Your Body is Designed to Help You
The Basics of Understanding Why Stress Physically Manifests & Working Through Your Emotional Dis-ease.
Your body isn’t out to hurt you. It is an intelligence system that wants nothing but the best for you no matter how you treat it. Give your body a little bit more credit than it being a broken down machine. I believe that illness is a feedback mechanism that lets us know when something is emotionally bothering us under the surface; that we may or may not be conscious of. Are there physical factors involved in illness? YES! Can studies and evidence-based medicine be the only pieces of the puzzle that matter? I don’t believe this to be true. Gather as much information as you can physically, emotionally and spiritually before making any decisions involving your body. Be your best advocate.
With Love, Rachel Reimer
*This material or any material that I create is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure you. Any material that I create is for entertainment purposes only. Please read the disclaimer at the bottom of this writing for more details.
What is Disease?
Disease is the absence of peace. The latin prefix “dis” means “apart” while the latin root means “well-being”. Apart from one’s own well-being. The greater the absence of peace, the greater the illness.
It’s okay if the human experience has created disease for you. That’s the point. To be in a constant state of peace would be a heaven-like state. You aren’t in heaven. Quite frankly, you are on Earth. The journey is understanding that disease is a last-resort feedback mechanism to let you know you aren’t 100% okay with something emotionally.
The First Step
The ability to take 100% accountability for everything in your life is the mandatory first step on your healing journey. You won’t get the progress that you are hoping for. (I promise. Myself and my personal clients have tried this over and over and over again. It doesn’t work. It has never worked and will continue to not work.)
If you are really in a self-punishment type state, finish the whole book without doing this step and be angry and resentful that nothing changed. (You have complete permission to do that).
Accountability
What is accountability?
Accountability = the belief “I have created every single thought, experience and sensation in my life
How am I supposed to take accountability for every single thought, experience and sensation in my life?
Who is accountable for your life? If you aren’t accountable for your life, who is? Your parents? Your spouse? The government? Your doctor? Who is in charge of you?
If someone else is accountable for your life, how are you living? Are you 100% dependent on them taking care of you? Is it possible to survive without them? Really think about that. If this person or entity dies, is it really true that you die at the exact same time? If you won’t die at the same exact time, you can survive without them. Meaning, you aren’t dependent on them to live. You may not feel emotionally or physically comfortable without them; and will you die without them? No.
A fear of accountability = an inability to see available choices. The individual that fears taking 100% accountability can only see the ideal choice and no other choices. If the ideal choice is no longer available, the thought is somewhere in the realm of “I won’t survive.”
Let’s look at the fear of taking accountability in the context of medicine. One belief that I have heard is “Without my medicine, I can’t function.” With this thought, you are set on the ideal choice. It has to be this specific medication and no other form of healing/medication.
If that specific medicine gets discontinued or there is a supply chain shortage, is it really true that you can’t survive? What if another medication is available? Perhaps it will only be 50% the strength of the current medication. Will you still be able to survive until you find a better option/resource? Absolutely. Is it possible you won’t be feeling great or comfortable during that time where you have a lower strength medication? Yes.
What if all the pharmacies are shut down? Is there possibly an alternative way to help yourself? An herb, a homeopathic remedy, an essential oil? What if you find a remedy that is more cost effective and more physically effective than the medication? Could another idea possibly benefit you more?
Could it be possible that other resources are out there that you didn’t even known existed? What if a physical therapist could help your condition and you didn’t even know that was an option? How about a food option? If you are tight on money, is there possibly a different dietary solution that you could try to nurture and nourish yourself? Is it possible that dietary changes could make a significant impact on your health?
You have complete permission to sit in the belief of “I should have my medicine.” The reality is, you may not at some point. What do YOU want to do about it. What choices do you have even if they aren’t ideal choices. It is your responsibility and solely your responsibility to take care of you. Although, you could sit on your deathbed and scream over and over, “I SHOULD HAVE MY MEDICINE”, Some attachment can be so strong that people would rather die than be open to a new way of thinking.
Read that last sentence again. WHAT?!!!? That extreme Rachel? That extreme. Early in my career, I talked to a woman that had Stage 4 Breast Cancer. She asked me to help her identify the specific belief system related to her breast cancer. The belief was something to the extent of “I can’t forgive my ex-husband. He has milked me dry.” I mentioned this belief to the woman. Her response was “I was afraid it was something like that.” My next question to her was “Are you willing to work on that belief?” She said “No.” I was shocked. It took me a minute to pick my chin up off the ground. I then responded with “Okay. Do you realize that you probably aren’t going to get better emotionally and possibly physically unless you are willing to work on this thought?” She responded with “Yes. I understand.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. You are consciously choosing to stay sick. What?! It’s a conversation years later that I still go back to. Some people would rather stay sick than deal with the emotional stress behind their illness. Why is this? The only thing I have come up with so far is that this person believes that if they bring up the emotional belief/stress that it will feel worse than death.
Did you know there was a feeling worse than death? In fact, there are several levels of feeling worse than death. For some, not existing/having no significance, feels worse than death. If that is the thought, I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to confront their illness.
Here is the trick. If you set aside the time with a trained professional, to bring up this thought and work through it until it gets to neutral (no matter how long it takes), you can start to function better. The fear is “Once I bring up this thought, I will stay/be in it and it will be unbearable.” It becomes unbearable when one “opens” the thought and doesn’t work through it fully. Then they sit it in. Open the thought and work through it with a trained professional until it bothers you at a 0/10.
What do you have to lose besides your temporary comfort for possibly the next few hours? Are you willing to be extremely uncomfortable for a few hours in trade that your body and mind may start to function much better? If you aren’t willing to experience temporary emotional discomfort in your healing, you will feel physical discomfort on a more regular basis. If that is a conscious choice that can be made, what are you choosing to do?
Stabilizing Disease
Now that you have taken full 100% accountability for your healing journey, let’s start the process of helping you heal. I want you to grab a physical sheet of paper and something to write with. This is mandatory.
*If you are really in a self-punishment type, finish the whole book without doing this step and be angry and resentful that nothing changed. (You have complete permission to do that).
Now that you have a physical sheet of paper, I want you to write down a memory that bothers you.
As you picture this memory in your mind's eye (You are replaying this memory as if it is happening in the present moment) How much does this memory EMOTIONALLY bother you on a scale from 0 to 10 with ten being the most severe?
*Emotionally bothering you is different from your logical brain. This is a really important concept to understand before moving forward. Let me give you an example.
When I was in second grade, a girl named Hannah said that she would like to borrow a piece of mechanical pencil lead from me. When she used the word borrow, I thought she meant, that she would give me mechanical pencil lead back when she got some more. I am 27 years old and I have still not gotten mechanical pencil lead from Hannah.
On a head level, I could rationalize that it was a piece of pencil lead and not that big of a deal.
On a heart/irrational level, this really bothers me still.
When you are going back to memories that still both you and are rating them, I want you to rate them on a heart/irrational level. If you are always analyzing yourself and discounting the way you feel on a head level, you won’t heal. The emotional stress will stay in your body. Be irrational in this process.
Now that you wrote the memory down that bothers you emotionally on the heart/irrational level and wrote down how much it bothers you on a scale from 0 to 10 with ten being the most severe, how do you work through this emotional stress?
First, you have to be willing to actually feel the feelings that you have. I have to be willing to feel my anger and rage that I have not gotten back mechanical pencil lead after 27 years. If you need help learning how to allow yourself to feel your feelings, try this visualization.
Imagine that you have a set of French doors over your chest. Open them up and tie the doors back so they stay open. If you historically have had a hard time feeling your feelings, be mindful of keeping these doors open. It is possible they will close or want to close. If you want to envision gluing these doors open to the wall that is okay. Be creative about how to keep these doors open.
Now that the doors are open, visualize that memory the bothers you again as if it is happening in the present moment. KEEP THOSE DOORS OPEN. Whatever you are feeling (anger, sadness, rage, grief, guilt, resentment, frustration etc. allow those feelings to flow out of the doors on your chest and onto your sheet of paper by scribbling.
Example: As I picture giving Hannah my lead and waiting each day to get more, I am feeling angry. The doors on my chest are open and I am allowing anger to rise up in my body and I am scribbling out the anger as I am feeling it.
As the feeling you are feeling starts to subside, take a nice breath. Check in with yourself. When you go back and think about that memory, does it still bother you the same on a scale from 0 to 10 with ten being the most severe? If not, GREAT. You are doing the process. If the feeling switches to another feeling in the SAME MEMORY that is 100% okay. Go feel that feeling. Continue this scribbling exercise until the memory bothers you at a 0/10. It will feel neutral.
What does neutral feel like? Have you ever stubbed your toe or bumped your head into something and it really hurt? Go back to that memory. Can you feel the pain anymore? No you can’t. That’s weird isn’t it? You felt all of the pain in that memory and it became neutral. When we don’t feel all the emotional pain in that moment, we still hold onto it. Sometimes years later. After you get the memory down to a 0 from the scribbling exercise, the goal is to go back to the memory and that it won’t bother you anymore. It will feel neutral. You know at the time it didn’t feel good but can’t FEEL the pain anymore. You felt it all the way through like you did when you stubbed your toe.
Trouble Shooting: Why this exercise isn’t working for you
1. The French doors are shut or have shut during the exercise. Really focus on keeping those doors open. If you are having a really difficult time keeping the doors open, go open the front door to your home. What fear do you have if you keep the door open? Work through this fear and then come back to the exercise.
2. You are skipping around to different memories. If you are working on a specific memory about fighting with your spouse, focus on THAT memory and THAT memory alone. Don’t skip around to all of the other fights that you have had with your spouse. In my example with Hannah and the pencil lead, if I skip around to all of the other memories in which I felt screwed over, I am never allowing myself to actually feel the emotional pain in full. I am dipping my toe in so much emotional hurt that nothing gets accomplished. In fact, you may feel that hurt on a daily basis for a while if the exercise is done this way. (I see this pattern quite frequently in individuals with depression). ONE MEMORY AT A TIME. DO NOT MOVE ON TO ANOTHER MEMORY UNTIL THE MEMORY YOU ARE CURRENTLY WORKING ON IS NEUTRAL.
To summarize, here are instructions for the scribbling exercise.
Get a physical sheet of paper and a writing utensil.
Pick ONE memory that bothers you and write it down on your paper.
Write down on a scale from 0 to 10 with ten being the most severe how much that memory still bothers you on a heart/irrational level.
Picture French doors on your chest and open them up. Visualize whatever you need to for those doors to stay open. (Glue the open doors to the wall, take the doors off the hinges etc.)
Be back in that memory as if it is happening in the present moment and allow the feelings to surface and scribble them out on your paper. Continue to scribble until the memory bothers you at a 0/10. This could take 30 seconds or hours. There is no timeline on how long it “should” take. You may need to scribble out several feelings in one memory. Additionally, do not walk away from the exercise until you get down to a 0 out of 10. Walking away without “closing” the memory can bring that emotional stress back into your waking life. Closing the memory and scribbling until you get to a 0 is mandatory.
After the memory is at a 0/10, go back and double check. When you go back to the memory, can you FEEL anymore emotional pain or does it feel neutral? Neutral meaning that you know it wasn’t pleasant but it doesn’t emotionally bother you or hurt you anymore. (Stubbed toe idea).
If all else fails, go back to the trouble shooting section.
Stabilizing Your Specific Illness
Touch the part of your body that bothers you or that you feel like isn’t functioning well.
What memory shows up?
Use the memory that showed up and do the scribbling exercise. It’s okay if you didn’t even know that this memory was still bothering you. This is actually a really common phenomena I have noticed in my practice.
After you do the scribbling exercise on this specific memory and have “closed” it, go back to the area of the body that you touched and see if a new memory shows up. Continue to do this until the body no longer shows memories. There is no expectation on how long this “should” take or how many memories “should” be in that part of the body. There may be one memory or there may be hundreds. Every individual is unique.
Trouble Shooting: Why this part of the exercise isn’t working for you
If you only see black when you touch an area of your body, it may mean that you are emotionally exhausted or there is extreme fear around seeing a memory. Make a note of this and come back to it another time when you are more well rested. Allowing yourself to feel stored feelings may take time. I don’t know anyone that has grieved the loss of a loved one in one day. It’s okay to rest after working through one memory. Sometimes you may need days of rest in-between scribbling out different memories that both you. Some days, you may be able to scribble out 5 memories a day. There is no expectation on what you should do. Be gentle with yourself and work with where you are at each day. It takes as long as it takes. You may not be able to heal on your ideal timeline. Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic has a quote I really like about success. “Success is a dedication to the path.” If you have a dedication to this work, you will get to where you want to be. It just may not be on your ideal timeline. Healing isn’t a competition or a race. Think about healing as a nice stroll rather than an intense marathon race.
If you close your eyes and see white, a check symbol or anything else that may symbolize “done” there aren’t any memories in that part of the body at this time. Establish what a “done” symbol looks like for you.
Just because you clear the memories out of a specific part of your body doesn’t mean they can’t come back or new ones can be developed there. The scribbling exercise is to help stabilize you as you work through identifying the specific emotional stress/belief systems related to your illness. The scribbling exercise is NOT designed to cure you. It is a tool to assist in your healing journey.
Working Through Disease (Healing in the Long-Run)
As you work on stabilizing your emotions through the scribbling exercise, what common themes emerge? Do you have a tendency towards anger? How about abandonment? What is the recurring story that continues to show up?
Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help identify and work through belief systems:
Based on this picture/memory that showed up, I believe ______________.
If I replace the other person in my memory with someone else, do the same thoughts and feelings occur?
Is it true that the world is conspiring against me and only me?
Who is in charge of my feelings?
Working Through Your Specific Disease
In working through specific disease, Louise Hay You Can Heal Your Life and Michael J Lincoln’s materials and materials that I have produced can be a way to start to identify specific belief systems.
For example in a thyroid disease called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, I tend to see the belief “Men have and will always hurt me.”
Here are some questions to consider as you work with each picture related to the organ/disease you are working on:
Can I know that it is true and will always be absolutely true? (Byron Katie material)
If I let go of this belief, do I lose my protection mechanism?
If the opposite is true, how is that terrifying?
Find 1-on-1 Support
I believe that finding individual support to help you work through your emotional dis-ease is really important. In doctor Lissa Rankin’s Book: Mind Over Medicine, she proposes the idea that the relationship with the provider is just as important, if not more important, than the medicine being administered. Find a therapist or anyone that regularly works with belief systems to assist you on your journey. It isn’t possible to learn or view something in a different way unless you get new material (books, podcasts, articles, etc.) or talk to someone new.
If you would like to talk to someone that is familiar with emotional stress and how it may impact specific parts of the body, you can book a session with Rachel Reimer here:
Copyright 2022 Rae of Hope LLC
Disclaimer: Rachel Reimer, independent contractors and employees from Rae of Hope LLC are not medical doctors or licensed health care practitioners, and do not claim to be one. Rachel Reimer, independent contractors and employees from Rae of Hope LLC do NOT diagnose, treat, prescribe, mitigate, alleviate or care for any disease of any kind. Rachel Reimer, independent contractors and employees from Rae of Hope LLC insights are not a replacement or substitute for appropriate medical care or medical exam; nor does it replace the need for services provided by medical professionals. Always consult a physician or trained health care professional for diagnosis and treatment of any medical problem, issue, disease or condition.
*The content on this post is based off of opinion and/or observation and is for entertainment purposes only.