When feelings feel physical

 “It’s all in your head.”

“You need to get over it.”

 “Just ignore it and move on.”

How often do we say this to people who feel depressed or anxious?

Well, we’ve all heard of people heading for the Emergency Room with chest pain and learning it was a panic attack. This is because panic has a profoundly physical part of it that can make it hard to function. Imagine how hard would be to ignore severe chest pain. This is what’s being asked when folks tell people with anxiety and panic to just get over it. Many feelings and mental health disruptions can show up as physical health issues. Check with your doctor to rule out things like heart attacks, stomach ulcers, and brain or neurological problems, of course, but once those are ruled out, look for a mood or psychological issue (feelings or thoughts) that could be helped with counseling.

Imagine, or maybe you’ve already felt it, the amount of pain involved to send you to the hospital. All the parts of us are connected so it makes sense that depression, anxiety, and trauma can cause physical symptoms. If you get frequent stomach aches, headaches, or even just feel unwell or less healthy, this can be due to either a physical injury or illness, or a mental one.

Not sure about the connection between psychological and physical feelings? Try this little experiment: Bring something to mind that makes you feel angry – a memory, assumption, future meeting with someone. Sit with that thought or memory for a few minutes and notice if there’s a place in your body that feels pain or other physical sensations. For me, it’s my head. If I’m really angry my head sometimes aches. I know, most of us get headaches on occasion. I’m not saying they are always due to anger or other emotion - but sometimes mine are.

Now bring up a memory or future event that causes you fear. Where do you feel it in your body. Some people feel heavy limbs, stomach aches, or a sore throat.

Now try it with sadness, again sitting with the thought or memory for a few minutes. Pay attention to your body and where your sadness lives. Do you feel a heavy chest, a sharp stomach ache, something else?

And lastly, think of something or some time you felt joy. The kind of joy that has you jumping, clapping, and maybe even crying for its beauty. How does your body feel? Hollow? Full? Loose? My arms and legs get almost floaty, they become so light.

Bonus, you can try this with other positive feelings to help you improve your mood. Recall something terrific (calming, or safe, or happy), including sounds and smells. Keep it in your mind for more than a few minutes. It really works!

It seems that some pains may truly be in our head, but that’s not a bad thing. If you have unresolved pain, and your doctor can find nothing physically wrong, call me to talk about whether you might want more help. 

Related posts: Where do you hold stress, Mad as hell, Finding the right therapist (anywhere)

Where do you hold stress?

Is it in your belly? Your head? Your neck and shoulders?

I tend to hold stress and tension in my belly – almost like a punched muscle.

When you’re stressed you might notice you hunch your shoulders up toward your ears, giving you pain in your neck or upper back.

You might tighten your jaw, grind your teeth, or feel weepy.

The most important thing is that you notice. If you don’t know you are stressed, it’s hard to release it.

Try the activity below – Progressive Muscle Relaxation - to notice and release any stress held in your body. For best results, please:

• Keep exhales longer than inhales, slow and deep
• Scanning is nothing more than going inward and noticing
• When you get to tensing and releasing, repeat each area or muscle group 2 or 3 times.
• Take cleansing breaths after each muscle group, before moving to the next.
• Read it through once and then try it from memory – aim for feeling better, not following steps to perfection.

If you’d rather hear this instead of reading, download Stress Release Progressive Muscle Relaxation.

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Here we go:

1. Get comfortably seated.
   Sit in a comfortable chair, feet resting gently on the floor.
   Sit up straight without rigidity and take a few slow deep breaths, with exhales longer than inhales.
2. When you’re ready, scan your body slowly.
   Close your eyes slightly, so your lids are just touching.
   Starting at the top of your head and moving slowly and methodically down to your feet, just notice how your body feels.
   Do you notice any areas of pain, prickling, cold, heat? Pressure, constriction, or anything at all?
3. Now pause your scanning and take a few deep breaths again. In and out, with exhales longer than inhales.
4. Next, tense and release muscles, slowly and methodically working feet to head, and breathing slowly throughout, with deep cleansing breaths after each area of your body.
5. Beginning with your feet, scrunch them up, toes either splayed out or curled in, ankles rigid and tight.
6. And release, relax, and visualize warm limp muscles. Repeat at least one more time – tensing and clenching, then releasing.
7. Deep cleansing breaths - again with long exhales.
8. Now, moving up - calves and shins, knees, thighs and glutes. Slowly and with intention, one muscle group or body area at a time, tensing and then releasing, at least two times.
9. Breathing warmth and love in, and pressure, stress, and tension out.
10. Moving up, to your belly and chest, lower back, spine, and upper back.
11. Cleansing breaths and then repeat again.
12. Now shoulders and arms, elbows, wrists, and hands. Repeat each area, with calm breaths in between.
13. Work up to your neck, jaw, forehead, and crown, breathing deeply between each area of your body – repeating again, each area.
14. With your eyes still gently closed, notice the ground under your feet, your back against the chair, and the sounds in the room. Come peacefully back to awareness of your surroundings and open your eyes when you’re ready.

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If you try this exercise daily - a few days in a row, you’ll start to feel like jello or floaty air when you just think of doing it. If you haven’t the time, just try it whenever you like. Once again, if you’d rather listen instead, download the audio file.

And, as always, I'm here.

If you need more than a relaxation activity, email me to schedule a free telephone consultation, where we can talk about how to reduce stress. You can also reach me in my West Seattle counseling office at Balance InSight, 206-790-7270.

Your turn: where do you hold stress? Post below; I'd love to know.

The Impermanence of Both Sides of the Pain/Joy Coin

I recently returned from a silent meditation retreat – a place of painful and joyous insights. It was held in a peaceful place, in the middle of nowhere, amidst deer and wolves, caterpillars and snakes. In an effort to force myself to get up and stay up for early morning 4:30 am meditation, I volunteered to ring the morning gong each day.

I set my travel alarm for 3:50 and dressed silently by the light of the little wooden lamp, wrapping scarves around my neck and head – it’s cold in the dark in the woods. My job was to walk outside under the awnings around the women’s dorms, hitting the wooden mallet on the heavy – brass, I think – gong, making it spin and sending vibrations of sound in all directions signaling 4 am wakeup and 4:20 “get yourself to the meditation hall,” for women meditation students.

By 4:30, I was wide awake for morning meditation and took my assigned cushioned spot in the meditation hall. Seated in silence, unmoving, scanning my body for vibrations, my feet would go to sleep. The tingling turned to electric shocks as I worked to notice the sensation, wonder about it, without judgement, and then move on to each area of my body, piece by piece. Working my way up, my back screamed in silence. Notice, wonder, no craving, no aversion, anicca, anicca, anicca* – the law of impermanence.

Meditation continued, alternating with meals and breaks, until 9:30 at night, for ten difficult and wondrous days.

During meals and breaks, I thought. In my head without distraction can be a scary place to live, and so I tried to notice, wonder, and practice anicca with my thoughts. I had painful thoughts of childhood traumas, joyous thoughts of future life plans, and tender fearful thoughts of the impending loss of my dear friend, his third bout with cancer, third type, ever growing. And I cried. Often. In silence. Walking the mowed paths in the meadow and looking out at deer during teatime. Why did he do that? I got this! Why must she go and leave all her children?

I made decisions, changed decisions, and meditated on it.

I must confront my father for his sins against me; I must not confront my father, he can hurt me in other ways now; I am not a traumatized child anymore and my existence no longer depends on the whims of my father.

I must continue my agency job healing moods and personalities; I must leave my job to support myself; I will continue my work, my life's mission, in my own office.

My friend will die; my friend might live with this treatment and that intervention; my friend’s body is dying and I will hold his family in my heart and his soul in my hands.

And then, I meditated some more.

The last night of the retreat was a buffer between the isolation and noble silence of meditation and the hustle bustle noise of the outside world. Talking was allowed everywhere except in the meditation hall. I stayed up late in deep discussion with other women I felt silently bonded to. And then the pain/joy coin hit me in my gut: life is pain and life is joy. Physical aching electrical pain and horror-invoking mental pain and the heart ripping pain of grief. Subtle pinpoint vibration joy and emancipating courageous “I got away” joy and hopeful life without end joy.

And now, I meditate some more.

*Anicca is pronounced uh-nee-cha, and means impermanence in Pali. The law of impermanence says that pain and suffering, like joy and happiness, are impermanent.

If you've experienced grief, loss, trauma, or pain, you can feel better. I'm here. You can call me to schedule a consultation, where we'll talk a bit, give you some hope, and see if maybe you want a little more help.