When I was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) aka Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2002, I was already working with alternative and energy healing practitioners, but I didn’t know about emotional healing like EFT aka Tapping, Healing Codes, Release Technique, etc… I also did not know how to handle my emotions and feelings or how harmful stress is and that I was creating it.
I started working with energy healers and doing emotional energy healing myself. I used many different techniques and I learned something from each one, but there was no one thing that healed all the issues. So, I created my own practice for healing that works for me.
The most important component of any healing strategy or practice is healing trapped emotions, stress triggers and trauma. Many energy healing techniques work because they release or heal trapped emotions, stress or a traumatic event and then the body heals itself. I believe there are other causes besides stress and trauma, but right now I want to discuss only those two.
The first time I heard that over 75% – 90% of all illness and disease was caused by stress was from The Healing Code book written by Dr. Alex Loyd and Dr. Ben Johnson. 1 In this book, Dr. Loyd discussed the work of Dr. Bruce Lipton and Dr. Lipton’s book The Biology of Belief.
In the Biology of Belief, Dr. Lipton has an entire chapter of the growth and protection functions of an organism. The growth function not only refers to growing from children to adult, but also in the repair and maintenance of our bodies. The protection mode is triggered when we feel stressed or have a traumatic event, both can create a fight or flight response. He explains the interaction between the two as follows:
“… humans unavoidably restrict their growth behaviors when they shift into a protection mode. If you’re running from a mountain lion, it’s not a good idea to expend energy on growth. In order to survive—that is, escape the lion—you summon all your energy for your fight or flight response.“
“Inhibiting growth process is also debilitating in that growth is a process that not only expends energy but is also required to produce energy. Consequently, a sustained protection response inhibits the creation of life-sustaining energy.” 2
So, a cell or a human cannot be stressed and healing itself at the same time. If you are in a state of continual stress then not only are your cells not healing, but they aren’t maintaining themselves, eliminating waste or duplicating. The cells, the tissue and ultimately your body does not have the vitality it needs, it becomes weak and disease thrives.
Obviously, most of us aren’t encountering mountain lions in our lives, but Dr. Lipton explains that emotional stress creates the same biological response in our bodies. The difference is that this emotional stress is continuous.
“We are constantly besieged by multitudes of unresolvable worries about our lives, our jobs and war-torn global community. Such worries do not threaten our immediate survival, but they nevertheless can activate the HPA axis, resulting in chronically elevated stress hormones.” 2
“Almost every major illness that people acquire has been linked to chronic stress. (Sergerstrom and Miller 2004; Kopp and Rethelyi 2004; McEwen and Lasky 2002; McEwen and Seeman 1999) Between 75 and 90 percent of primary-care physician visit have stress as a major contributing factor. (Atkinson 2000) 2
I know that stress and several traumatic events either caused or greatly contributed to the physical condition of my body. In the years following my diagnosis, because of the increase in physical limitations, personal problems and resulting stress, I developed other types of illnesses. As the stress increased so did the severity of the symptoms and number of other ailments. It wasn’t until I started emotional energy healing and healing of the stress triggers did things start to turn around and my body began to heal. By then, I had added layers upon layers of stress and ailments so it took time. I am sure that if I started emotional healing when I was diagnosed, then I wouldn’t have gotten as weak as I did.
When we learn how to release the stress and trauma affecting our bodies, we allow our bodies to return to the growth process so we can either heal or prevent illness. There are many methods that release or clear trapped emotions, stress triggers and trauma trapped in your body. It is also important to learn to manage your emotions and feelings to reduce stress by healing them as they come up.
There are a few books that I have used and recommend for emotional healing on my RESOURCES PAGE and MY PRACTICE PAGE.
Dawn McCrea
- Loyd, Alex and Dr. Ben Johnson, The Healing Code: 6 Minutes to Heal the Source of Any Health, Success and Relationship Issues, Arizona, Intermedia Publishing Group, Inc., 2010, Print.
- Lipton, Bruce H PhD, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles, Carlsbad, California, Hay House, Inc. 2008, Print.
