Emotions and Their Connection To Our Bodies

I have observed that there are two types of people: those who express their stress and those who compress it.

Those who express it usually show their emotions (ex: anger, frustration, fear) right in the moment they feel it-whether through yelling, tantrums, or even throwing things).

Those who compress them are those that hold their emotions inside to the point that a body tension builds up and becomes something only a chiropractor or an amazing masseuse get rid of.

Which one are you?

Me? I’m definitely the stress compressor.

Let me give you a real life example.

The other day I was having a discussion with my husband about a trip we were planning.

In our discussion we had a hard time agreeing on when to go as we considered certain elements about our trip which included our children-his stepsons and our daughter.

During the discussion I started feeling stressed. Let’s be more specific. I started feeling a certain kind of pressure that many moms feel when it comes to decisions that involve our children and how we should handle certain situations for their sake.

Instead of bursting out in anger, I started feeling tension on my left upper back/shoulder area. The more we spoke about it the more tense I got.

There were no arguments and there was no yelling by any means on either end. However I was experiencing an emotion that was caused by feeling almost solely responsible for such a big decision.

Was I the only one responsible? No. Did he ever put any pressure on me intentionally? No.

In fact later on, I learned that this decision was tough on him as well.

The good news is that eventually we talked it through and we came to an agreement.

The bad news is that the tension that got built up did not just disappear.

The next day I felt the tension becoming more painful and I knew that I was in the process of getting a pinched nerve.

Whenever that happens, guess who I need to pay a visit to? My chiropractor.

So do you see the connection between our emotions and our bodies? This is just one example of many, but it’s the one that is the most common for me.

It’s so very important that we pay attention to our mind-body connection. We must guard our minds and get healing where needed.

Even after healing, those thoughts may return, so we must learn to recognize them and confront them with truth.

I’m grateful that we did resolve things in the discussion. I’m grateful for the lesson I learned about my own mind-body connection. I know that in the future I will be much more attentive to my mind to avoid such unnecessary tension.

Although we may not be able to always avoid it, we can certainly become more self aware and grow in these areas. I know I did.