This week, Frances picks up where Jen left off, sharing with us about her journey in coming to understand how suppressed emotions were preventing her from healing from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
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Is your past your past? Have we truly left it there, or do we bring it
with us in painful memories, thoughts, conditioned responses and body armoring? Is it contributing to our illnesses today? If we honestly ask
ourselves that question many of us will find the answer is that we do indeed
bring the past into our present life.
For me, it took me five years of healing from disabling CFS (Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome) to even learn that I had trauma in my system to heal.
Childhood and teenage sexual abuse trauma, an experience of being the victim of
violence as a teenager, my parent’s divorce and later to realize that I was
even carrying trauma from my ancestor’s experiences.
To address this step on our journey to health and happiness, it’s
important that we are working with our emotions consciously, that we understand
more about what trauma is and how it effects the body, and how we heal,
including the different types of trauma like inherited trauma.
To be clear, we do not need to resolve all of our past baggage to heal
physically, indeed we may not need to resolve any and other steps to support
our healing may be enough, such as practicing a lot of self-care like a great
diet, good sleep routines and practicing daily meditation and restorative yoga.
However, I believe for a full and lasting recovery, it is helpful to
gently explore the roots of our patterns and conditioning, and bring new
resources to our younger parts. This will also support us in moving to a deeper
place of peace and wholeness, and enriching our lives and relationships in
amazing ways for the rest of our lives.
As we heal our past we will develop more strength and resilience than we
previously dreamed to be possible, and as we shall soon discover, we might even
experience it as a spiritual awakening.
Trauma and suppressed emotions can be part of the picture of what later
manifests as a chronic health condition. For example, as I was healing from CFS
and was in the final year of the illness and generally doing pretty well, I
went to see my father by the coast. Within a day of being there, I ended up
feeling really unwell and barely able to get out of bed for days. As I was
laying there in despair about how ill I felt, I suddenly had a feeling that my
body was calling to me through these horrible symptoms to be really authentic
with my Dad for the first time; to talk about how painful it was when I was a
child and he split up with my mum, and what had led up it. Thankfully, he had recently
been in therapy himself and so he was open to talking to me about it.
Once I realized this was what I needed to do, I had the energy to go out
for a little walk with him and from the start I brought up the topic. Telling
me more about his story as we sat on cliffs looking out over the sea, we both
ended up crying and connecting, and it was a beautiful and healing experience.
It was also a moment of reinforcing the link between mind and body, as I felt
so much better physically once I’d spoken my truth and been heard. I left
feeling so much healthier and happier, and like a layer of what was needed in
order for me to recover had been resolved.
Needless to say, it’s not always possible to have these conversations
with the people in your life that might have had a big impact on you. In which
case therapeutic support can be really helpful and necessary to work through
these feelings. Of course, if you’ve got really good friends that you can be
truly authentic with, that can be very supportive as well.
For me I believe that sexual abuse and
trauma was at the root of my chronic illness, and what led to patterns and behaviors that kept my system in a chronic place of underlying stress, until I
got to those roots and started to free my system from the burden it was
carrying. As this happens, and all of the energy that was bound up in the
trauma starts to free up, we might even experience a shift in consciousness and
what could be considered a spiritual awakening.
Wishing you well on your journey into the roots
of what is affecting your physically or emotional health, to claim your birth right for health, happiness and joy.
P.S.
To learn more about our work for The
Women’s Wellness Circle join us for ‘Getting
to the Root of Chronic Illness’, a free call on the 18th October
at 9am PST/ 12pm EST/ 5pm BST, sign up here.
Join The Women’s
Wellness Circle – an online community
of big-hearted, courageous women ready to support you to fully recover your
health and give your gifts to the world.
Receive
our free ‘Five Steps to Reclaim Your Health’ course – an
inspiring and practical mini-course for women with chronic health challenges
who want to live a healthy and purposeful life.
Do you know any big-hearted, courageous women
who are healing from chronic health challenges? Share this blog with them and
spread the love ~ they’ll thank you for it.
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Frances is a
therapist, coach, trainer, speaker, mother and the author of ‘You Can Heal
Chronic Illness: The Lotus Process, 8 Steps to Health and Happiness’. Over five
years, she went from house-bound with chronic fatigue to running half marathons
and she’s since spent a decade dedicating her life to supporting 100s of women
to recover their health.
Frances
is a Master Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Trainer and Advanced Practitioner
(AAMET Accredited), a Gupta Amygdala Retraining Coach, and a health recovery
coach specializing in supporting women to heal from chronic illness.
For
more information on working with Frances in one-to-one coaching sessions, visit
her website www.francesgoodall.com
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