of the same in my clients.

I started using what I had learned in the book for my consults.  I remember the first time I worked up the guts to go after an emotional root to an ailment.

I had a mom call me because her son had eczema that was not clearing up.  She had spent months using all kinds of natural supplements and a clean diet.  I asked her, “Does he struggle with fear?  And did you happen to deal with fear while you were pregnant or when he was a baby?”  She replied, “Why yes!  I almost miscarried him in the womb and I feared the whole pregnancy that he wouldn’t make it! And he is a very fearful kid!”

I found the root!  The book was right when it connected skin issues like eczema with fear!  Does that mean fear is the sole cause of eczema?  No, it can have physical causes as well like food allergies or parasites.

But, when someone struggles with an issue that doesn’t clear up with the correct supplements and the right diet, an emotion very well may be the culprit.  I have seen it over and over again, now with eczema and with several other ailments.

There are plenty of other books out there that talk about the emotional roots of disease. Eastern medicine has known about your emotional quotient and health relationship for centuries!  Slowly but surely we are catching up here in the West.  Doctors now understand how stress can affect us physically.  The medical world is now admitting that 70-80% of diseases are rooted in stress!  That would mean they originated in the mind, right?

Thirty years ago, the majority of doctors didn’t understand the great impact of stress on the body. This acknowledgement is a great step in the right direction. However, it is disappointing to me when doctors prescribe a pill for emotional distress when the patient may need professional help.  I have had clients who have been on drugs, such as Prozac, for 20 years!!  These drugs are for short-term use.  Long-term use can cause chemical imbalances in the brain! These pharmaceutical drugs typically cover up the problem and don’t address the root of the emotional imbalance.

Are Emotions Making You Sick?

Now, I want you to think for a minute.

• Think about the physical issues that you may deal with, whether it is heart disease, diabetes, or even fibromyalgia.
• Have you tried everything natural you can think of with no avail?
• Do you eat right but your blood pressure still stays elevated?

Now, look deep inside yourself.

• Do you struggle with anger?
• Or, do you harbor feelings of worry, fear or anxiety?

You may say, “Well I have a right to feel that way! You don’t know what has happened in my life!”  You’re probably right.  You do have every right to feel the way you feel.

But would you consider letting go of those emotions if you knew you would feel better and your sickness might disappear?

Listed below are some of the more common emotion-sickness connections.  Read through these and see if any of them resonate with you.  If they do, it may be time to seek some emotional and spiritual help to bring you freedom from what is truly making you sick.