The body is the best emotional recording device known to humans

I find it this topic absolutely fascinating. The body feels emotions and stores repressed emotions? Really??? Yes!

Amazingly true, to contemplate that our every gland, organ, tissue and cell as a potential storage place for our emotions and memories.

If you think Im getting all woo-woo on you, let’s do a surface dive into this on a for a second, so that we can suss out how it all works. Let’s say, you're excited or nervous. What happens to your stomach? Do you feel butterflies? When we are stressed, a common problem can very well be tightness rigidity in the shoulders. Right? Ever get ‘chills down your spine’ when something feels off? When we are excited we can literally feel the heart pounding harder and faster. So we start to grasp the idea.

The 'bodymind' concept is an approach that was first coined by pioneer of the topic, Dr Candace Pert, back in the 1970’s. This concept, must have been heavily criticised at the time, as it brought knowledge in this scope into a new realm, from traditional Psychology wisdom. Nevertheless, Candace et al, found that the body and mind could not be separated, as traditional psychology had shown, because it was discovered on a neurological level, that the body felt the minds’ thoughts and emotions via neuropeptides and their neuroreceptors, hence the term bodymind was justified into play.

Specifically, Dr Candace stacked up profound scientific evidence that the body is indeed, our subconscious mind playing out, whereby showing that, our body and immune system literally can take hold of our every thought and emotion.

Dr Pert explains this concept in more scientific terms “A feeling sparked in our mind or body will translate as a peptide being released somewhere. [Organs, tissues, skin, muscle and endocrine glands], they all have peptide receptors on them and can access and store emotional information. This means the emotional memory is stored in many places in the body, not just (or even primarily) in the brain. You can access emotional memory anywhere in the peptide/receptor network, in any number of ways. I think unexpressed emotions are literally lodged in the body.  The real true emotions that need to be expressed are in the body, trying to move up and be expressed and thereby integrated, made whole, and healed“

In fact, back when I was studying my masters degree, in sports science, we completed a project on this very topic. A compelling book by scientific authors, Blakeslee and Blakeslee titled Your Body Has A Mind Of It's Own, factored in on this very interesting topic. Blakeslee et al, described Dr Perts bodymind connection concept, as body maps. As an example, Blakeslee hypothesise, that that our bodymaps are likened road maps with their many interconnections, our body maps represent all aspects of our bodily self and even extend into the space around us. I more recently discovered that this space in which Blakeslee & Blakeslee describe, (which could be a room that you are in for example, or a car you are driving) is actually an electromagnetic field, that may very well represent your soul. Because, as legendary Paul Chek describes, 'your soul is not in your body, but your body is in your soul.'

The fact that we mere humans in todays world, have been largely conditioned to bury our emotions alive, because showing negative emotion is very often shamed upon, may provide some insight as to why some of us have to constantly deal with chronic injury of the same body part. Would that be to do with the fact, that we need to stir a certain emotion, in order to remove old baggage and release the pain in that particular area? Could it be that we not only store emotions from this life but previous lives in this realm? In yoga practice, this very subject is termed as “samskara,” which literally means the subtle impressions of our past actions.

“Everything that appears in the physical realm is always connected with energy flow at the invisible level.” - Nan Lu

Interestingly, TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) also pertains to Perts’ bodymind concept, especially when concerning organ health. According to the history books, Chinese medicine practices have been around for the best part of over 2200 years. Its difficult to pinpoint precisely when they made this body mind connection, although chances are they have been practicing Dr Perts intelligent concept way beyond the 40 years of modern medicine.

For example, TCM suggests that different organs, represent different emotions

As a very brief example please view the list below:

• Liver and corresponding sensory organ the eyes: Anger, resentment, bitterness frustration

• Heart and small intestines: Happiness Joy, Hate, cruelty

• Stomach: - spleen and pancreas - worry anxiety, distrust

• Lungs and large intestine - grief, sadness depression and anxiety

• Kidneys and adrenals, ears and bladder: fear

Could it be suggested that this bodymind concept may explain why some of us feel mentally and physically stuck in pain or in life challenges, without seeing a way out as we cling hold of old thought patterns and emotions that no longer serve us? This maybe because we have no awareness of this amazing integral connection. We do not know we are storing emotions and memories in our body (which is seen as our subconscious mind), therefore how would we know to the method or the reason to release them from our body?

When I learned of the bodymind, as a personal trainer and therapist this topic, It became , very intriguing for me, because it opens up a whole new solution paradigm. for patients and clients alike, suffering from chronic body pain. Traditionally, many therapists and patients have the following conversations and corresponding treatment protocols. Which many of the readers may be able to resonate with. Supposing you've had to see a physiotherapist here’s an example of what might happen;

Therapist: What seems to be the problem?

Client: I have pain through my lower back (..not even thinking to mention past/present emotional issues )

Therapist: Ok lets take a look (not even thinking to assess clients past present emotional issues). Then therapist typically does their thing, goes forth treats this area, in a few sessions, everything is resolved for now.

Client (2 months later) Please can you help me again, therapist the back pain has returned.

Therapist OK Let s take a look (again) apply treatment and treat again

This can be often a vicious and often frustrating cycle of treatment, solution and then problem returning. This potentially could be because we’ve been so overtly taught to apply a 2D bandaided approach to a possible 5D problem.

From a personal perspective and a therapists perspective, this bodymind approach enlightens me somewhat, because firstly, as a therapist personally I don’t want to see patients returning over and over again for the same issue, because it means I haven’t really resolved the problem. Furthermore, as a trainer my mission is to help my clients progress to their goals. If they keep getting injured, this hinders my goal to keep my clients happy.

Knowing what we know now, could we include more intelligent questions for ourselves if we suffer chronic injuries and in the same places and become sick often, as therapists. And as personal trainers to include these intelligent questions in our clients assessments so we deal with any problem that may not necessarily something that we can see, rather that which we are not seeing. Deb Shaperio discusses these questions in great depth in her book; Your Body Speaks Your Mind. Deb includes in her book a a cross-referenced index of symptomatic illnesses, from headaches to pneumonia, and the emotional imbalances they symbolise. This can be serve as a very useful tool for anyone searching for a deeper understanding of themselves, their loved ones, and therapists and trainers alike for their clients. Accepting this 5D approach, may push us forwards to being able to serve our clients more successfully in 2022 and beyond.

HOW DO WE HEAL?

Is it time to learn how to release from the old jargon so our body and our mind feel that sense of freedom and vitality again?

When it comes to healing, even in the most challenging of cases it has been discovered by top neuroplasticians around the world that all is not lost. Norman Doidge, M.D, a prominent Psychiatrist and researcher in this very field of neuroplasticity, found where traditionally the brain was seen as hardwired, Doidge on his research quest discovered that the opposite is true. Ringing hope for seemingly permanently damaged brains, and ageing brains that many of us have been led to believe our only fate, was a sad unchangeable process of degeneration. Intriguingly, Doidge discovered within his research, the brain is in fact, malleable. Our brains can be changed for the better even in the most challenging of cases where other scientists had given up. In his own words

'Neuroplasticity is the property of the brain that enables it to change its own structure functioning in response to activity and mental experiences."

Through his brilliant life changing research, even some of the seemingly incurable and most challenging mental disorders that have been deemed incurable, have been radically improved by training the brain. He more recently wrote his book titled The Brains Way Of Healing. Doidge discovered distinctive healing practices with energy such as light, sound vibration, electricity and motion were able to significantly reduce symptoms and in some cases cure chronic pain, stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain damage, parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, parts of the brain missing, developmental delays and many numerous others are being cured by neuroplastcians.

Aside from being open to new perspectives and asking more intelligent questions so we can better understand our emotional body pain links specifically, many holistic practitioners adapt a whole manner of healing protocols such as myofascial stretch, meditation, sound healing, movement, breath work. These all come into play to help guide our subconscious back into harmony so we can move forth-wards. You have to find what works for you best, personally as everyone does differ in their responses.

SUMMARY

In review of all this fascinating information, what we can liken our body to, is a mirror image of our thoughts, emotions and memories. As the article title suggests, our body is indeed, the best recording device known to humans. Albeit, often putting many of us at a detriment when dealing with chronic pain or injury as we are, to a large extent spending most of of lives in our brains and have neglected our body’s intelligent signals. Not only this but we've stuck with traditional forms of medicine and treatments that typically bandaid where the problem actually stems from. This is not our fault, since, we've been very much taught to be ashamed and bury negative emotions rather than letting them out and dealing with them as they are. We have historically done this as largely we have little knowledge within society that not that our mindbody or body maps is indeed our subconscious mind playing out, as experts suggest. This information is very positive, as it suggests that there maybe a solution in some cases, where we no longer have to be stuck in situations of pain and discomfort because the brain is malleable it can be changed. Getting old is not an excuse for giving up. The outlook for an ageing brain is no longer dire as some may think, as neuroplasticians have now discovered, the brain can be changed and healed at any age and at any stage of life. No matter what the challenge is.

We may now take ownership with this knowledge in our hands and help to heal ourselves, as therapists and trainers out there, we many consider a new scope of assessing and practicing to help our clients better.