The most common root cause of IBS

Can IBS or severe digestive distress be caused by repressed emotions? 

Not the case for everyone, but for many people, yes!

When doctors say IBS is in your head, they’re referring to the relationship between the brain and the body. Thoughts can drive digestive issues, but digestive imbalances are more likely to be driven certain emotions. Fear is the most common emotion to cause digestive distress and digestive issues cause more fear.

We know that stress and anxiety shut down or slow digestion and suppresses immunity, leading to downstream symptoms. Reduction of saliva and stomach acid, poor motility and excess cortisol are stress driven root causes of leaky gut, bacterial/yeast overgrowth and constipation.

But stress can be an overwhelming topic.

Low grade stress, stuck in our nervous system, can escape our awareness. But it remains trapped in our psyche and body and keeps us in fight, flight, freeze or fawn, which disrupts the body functions that lead to IBS.

Tight muscles, shallow breaths, headaches, anxiety, depression, fatigue, bloating, reactivity, overwhelm, flatness or lack of trust are clues it is there.

Overwhelming experiences or traumas stored in the body can be triggered or reactivates by memory, event or comment, bringing up stress out of nowhere.

The nervous system is the command center of the body, regulating breathing, digestion, motility, cell repair, metabolism, etc.).

Psychonueroimmunolgy is the interplay between emotions/mind and the immune system and nervous system. Stuck emotions, and the mind stories they produce, cause our immune system and nervous system to falter, leaving us vulnerable to disease and infection.

In pyschonueroimmunolgy, communication between these systems is complex. Bidirectional neurological pathways send messages from brain to body and body to brain. But 80 percent more signals are sent from the body.

That is why working with the body is even more important than working with the mind. Emotions are physical, not mental.

Improving functioning of the immune and nervous system is the most effect root cause medicine. We improve it by lightening the emotional load it carries and protects us from experiencing.

We do this by processing and reframing difficult experiences, emotions and stressors. So the body doesn’t have to physical express what we are afraid to feel.

Failing to address this piece, can make a functional medicine protocol fail. When a protocol fails it creates more stress and trauma. Lacking compassionate support during the healing process can be another stress and trauma trigger.

How emotions get trapped in the body

Emotions are suppressed in the body through physical contractions. Many people experience it as body tightness, knots of tension, lack of flexibility or muscle/joint pain. These contractions can impair breathing, which causes even more anxiety and digestive symptoms.

These emotions are subconscious, so we are not aware they are there, but they still run our lives, color our view of the world and manifesting in as body symptoms.

How we protect ourselves and how to liberate ourselves

Emotional repression is subconscious protection.

Pain and discomfort may be your body’s way of protecting you, not turning against you. Like an overprotective parent that doesn’t let you have any fun. We can teach that overprotective subconscious to relax and let go.

Teaming up with our bodies to release stuck emotions, experiences and tensions is like gently and consistently training a beloved pet.

I added hypnotherapy to my services, to connect to repressed emotions and rewires the self sabotaging beliefs they created.

There are many ways to work with trapped emotions. Hypnosis is just one modality. It works by putting the mind in an alpha state, which releases self imposed blocks to subconscious wisdom. You stay in total control and clarity.

It is like a guided meditation. Emotional release work is done best when your brain enters an alpha state.

We go in and out of this alpha brain waves daily but we harness this state in hypnosis for healing work. Creating safety around it.

The hair tissue mineral analysis test, which I’ll be offering soon, gives a snapshot of what emotions are present in the subconscious through a pattern of mineral balance in our body.

Certain emotions make us burn through key minerals. This also effects the function of the nervous system and immune system.

Balancing minerals can be done by releasing trapped, stuck emotion as well as a bit of diet and lifestyle adjustment. With balanced minerals you can have more energy to heal.

Takeaways from this blog post

1. Emotions are physical, not mental. They are stored in your body. Emotional work is not woo woo. It is based in solid science and has a direct effect on your nervous system and immune system.
2. Our emotional and psychological wounding is stored below conscious awareness. We are protected by our subconscious from feeling and healing. Like a well intentioned parent that is not aware of the consequences of their strategy. Physical pain may feel safer to the subconscious than emotional pain.
3. There are many ways to work with the subconscious, hypnosis is one option. A hair mineral analysis test is another. Focusing on somatic work and releasing stuck emotions and the contractions that keep them in place is the missing piece for most healing protocols.

Subconscious work is a good option if you feel like you tried everything and you are defeated and stuck.

If hypnosis and the HTMA test is not for you find other subconscious or somatic healing modalities.

Symptoms as a wake up call

For many of us, our physical symptoms are the wake up calls to change our lives, to heal deep wounds, to liberate us from painful past experiences.

Physical pain (IBS) helped me find the strength to address the status quo in my life that included anxiety, depression and low self esteem.

It may feel scary going into unknown territory but living in pain and with symptoms for the rest of my life was not an option.

Your subconscious may try to keep you from making changes. It doesn’t like change. But keep going even if it’s uncomfortable.

Healing is possible when we reconnect to our body and release past wounds.

We compensate for subconscious issues by escaping to our head and becoming over thinkers, over researchers or having decision paralysis. You can’t solve a somatic problem this way. We need to reconnect to our body, it’s innate intelligent and inner guidance.