It’s taken me a while to write publicly about my healing journey and the processes I’ve used to accomplish it.
Telling your story is hard when you’re still in the middle of it. You don’t know the ending, or how it’s going to go, and that puts you in a vulnerable place.
It’s also tricky because the work I’ve been doing is deep work. It’s not a “cut out dairy and everything will get better” story (although I’ve tried that, too!). It’s a “let’s dig down as deep as we can go” story. It’s a “let’s look at the fundamental beliefs I’ve been carrying around for decades” story.
Yeah. That’s story-time fun right there.
But it’s important story-time. Both for me to share and be vulnerable and for others to witness and gain potential insight and answers.
The power of vulnerability
I’m learning that vulnerability is a good thing. It not only builds strength, but it can be an avenue for healing. Being witnessed and heard, especially when you feel your experiences haven’t been heard, is extremely powerful.
It’s one of the things I do for my clients now. I witness their stories and experiences, without judgment or criticism. Often even without analyses. Just open-hearted, loving witnessing.
The depth-journaling approach
Depth-journaling is another avenue for healing
I first learned about depth-journaling from Scott Brady MD’s book, Pain Free for Life: the 6-week Cure for Chronic Pain. A friend who used to suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome recommended it to me and assured me it works just as well for exhaustion as it does for pain.
The author’s general idea is that years of repressed negative emotions—such as fear, anger, guilt, anxiety and shame—cause a condition he calls Autonomic Overload Syndrome. This then causes a variety of physical issues such as back pain, irritable bowel syndrome and other maladies.
Brady says that these negative emotions come from our childhood, from our present life circumstances and from the pressures and from being one of several certain pain-prone personality types.
His premise is that by understanding that our physical symptoms actually have an emotional cause, rather than being due to any physical abnormalities (once those have been ruled out), we can then release these repressed emotions and get better. In order to do that, you need to take control of your subconscious mind, use “pain talk” to talk to your subconscious and do daily depth-journaling exercises about these repressed emotions.
Taking control of your subconscious mind
This part seems like the easiest part of the process. If you can accept that your physical symptoms have repressed emotions as their true cause, then you’ve won half the battle.
Some people get better simply by accepting this. Essentially, they read a book about the subject, which causes them to have an internal revelation, and the pain goes away.
Some of us (I’m looking in the mirror here) are much harder headed and need an explanation that totally rings true to them. For me, I need a more complex understanding and explanation of the processes – because what I’ve experienced and sometimes still continue to experience feels very real.
In some ways, Brady’s explanation veers too close to the “it’s all in your head” explanations commonly used to make people feel bad about themselves and to allow their medical provider to relinquish any responsibility for helping them. I’ll admit, it pushed my buttons. Perhaps I’ve had one too many doctor appointments where I’ve been looked at skeptically and not offered any real help.
Your subconscious is trying to distract you from your buried emotions
A big part of Brady’s premise is that your subconscious mind keeps trying to trick you by producing physical symptoms that stop you from addressing your underlying repressed emotions. While I think there’s a lot of merit to his method, I disagree on this part.
I believe that you body talks to you through its pain signals. I don’t think there’s any trickery going on at all. You and your body are ultimately on the same side. You don’t exist as a human without your physical body. Your body doesn’t experience life without you in it, either You’re a team. There’s no war going on here, no trickery or obfuscation.
Another view of repressed emotions
I also read John Sarno MD’s book, The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders (upon the same friend’s recommendation). Sarno’s book is a lot denser than Brady’s, yet his explanations and understanding of mind-body disorders are more nuanced. Still, though, he puts forth that it’s the subconscious being unable or unwilling to deal with the emotions of the past and present that causes a myriad of symptoms.
Brady’s work, which is based on Sarno’s, comes across as an aggressive (and stereotypically masculine) way of looking at and approaching things. I think his prescription of daily depth-journaling is on point, but I’d like to see better integration with a more mindful and compassionate approach, and a deeper understanding of the true cause of pain and physical symptoms with underlying emotional issues.
Your body uses pain to get your attention
What I’ve taken from these books is that pain is your body talking to you. But rather than trying to distract you from your underlying or repressed emotions with the pain, it’s using it to try and get your attention.
Pain is the best, most effective, most efficient. way to accomplish this. You pay attention to pain.
Unfortunately, as a society, we’re just a bit dense and unwilling to look deeply or be connected to our physical selves in this modern world. So we repress the body’s communication even more, often with pain medication, until it gets so loud we’re willing to do just about anything to listen.
I’m just as guilty as anyone. It took me years before I connected two decades of chronic-to-severe back pain with sexual abuse and assault, even after I’d had a nice chat with that pain before undergoing spinal fusion surgery.
Pain talk
The second part of the treatment protocol is doing pain talk either before depth-journaling or when symptoms arise.
An example of pain talk could be that, either when pain symptoms come up, or when you’re about to sit down to do some depth-journaling, you say to yourself (or out loud): “OK, subconscious, what emotions are you trying to hide? I’m going to find out, so stop the symptoms now!”
Some people apparently get pretty aggressive with their pain talk, like they’re about to club their subconscious mind and take full control over again. This may work well for some people.
I’m a gentler soul. I don’t want to get into a yelling match with my subconscious. It’s doing the best it can. It thinks it’s protecting me, after all, rather than being in a war with me and my highest good.
However, given that, I do find it effective to visualize closing a door to the physical explanation of my symptoms and going into the basement of myself to find out what’s really going on underneath it all.
I find it helpful to visualize turning down the dial on my internal meter that controls how much I’m on hyper-alert and allow myself to really relax internally. I picture oxytocin (a natural, feel-good hormone released by your pituitary gland) flooding through my system, causing waves of warmth, relaxation and pleasure to roll through me.
Then I can dig into journaling about those deeply held feelings.
The practice of depth-journaling
Both Brady and Sarno have a similar protocol in terms of depth-journaling—daily writing, in depth, about all the possible sources of your unconscious feelings such as anger, fear, shame, and anxiety.
Brady offers questions and prompts around his categories of past and present circumstances and your pain-prone personality. Sarno tells you to make your own list and write an essay about each one.
Unlocking my personal Pandora’s box of emotions
In 2018, over the course of several months, I diligently did near-daily depth-journaling sessions, setting aside about 20 minutes each day to crack open my journal and address all sorts of feelings from my past and present life.
I’ll be honest. I approached depth-journaling with trepidation.
Once I started un-repressed these long-stuffed feelings, what was going to happen? What would I find and who might I become once the truth of myself was revealed?
My fears in late March, 2018: “I’m afraid that if I become ALL of myself, then I will become TOO MUCH for others.”
“I’m afraid of being well. I know this even though it doesn’t make logical sense. I’ve had a chronic illness since I was 17. It saved me, in some ways… Perhaps if I can release the need for it, by changing my relationship with myself, I’ll no longer feel the need for it to keep me from my perceived self-destructive tendencies, so I’ll be able to release it and let it go.”
I remember being afraid to begin writing about my relationship with my dad, as I thought I’d run out of paper on the planet before I ran out of feelings. I didn’t. There are still some trees and paper left in the world.
But, at first, that fear held me back. It’s like when you’re afraid to start crying because you think maybe you’ll never be able to stop. You will. And you need to release the emotions within you for your health and sanity.
A deep well of anger
So I dug in, too.
At first, I was amazed at the depth of fury I found inside myself. I wasn’t expecting that.
Brady cautions that many people don’t seem to find much when they start, but that you can use feelings of irritation and disappointment to go deeper within and find what’s beneath the surface layer of emotion. All of my emotions, in contrast, seemed quite ready to pop right out. I was ready for it.
It wasn’t mere irritation for me. Or even anger. Rage. Fury. Wrath. At the time it felt somewhat amazing my journal pages didn’t spontaneously ignite given the intensity of the emotions that flowed out of me.
Pages and pages a day of words full of feelings about my childhood, my relationship with my parents, my current responsibilities and relationships, spurted forth, like lifeblood pumped from my heart.
I wrote about my past experiences, my present circumstances, and aspects of my personality that make life a little harder for me than it needs to be.
In less than a month, I filled an entire journal that had previously taken a year to fill. I bought another journal and kept at it.
My results from depth-journaling
So what’s my result? Has it helped to release all those emotions in written form?
I worried sometimes that what I was giving attention and energy to would create more of the same.Yet I realized that I was giving it release. I wasn’t fixating on those emotions or experiences, but rather bringing them up to resolve them. I approached it from a place of desire to understand, rather than to ruminate, and of compassion and spaciousness (mindfulness meditation helped a lot here).
Besides, I’d been carrying all that repressed, compacted emotion around with me, underneath my skin and in my subconscious mind, feeding it for years. If writing it down, if giving it the attention it’s been asking for, allowed it to truly be released and freed, then that can only ultimately be good.
Dr. John Sarno’s explanation is that the brain produces pain (or other symptoms) “because it fears that the rage, emotional pain or sadness will manifest itself and be felt consciously if it doesn’t do something to distract you.” (page 145 of The Divided Mind). Depth-journaling moves these emotions from the unconscious to the conscious mind, which means the brain can stop producing the physical symptoms, as there’s nothing to protect you from any longer.
I believe the symptoms are your body’s way of getting your attention so you look at the repressed emotions. But, still, once you’re looking at the emotions, and bringing them into your conscious mind in a safe, constructive way, your body doesn’t need to use symptoms to get your attention anymore.
After my intense depth-journaling practice, I felt more space inside myself. I felt, and still feel, an ease within, especially around certain relationships that have been difficult for me. The knots are loosened and that’s such a relief.
I continue to use depth-journaling now. When an issue starts taking up a lot of my emotional energy and I find myself stuck on it as I try to fall asleep at night, I realize it’s something I need to do some depth-journaling about.
So I get out my notebook and I explore what’s going on. I give myself permission to freely express my emotions, no matter what I end up writing, or what I say about the people and situations in my life. (I’ve also warned my family that, when I eventually die, if they read my private journals, not to take what I’ve written personally, it was depth-journaling.)
This lets off the steam in my internal kettle of emotions. It gives me insight into what’s really going on with me. It gives words to my emotions, allows me to express my frustrations, fears and even rage. Safely.
Coming later this year: an online course on how you can practice depth-journaling yourself.