FEATURE - July 2019

How Thoughts  and Emotions Affect Health

 

by Christi Clemons Hoffman

 

“Shoulder the burden”

“I can’t stomach it.”

“Pain in the neck”

“Punched in the gut”
 

Our language is full of idioms about pain in the body. Where do they come from? Such expressions are very descriptive of how the body reacts to thoughts and emotion. Shoulders ache from the stress of too much responsibility and too many burdens. Stress creates more acid in the stomach, digestion slows, and the stomach is tied up in knots when faced with a difficult situation. When someone pushes boundaries or is otherwise so annoying that you cannot see their point of view, the result is in pain in the neck. Or when someone takes your power, located in the solar plexus chakra, causing shock and anger, you literally feel like you’ve been punched in the gut.

    
The body is a very effective messaging system; its aches and pains tell us what we need to pay attention to. But it all begins with thoughts and beliefs that are not in alignment with who we truly are. When our thoughts and beliefs do not serve, the higher self gains our attention with negative emotion: fear, anger, resentment, etc. When we are not addressing these negative emotions by righting these thoughts and beliefs, the “knock” becomes louder, and our energy system (the chakras) can become imbalanced or blocked.

    
Once the chakra system becomes blocked or imbalanced, energy flow to the corresponding part(s) of the body is interrupted. When the body does not receive its full flow of energy, it begins to show signs of “dis-ease.”

    
It’s important to note that this is not one bad day or one negative thought that results in pain. It’s chronic patterns of thought—or negative emotions—that can result in physical symptoms. It can even be a message we received in youth that we internalized. This is also evidenced in “inherited” illness. What’s passed down from parent to child are patterns of thought, emotion, and belief. Over generations these thoughts, emotions, and beliefs become solidified in the family’s energetic system and into DNA. 

    
So let’s break down which thoughts, emotions, and beliefs affect our chakras and corresponding parts of the body. In very general terms:

Crown chakra: Spiritual connection and higher-brain functions

Affects the top of the head

Negative thought patterns about spirituality and connection with our higher power can result in headaches, depression, and a feeling of spaciness.

Brow chakra: Creative, logical, and cognitive functions; second sight

Affects the brain

Negative thought patterns about creativity and reasoning as well as choosing to ignore our intuition can result in depression, headaches, and lack of focus.

Throat chakra: Communication and self-expression

Affects the throat and neck 

Negative thoughts about being heard, about using the voice, or having the power to speak our truth can result in sore throats, laryngitis, thyroid issues, neck trouble, or jaw and mouth issues.

Heart chakra: Love and compassion

Affects the heart, lung, breasts, and upper back

Excessive worry about someone, heartache, or negative beliefs about love or being loved can result in heart, blood, lung, or breast issues.

Solar plexus chakra: Power and will

Affects the mid-back and the upper GI tract—stomach, gall bladder, spleen, and pancreas

Patterns of feeling that people are taking your power, of giving your power away, or of misusing your power, over time, can result in upper GI distress or mid-back problems.

Sacral chakra: Relationship, gender, and creativity 

Affects the lower abdomen

Chronic negative beliefs about gender roles, fertility, creativity, or relationship trauma can result in uterine, ovarian, intestinal, bladder, or low back issues.

Root chakra: Survival, trust

Affects the tailbone, genitals, and hips

Lack of trust established early in life, not having your physical needs met, and chronic feelings of not having “enough” can result in tailbone, hip, rectal, or lower-GI problems.

In even more general terms, the quadrants of the body tell us much about the thoughts and beliefs that contribute to physical issues.

Left side of the body: The past (even past lives); feminine energy or person; emotions; receiving

Right side of the body: The present; masculine energy or person; active

Shoulders: Responsibility, burden

Arms, hands: Holding on to something vs releasing it

Low back: Support or being supported

Hips, legs, feet: Moving forward vs feeling “stuck”

Certain conditions are also representative of our thoughts and beliefs. Dolores Cannon, who developed Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique—a technique I’m certified to practice with individuals and groups—found over her 40-year career that cancer is unreleased, buried anger. Where cancer manifests in the body is indicative of what the anger is about. In general terms, breast cancer, for example, is anger about not being loved or nurtured or not being able to love or nurture. Ovarian or uterine cancer is anger about relationships, sexual trauma, or gender roles. 

    
Diabetes and pancreas issues are about not acknowledging or embracing the “sweetness” of life. And arthritis, in general terms, is repressed resentment. 

    
When healing illness and dis-ease, Michael J. Lincoln, Ph.D., author of Messages from the Body: Their Psychological Meaning uses the analogy of tunneling through a mountain. On one side, we employ logical physical remedies—medication, diagnostics, and therapy. On the other, we unravel the emotions and thoughts that contributed to our physical symptoms. Working on physical and emotional causes at the same time, we then meet in the middle. If we work on only the emotional cause, healing can take a very, very long time, as it takes years for thoughts and emotions to develop into symptoms. And if we work on only the physical body, we do not effect a complete healing or can suffer relapse or the emergence of symptoms somewhere else.

    
There are many factors to consider in interpreting pain and disease. An experienced medical intuitive, as part of a therapeutic team, can help decode the “issues in the tissues.”

 

Additional resources for more information include You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay and Soul Speak by Julia Cannon.

 

 

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