Google says 24% of adults deal with body pain, and 40-55% of those experience co-occurring depression.  With clients I’ve worked with in my office, doctors provide pain medication and physical therapy referrals, which help to a degree.  The medicine relieves the pain but doesn’t solve the problem. Some report the medication only relieves the pain a little, causing, for most, other problems in the form of side effects.  Physical therapy helps as well, sometimes a little and sometimes more, but rarely is it a full solution.

Traditional therapeutic solutions involve meditation.  Research shows meditation can reduce pain by up to 50%.  I’ve seen this in my office.  It’s real.  It works.  But it still isn’t 100%.  EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) also works on pain, and it can be very effective, but I find my clients struggle to do it on an ongoing basis.  Some do.  Some do not.

I’m going to share a personal story to illustrate this issue and an alternative solution.  

About six years ago, one of my family members developed a life-threatening illness and required a great deal of care-giving that was not covered by insurance.  I had to do it all.  The father was too traditional to do direct care, and there were no other family members who could help until later, when an older sibling offered to help.  I became so stressed (not depressed) that I was struggling to keep going.  I’d get burnt out and then, somehow, I’d rally for another wave of motivation.  Somehow, I never got depressed, but I was very stressed and was in several car accidents (4), none of which were my fault. 

Spiritually speaking, my stressed energy was probably attracting the car accidents.  I can’t deny that they happened during this stressful time. Needless to say, they caused body pain.  I got acupuncture, chiropractic, cranial sacral work, and massage, and they helped, but not 100%.  I gained the understanding from somewhere that our higher selves create pain in our bodies to trigger a lesson we need to learn.

I investigated my jaw pain.  I’d had persistent jaw pain since the accidents with misalignment issues.  I looked up the spiritual meaning, and it said something about me needing to speak my truth.  My first thought was, “What a pile of shit!”  I’m assertive and very good at speaking my truth.  Regarding the people closest to me, I do speak my truth very well, but I realized there were some distant family members for whom this didn’t ring true.  When I say distant, I mean physically. 

My oldest son lives a ways away, and I don’t see him often because of how he manages his time.  I’d become frustrated with his inability to prioritize his family.  He had mentioned feeling bad about it when my parents died, and now he was doing the same thing with me.  I texted him right away asking if we could talk.

My jaw immediately felt about 50% better.

This was motivating, so I began writing a letter to my sister about long-term relational challenges.  This was harder to head into because she tended towards blaming and denial.  But with the jaw pain lessening, I forged ahead, wrote the letter, edited it, and pressed send.  My jaw pain reduced again.

She wrote me back, but her letter was filled with denial and criticism.  I made my letter short, sweet, and to the point, cutting off relations completely.  Then I wrote the letter to my other sister as well. I felt nothing but relief after that.

Once that letter was sent, my jaw pain was gone completely!  I still had a little alignment issue, which I figured I needed to explore to see what was causing it.  But it seemed to get gradually better over time, and within the week, my jaw is aligned.

This morning I noticed back pain that didn’t disappear as fast as it had.  I immediately looked it up: “What’s the spiritual meaning of lower back pain?”

Google said, “a manifestation of unaddressed fears regarding security, finances, or a perceived lack of emotional or structural support.”  They don’t all have to feel right. What felt right to me was the perceived lack of emotional or structural support.  So I changed my thoughts:

From “my son hardly does anything to help” to “he took out the garbage, shut the chicken door, and helped cook dinner”.

That’s all it took!  My back pain was gone, and with it, the stress.