How Living Authentically Can Ease Chronic Pain & Tension
There are a few root causes of chronic, persistent pain and living an inauthentic lifestyle can be one of them. What I am talking about here is making choices and decisions that don’t align with your core values and beliefs, or how you actually want to live your live.
A common American cultural condition is to make decisions:
to appease and please others
to validate self (proving that we are “good” enough)
out of fear of being judged or not liked
to go after what we think we want (like more money or a more prestigious career)
to appear successful through hustling, being busy, and climbing the corporate ladder (often at the expense of others)
to look good or keep up with the Jones’s
out of fear of missing out on something
around staying quiet instead of speaking up
under the guise of “bettering the quality of life” which simply = working more at the expense of relationships, self-care, and family time
When life choices are made from these ideations versus your true way of being, the physical body reacts with a visceral response. I’m sure you’ve already experienced this in some way shape or form… you say “yes” to something you really don’t want to do, and your stomach immediately twists into knots.
Your Body Knows
The body knows what actions are congruent to who you authentically are, your core values, and what you truly want. And it knows which actions are not. When we live in that state where the body is constantly screaming at us all day, full of tension, it leads to inflammation, chronic pain, and in some cases disease.
There is a lot of scientific research around somatic pain and health problems due to psychosocial and emotional factors. When I used to do trauma work in my clinical therapy practice, I would see chronic UTI’s (urinary tract infections) in women who continued to have intimate relations - out of “obligation” - in an unhappy or abusive marriage. It was as predictable as the sunrise and sunset.
When I started doing more coaching with entrepreneurs, I found a lot of chronic migraines, lower back pain, and neck shoulder pain that would spontaneously switch side of the body in my clients who were running a business that wasn’t aligned with their divine purpose and natural talents. The pain would vary depending on if my client felt angry, resentful, obligated, or was downright bored.
Fear Of Change Perpetuates Pain
So why doesn’t everyone simply live a life authentic to their values and who they truly are, and avoid all this mess?
FEAR.
The voice in your head can be very powerful. And combine that with the “advice” that others want to give you, fear can totally start driving your bus.
If you are on my mailing list, it’s no secret that I sent out an email not too long ago where I openly expressed my feelings and my beliefs about the outcome of this past presidential election. People warned me not to do this. Told me it would be bad for business. That I would lose students and clients. And this was probably true.
But if I stayed quiet for the sake of appeasing others, and didn’t offer support to those who needed it, then I wasn’t being authentic to who I truly am nor was I practicing what I preach. Plus, I knew my spirit (and heart) would incisively yell at me. I would rather risk the unsubscribes and few individuals who would no longer come to my classes than compromise my integrity. The truth is, if I am not the yoga and wellness teacher that shares someone’s values, I promise, there is another one out there that does.
I’ve made several significant changes in my life to be more in tune with how I want my life to be. For example, I left a decent marriage of 18 years to a guy who is really a great guy, but we were just on different paths. We wanted different things. I was comfortable, we had a nice house, we were friends. Not coincidently though, I was also struggling with all kinds of digestive issues. Hmmm, was my body speaking? You bet.
I had to work through a tremendous amount of fear to leave that all behind. What would other people think? How will my lifestyle change with only one income? Would this end in a fight? How can I walk away from all my stuff? Fear also propelled me forward in a sense. I was afraid I was going to get stomach cancer or something more serious from all the physical tension.
Sometimes we just have to deal with the fear in order to elicit change. It takes mustering up the courage to do something different. Some changes might be fairly simple. Others might require putting a more in-depth plan in place.
First Steps to Living More Authentically
So what can you do right now to ease any tension you have from not being true to yourself?
I always say awareness is key. Awareness is the first step to problem solving. Take stock in what life areas feel out of whack.
Maybe it’s a relationship, your career, your health, or maybe even just a habit of pleasing others with the hopes of gaining recognition.
I also invite you to spend some time really thinking about what your values even are. Sometimes we experience pain, unease, or recurring illness, and we tell ourselves we don’t know why. So being clear about what you actually value is the first step. And from there, you can then look at what you are doing and see if that matches what you came up with.
Are you experiencing chronic and persistent pain? Join my mailing list to get notified of classes, 1:1 sessions, and workshops.