“All problems are illusions of the mind”
Eckhart Tolle
The Mind Doesn’t Stop At The Neck:
Whether you call it the Placebo effect, the Mind-body connection, the Energy body, or just the Mind it is clear that thoughts and emotions have an affect on the physical body. Mental health professionals have known this for years and in fact some estimates within the medical field suggest that stress contributes to almost 50% of dis-ease in the human body.
With all this evidence as well as the clear as day personal observation of how you feel when you are experiencing stress why do so many people keep imagining that the mind stops at the neck? No clue, but don’t be fooled!
The Interplay Between Dis-ease of the Physical Body and Lack of Integration of Thoughts and Emotions:
Traditional Chinese Medicine thoughout its’ development has been interested in the observable changes in the body caused by thoughts and emotions as it pertains to clinical practice. With this goal in mind they were able to observe patterns of dis-harmony between the mental/emotional states and the states of the physical body, for example if someone is struggling with intense anger how does it present physically in the body and if someone has the same physical dis-ease does it create a feeling of anger? Short answer yes, long answer no.
Short answer:
Mental/emotional states and physical dis-ease do intersect and overlap so if someone is very angry it does affect the physical body in predictable ways and if the physical body is dis-eased in a similar way it does make the person prone to moods of irritation and frustration.
Long answer:
While it is true that the mental/emotional states and physical dis-ease do intersect and overlap they also exist seperately. This means that someone struggling with chronic anger may develop a dis-ease of the physical body however this does not have to be the case. Visa versa someone with a dis-ease of the physical body that is tied to the emotion of anger may find themselves more irritable but again this does not have to be the case.
While certain thought/emotional states tend to have an affect on certain parts of the physical body, every person is individual and depending on many different factors we cannot accurately predict with certainty what effect (if any) an emotion will have on the physical body or visa versa. TCM gives us guidelines which allow us to offer “educated guesses” on how the mental/emotional mind and the physical body are likely to be in any given individual.
The Mind Can Get Dis-eased Just Like The Body:
Just like the Body can have too many toxins to deal with or too little nutrition to function properly; the Mind can experience these problems as well.
undigested experience:
The “toxins” of the Mind are undigested experiences. In more traditional psychology these are often referred to as trauma but I hesitate to use that word because the general understanding of that term is far away from what we mean in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
The simple answer is that an undigested experience is a clump of energy deposited in your body-mind whenever any thought or emotion is not fully allowed to arise in the system and flush out of the system. Whenever you push away a thought or emotion that is unpleasant/challenging OR try to hold onto a thought or emotion past it’s natural expiration date it gets deposited as a clump of energy that interferes with the proper flow of blood and energy throughout the Mind and Body. (In Yoga these are called Samskaras)
lack of digested experiences:
Life experiences are the “food” of the Mind in the same way actual food nourishes the Body. Lack of digested experiences are the “too little nutrition” of the Mind. You may not have heard it described this way before but you already knew this.
It’s why we crave new experiences, why we encourage learning a new language or picking up a new hobby in old age, it’s why we practice sudoku and learn to play chess, we want to keep the Mind sharp.
What Does This All Boil Down to For You?
It all boils down to this;
- Your thoughts and emotions do have an affect on your physical body and do have a tremendous influence on your ability to THRIVE both physically and mental/emotionally.
- The specific effect of various emotions is predictable but not certain and should always be taken with a grain of salt. Since specific thoughts and emotions tend to cause predictable effects on the physical body you will find more detailed information on these specific thoughts and emotions under the relevant “pick your struggle.”
- Regardless of which specific emotion or thought pattern you are struggling with the process of digesting and integrating them enhances the ability of the physical body to heal and thrive.
- Regardless of what specific goals you have in mind for the healing of the mind or body learning to “digest” your emotions must be considered a cornerstone. Your mind and body cannot THRIVE if you cannot “digest” your emotions.
*Thriving in this context is a state of vibrancy, aliveness, and well being. Please note that I am NOT saying that you CANNOT be physically healthy if you have many undigested experiences but rather that there often is a strong correlation between a healthy Mind and a healthy Body.*
Up Next: Emotional Digestion What is it?