Anger goes up, Fear goes down- Emotions and the hidden link

From the very beginning of my practice as a Japanese-Chinese medicine therapist, I have come across a variety of cases where emotions were the underlying cause, whether obvious or hidden. Looking back over the years, I can even pinpoint the moment where everything started.

It happened in 1990, in Brasilia, Brazil. I had just opened my first clinic and was excited at the possibility of putting into practice everything I had learned in my eight years of study abroad. Anna, a polite and soft-spoken lady, came to see me because she was suffering from an excruciating pain in her right leg, just above the knee. She had tried all the conventional therapeutic methods with no success. From the Chinese medicine standpoint, that meant energy stagnation. Thus, with that idea in mind, I started needling some acupuncture points that the case recommended. However, the moment I inserted a tiny needle in the painful spot, the lady started to cry, first gently, then convulsively. I was shocked at Anna's reaction and feared that I had badly hurt her. Because she was one of my first patients, I thought that my career as an acupuncturist was not going to be a long one. Immediately I proceeded to remove the needles and saw her going away still crying.  

On the following morning, to my surprise, there she was again in my waiting room. Luckily, she was not crying anymore - actually she had a smile on her face! She told me that the night before, the very night she had had the acupuncture session, she had a vivid dream. She dreamed that she was on a big black ship and that she was being whipped on the leg, exactly on the same painful spot. The dream  (or nightmare) stirred up intense emotions, such as fear, anger and hopelessness. Amazingly, when she woke up in the morning, the pain was completely gone. No trace of it!

I was astounded with the whole episode. Anna's case was a major revelation to me, for up until then, I had regarded acupuncture as a very effective therapeutic tool for treating physiological disorders. All of a sudden I was facing a new dimension that would, from that moment onwards, cause a significant shift in my understanding of the human being's limitless dimensions.

Anna's experience could be understood as a "trapped" emotion in her muscle-skeletal system. From the therapist's point-of-view it is irrelevant whether the causing factor could be found in past-life circumstances or if the dream was just a metaphor resulting from the imbalance brought about by the pain. In my opinion, the most important aspect of the case is that an unresolved emotional issue, which is Chinese medicine could be translated by "stagnated energy", was manifesting itself through a physical pain. Moreover, by stimulating the painful spot, the energy had been released. Interestingly, after that whole episode Anna said that she felt as if a "big weight" had been lifted from her body and that fear, a constant companion, no longer bothered her.    

Three main conclusions can be drawn from the case:

1)  An emotion has energy of its own which can manifest itself physically - one can't deny pain;

2)  Emotions can be accessed and dealt with by any therapy that contemplates the energy concept.

3)  Once the stagnation is removed, the causing factor (emotion) disappears and, consequently, the physical discomfort ceases. 

The majority of holistic therapy practitioners are familiar with the fact that a trauma, whether physical or emotional, leaves scars or sequels in our biomagnetic field, which can be interpreted as a disturbance in the flow of energy throughout our body, according to the ancient Chinese. From the therapist's point of view, it is not so relevant "when" the trauma occurred; the most important factor is that the body still "remembers" it and reacts whenever a similar situation comes about. It is like an allergic reaction.

With allergies our body's defenses overreact against a substance it considers to be harmful to its integrity. What follows then is a chain reaction that can be very uncomfortable and even life-threatening. Likewise, having experienced a trauma charged with emotion in the past, every time we come across a similar situation, our energy network gets "fuzzy", like a TV that is not properly tuned. The incident involving a dog described on page 26 is a good example. The alarm goes off and the same emotion felt in the past is triggered together with physiological symptoms. 

David Elman, a renowned hypnotherapist, believes that allergies are closely related to repressed emotions. In his opinion, every case of hay fever represents a "crying syndrome". The eyes tear and get red as from weeping, the nose runs, and the throat gets dry and raspy. Frequently, there is gasping for breath. All these signs appear when a person cries excessively. Hypnoanalysis reveals again and again that victims of hay fever and many other respiratory illnesses have undergone traumatic experiences that caused prolonged crying. Consciously, these people have stemmed back the tears, but at a level below conscious awareness the tears persist. The crying apparently affects a change in sensitivity to allergens, and the allergic reactions develop in the crying syndrome of hay fever. Tears are one of nature's best relief mechanisms and should not be repressed.

It is not necessary to be a therapist to understand the whole picture. We are all aware of the effects that emotions have on us, sometimes in a very subtle way but other times, in a quite tangible form. We don't simply experience an emotion - we "feel" it. The following situations are just a few examples of some of our physical reactions to emotional states:

- Just by thinking of a lemon or tamarind pulp à reaction: the mouth gets watery in a matter of seconds