Healing Chronic Diseases: Understanding the Root Cause

The Role of the Limbic Brain

Our symptoms are often a result of the brain perceiving stressors as dangers. This triggers the limbic brain and amygdala to create symptoms as a form of protection. These symptoms can be extreme, such as migraines, fatigue, or pain, and are designed to be louder than the actual stressor.

Identifying the Stressor

Instead of focusing on the symptoms, we should focus on the underlying stressor. This stressor is often located between the throat and the bladder. By tuning into this area, we can begin to identify and feel the pressure of the stressor.

Healing Chronic Diseases: The Process

The Importance of Preparation

Without proper preparation, diving into these stressors can be overwhelming. For example, an unprepared EMDR session can lead to a migraine attack due to slight oxygen deprivation. It’s crucial to approach these sessions with the right mindset and tools. With the Release program, we offer homework or preparation tools to avoid our clients from going in unprepared and risking heavy symptoms.

Examples of Root Stressors

1. Existential Fear: One common root stressor is existential fear, which can manifest as anxiety about the meaning of life, fear of death, or a sense of purposelessness. For instance, looking at a bank account or a to-do list might trigger thoughts about mortality or the purpose of existence, leading to severe fatigue and headaches. This fear can be overwhelming and lead to physical symptoms as the body tries to protect itself from these intense emotions.
2. Unresolved Anger: Another example is unresolved anger, which might stem from past experiences where expressing anger was not safe. This can lead to chronic pain or digestive issues as the body holds onto this unexpressed emotion. For example, someone who grew up in an environment where anger was punished might develop stomach ulcers as an adult when they encounter situations that trigger this suppressed anger.

External Triggers and Survival Energy

Many of our stress responses are rooted in childhood experiences where we entered a freeze response. This happened because we were not able to express a healthy fight or flight response in relation to, for example, fear or anger. The associated emotions were incredibly overwhelming, potentially even leading us to judge ourselves as incorrect. As a result, we experienced a shutdown, leaving us with little or no memory of the moment we resisted our stress response. In this moment, we created a trauma that suppressed the emotion and fight-or-flight energy in our bodies. These stressors can stay dormant in the body for a long time but will soon or later resurface.

This old stress is a survival mechanism that gets triggered by current stressors, leading to stress, coping mechanisms, and symptoms. What we often see is that we start using this old and initial fight or flight response towards ourselves in a way that we can’t resolve the stress. Understanding this can help us address the root cause of our symptoms and heal chronic diseases.

As long as we remain in an incomplete fight or flight response, we either fight or flee from a part of ourselves. This causes us to constantly engage in a stress response, perceiving everything we do as a matter of life or death, thereby perpetuating a cycle of survival. When the brain perceives these resurfacing stressors or emotions as a danger, it will create symptoms to protect us. When we perceive this as a danger again, we need more symptoms.

Why We Get Stuck in Survival Mode

Survival mode is a state where our body is constantly on high alert, ready to respond to perceived threats and overthinking. This state is driven by survival energy, which is meant to protect us in times of danger. However, when we remain in this mode for too long, because we can’t complete the experience, it can be harmful. Chronic stress and stress hormones keep our body in a state of hyperarousal, leading to exhaustion and making it difficult to heal wounds, relax or enjoy life. This can result in a cycle where we are constantly reacting to stressors without ever fully addressing them. This makes healing chronic diseases impossible.

The Role of Coping Mechanisms

Coping mechanisms, such as pleasing others, perfectionism, achieving, or avoiding certain tasks, are often developed to deal with these stressors. However, these mechanisms can prevent us from addressing the underlying issue. By identifying and addressing these coping mechanisms, we can begin to heal.

The Healing Process

The healing process has already started for you, but you experience stuckness. After a certain moment in life, you briefly leave survival mode, and that will allow the old stress to surface. This typically marks the onset of a chronic illness. With the release process, we ensure the release of old stress and help you become unstuck for good.

Reconnecting with the parts of ourselves fragmented in the freeze response and completing the stress response in a healthy way are key components of healing chronic diseases. We must allow a part of ourselves to exist without any form of resistance. In this way, we cease to resist or run away from ourselves. This process can be emotional and involve physical reactions such as crying, shaking, or laughing. I refer to these moments as a release; upon releasing these stressors, the symptoms frequently vanish, causing the stress levels to immediately decrease and the underlying stressor to dissolve.

If I were to make you think of your stressors in a way that you can no longer resist it, you would connect with the stressor and your brain will instantly create or amplify symptoms. In these moments you should not rest or give up, but try if you can process the stressor or emotion. Once you have dealt with the stressor, the symptoms and elevated stress levels will disappear.

Conclusion

Healing chronic diseases is about ceasing the resistance towards yourself. By addressing the root causes of our symptoms and reconnecting with our fragmented parts, we can experience true healing.

Remember, the relief of your symptoms might only be a few tears away.