Hi Anita,
I am so sorry for your suffering. The mind/body connection is a phenomenon that has not been studied enough and people are only slowly starting to wake up to. I encourage you to keep working with your doctors to try to improve your situation. There are a couple of authors that I know of that could probably shed some light for you if there was trauma in your past that is manifesting as physical pain: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk and Books by Dr. John Sarno, who recognized this phenomenon earlier on. I can also recommend a meditation on Insight Timer (a free app) by Dr. Brett Wade called “Chronic Pain and Emotional Stress Release”. It is a short meditation that gives you an opportunity to visualize releasing this kind of pain and to begin healing. It isn’t miraculous but I do think that it is calming and gives a starting point to think about that kind of healing. I know you said that you aren’t good at mindfulness, but maybe starting with short, calming meditation isn’t the worst way to begin and it can’t hurt.
I hope this helps a little. Maybe others will have some good ideas to add as well. I’m you light and comfort!
Your pain is sharp and real
In this world of pain and suffering
You overlooked the party and embraced the world .
You walk alongside the many .
You can only heal this pain of yours
By healing the pain of others.
It is time to foster refugees. Human or furry .
Open your heart, open your door.
Embrace the pain .
@anita. I'm so sorry you are going through this. It sounds like you are doing a lot to help yourself. I also see how strong and alive you are and this condition always passes, so it may help to see it as a storm or hurricane you can hunker down and wait out. However, I do have some intuitions about you and these bouts:
The naval area is where your umbilical chord was. Connection to mother. It is also where your second brain is, the abdomen a.k.a. the enteric nervous system where anxiety can concentrate when you think too much.
I threw cards (Thoth deck) on you: I got :
- Prince of Swords - thinking too much. Way too much in your head and when you are in your head, you thrash around in a negative net thinking about the cruelty that has been heaped upon you throughout your life. Solution: doing regular exercises to get into your body, such as mindful exercise, mindful yoga, mindful swimming, mindful walking, dancing. Anita, learn to stop thinking and ruminating. I use exercise and being in nature to do this.
- Nine of Swords: Again, thinking too much, and thinking about hurts inflicted upon you, about abandonments, about being an outcast in your nuclear family.
- VI Trumps: Lovers/Family. Pain about family issues.
- III Trumps: The Empress or your mother and/or a mother or female authoritative figure.
I know a psychiatrist in Newton, MA who is holistic, brilliant, and looks at nutrition, genetics, EMF exposure and other factors of the mind/body connection. Her website is loaded with articles worth checking out. She may be worth contacting and seeing if you can consult with her from a distance.
Good morning,
I posted about six weeks ago about my friend, Patty, who was recently diagnosed with stage 4 of an extremely rare, adrenal cancer. Thank you again for all of your prayers and healing light. I just heard this morning that Patty's condition is significantly worse and she won't be with us much longer. She is such a vibrant, life-affirming, positive, red-haired, beautiful spirit, that I can't imagine this planet without her.
Once again I am asking if you might send Patty comfort, light and peace as she makes her transition. Also to send special comfort and peace to Patty's parents, husband and children. Her children, who are in their early 20's, are having a very hard time with it.
Thank you, my friends.
Thank you so much, Jeanne. All of this means so much sense. Yes, I think so much and I do ruminate. Maybe I can’t meditate easily because there is a battle with all my desire to keep thinking about so much. And I do believe there is much pain with my mother that I’m having so much trouble healing.
Thank you,
Anita
Bless you, Deetoo, for your caring spirit that lights up this whole Forum. I sent Patty, your friend, healing just now and felt the universe flowing through me and I felt her pulling that healing to her. A lot of heat went through my crown and hands towards her. I also sent it to you because, as an empath, you are trying to help her and her family, and we all can help you with that task.
Deetoo, holding your friend in the light. ❤️
Anita, The fear of those painful feelings that you describe is something I have experienced myself. I had a history of depression starting in childhood, and to heal required that I look into deep, intensely painful feelings related to being given up for adoption. For me, learning to experience these feelings instead of continuing to repress them was a big step in my healing; often depression and anxiety are signals that we're carrying emotions that are heavy and scary to face. There wasn't one clear "catharsis" for me, and the healing journey is always ongoing, but it did get easier when I found a way to relax into the pain and feel it rather than hiding from it. Jeanne's advice was so right on, and I recommend going through this process with a therapist who is a good fit for you--someone with whom you can build a trusting and even loving relationship. You want to mother yourself through this, especially if your pain has resulted from a lack of your own nurturing as an infant. As adults, we can be loving mothers to ourselves to help fill that void. You can find positive, healthy ways to care for yourself when those painful feelings come calling: soothing music, warm bath, weighted blanket--whatever brings you comfort and helps you feel safe. Therapy that focuses on the mind/body connection may be good as well. Like you, I tend to be very much in my mind, so sitting meditation has never been calming for me. Yoga, on the other hand, has been transformative. The worst that feelings can do to us is enflame our fear. I had moments during the deepest emotional pain in which I thought I might die--which I imagine I felt as a baby in the infant home when I had no mother to respond to my cries. It feels like falling through empty space with no one to catch you. But the feeling passed and I learned that "being with" it gave it less power over me. We can hold on to our awareness that emotions will pass on in time, that the stories they tell us are just stories, and that we are safe and loved in spite of what they say. Sending you love and courage and strength on your healing journey!
Sending your friend, Patty, and her family and you all the love at this difficult time. Especially for peace for her children and those she will leave behind.
Hi, Thank you so much. I do believe I feared abandonment a lot as a child and believe my mother was anxious about having me as she had had cancer already at 37, had trouble with getting along with my dad, and they didn’t have a lot of money. I always felt in the way and a cause of her unhappiness. When I feel afraid of losing my therapist or that I have upset her in any way, I think I’m reacting to what happened with my mother. I don’t know how to feel the feelings unless that awful emptiness I get is that feeling I’ve had most my life when I fear loss or abandonment. Being 68 and still getting this is awful. Does it make sense to have it happen more on gray, rainy days? My therapist isn’t very motherly with me. I wish she was as we have an overall good connection. But I do notice that when she seems a little distant, I get that feeling. She can’t be my mother and I think she wants to keep boundaries, so I fear what to tell her for fear she will say she can’t help me. I am sad from the loss of a relationship with my sister since trump. When I get that awful feeling inside, I feel like screaming or doing whatever I can to stop it, short of killing myself. But the feeling is unbearable. It’s like the anguish of stomach flu but in my heart and soul.
Anita
Yes, reading again. So I try to detract myself from what I’m thinking. I go to the pool but only once a week. I reinjured my back when starting to run. I know where I can get yoga. It’s just so tough for me to move slowly and shut off my mind.
I keep dreaming about my mother and sister. A dream the other night where I was standing on a mountaintop and a jet was flying so low I feared it would crash into me. Fear of the mountaintop.
I know my father believed not responding to crying. He thought we would be spoiled.
i remember being about 5 and waking up in a cabin on vacation and no one was there.
i remember my mom not picking me up from kindergarten. I ran home, but she wasn’t there either. I panicked. I remember going in a line to meet the Three Stooges at a department store and when I got through the line, my mother was nowhere to be found. I remember thinking she found s good way to get rid of me. I started crying and went up to an employee of the store who found my mother. These events were 60 years ago.
Anita