The human body is an amazing piece of equipment. It can walk on two legs, grasp objects with opposable thumbs, heal injuries without outside assistance and it has an extensive sensory network that gives a continual, real-time status update on the condition and functionality of the body. It is intimately controlled by an even more amazing piece of equipment – the brain. The brain not only manages this amazing piece of equipment but also allows for conscious and creative thought, logic, problem solving, powerful pattern recognition and emotion. Given the brain’s interconnection to controlling the body and ability to feel emotion is it so unreasonable a stretch to think that there might be a link between the two?

It’s the latest craze and the hippest subject. You’ve heard it all before no doubt – the mind and body connection. It’s so over talked right now, or people just assume you get it, that you almost can’t turn anywhere in the wellness world or even the mainstream world these days without someone wanting to talk about, engage or utilize this connection. The discussion is so pervasive in fact that many simply take it for granted that people understand what it is and how it works.

If you’re involved in wellness activities or literature you’ll hear phrases like “emotional consciousness” and “body awareness”. Each of these are components to building a full mind and body connection – but they are just parts. To complete the process and the understanding you have to put them together

In order to truly understand the mind and body connection you must begin with assessing the understanding and management of pain. At first it may be difficult to really understand that emotional pain can create physical injury – but with a little effort you will begin to see the interrelationship.

With physical pain you can notice it exists rather quickly – your body is full of nerve endings and pain receptors. Your body is designed to understand and communicate the source of physical injury to you in a fairly efficient manner. If it’s an acute or urgent pain your autonomic responses take over and your body reflexively moves away. If it’s less acute your pain receptors still tell you something is wrong which gives you the ability to identify the source fairly rapidly and find a way to deal with the issue.

Emotional pain doesn’t have nearly the same amount of obvious indicators as physical pain does, though they are present, nor do they serve the same purpose. If you are suffering from extreme emotional pain caused by obvious trauma or abuse there are fairly distinct behavioral characteristics that can be noticed. Because of the acute nature of these emotional injuries the indicator behaviors are usually somewhat easy to identify by a trained professional, and if severe enough you can probably identify them in others or maybe even yourself easily without training. Just like physical pain, with proper treatment of emotional pain and injuries it can be managed and even mostly eliminated. However, unlike physical pain which is designed to show you exactly where the injury is emotional pain and the subsequent indicators are often more designed to mask the pain or avoid future injury.

With light physical and emotional pain issues the treatment can be fairly straight forward and the healing can be rapid. What can be missed with deeper physical and emotional pain is how the two interrelate and can create or heal each other. This is where understanding the mind and body connection begins to shift and expand.

If you’ve ever had to manage through chronic physical pain then you know that it’s just about one of the worst things to have to deal with in life – especially if it’s extreme pain. But what about emotional pain? Emotional pain is a bit different and often more complex but it can be equally excruciating to deal with. Of course, in order to truly understand the mind and body connection you must see where and how these different pains go together and are inter-related.

In addition to just hurting, a lot, chronic physical pain has a way of sapping your strength and pulling you down both physically and emotionally. If it gets bad enough it can start affecting your work, your personal life, you mood, your sleep and more. Every moment becomes about managing, easing and doing anything you can to escape the pain. When you hurt that much no amount of emotional “cheer me up” will do the trick for more than a few minutes or hours at a time – it just hurts.

Though severe emotional pain has some obvious behavioral patterns, even less acute emotional issues still have indicators that help identify where the pain comes from. As noted though, these behavior indicators serve a slightly different purpose than physical pain. Emotional pain reactions more often serve to distract you from and avoid the real emotional pain. What is often neglected though is how damaging and how painful these less acute emotional issues and behavior patterns can be. In a time of “be tough” and “pop a pill” in order to get better, the management of the underlying physical and emotional issues, and their connection, frequently gets overlooked or simply ignored.

A good support group of friends and family can help tremendously with the management of emotional stress and pain. Therapy or coaching can also be extremely helpful and effective if applied appropriately with someone that understands the issue and the effective reframing and treatment options.

For treating physical pain appropriate treatments might include: physical therapy, medical consultation and bodywork such as massage, yoga, craniosacral therapy and acupuncture. It is always a good idea to have a qualified practitioner evaluate a chronic or severe injury or pain. The noticeable pain could be an indication of a much more severe problem that, left untreated, might cause further problems.

Understanding and properly treating the emotional and physical pain is just the first part of making the connection though. To find the connection the next step is seeing their interrelation in your own body.

By: Angel True – Synergy Coach
True Living Synergy Coaching
Angel works with individuals & businesses to empower their passions, move into action, and transform dreams into reality.  In building Synergy in Life, Business & Spirit Angel’s simply philosophy is Do What You Love, Love What You Do!