Words are Medicine

Carl Jung once said, "There's no coming to consciousness without pain." It's a statement that has all the earmarks of a profound truth, especially in the way it's denied.

So many people want to feel better than they do. They go to doctors who will give them pills to end their pain, psychotherapists who will only tell them what they want to hear, and bars where they can pretend to be anyone but themselves.

We want to feel better and we have a right to. So often, unfortunately, our unwillingness to experience ANY discomfort keeps us from getting the real relief we need.

One woman who came to me because of horrifying flashbacks and night terrors she'd endured since she'd been raped as a teenager, had suffered long and hard. The pain was in her face. One of the first things she said when she came in was, "I just want it to go away."  Shortly thereafter she asked, "Do you think it'll take more than a few sessions?"

The goal is relief, but sometimes the road there demands that we feel the things we have spent so much time and energy denying.

Asthma is a perfect example of how we work and how the confrontation is ultimately inevitable if we want to heal. There was one study done in which patients journaled about their worst experiences. They did this every day for 20 minutes for a period of weeks. The result–a statistically significant reduction in their use of inhalers. Asthma is just one of many syndromes that are driven by emotion, particularly suppressed emotions such as anger, anxiety, and grief. In order for it to be healed or even mitigated, those emotions must be released appropriately even if they are uncomfortable or unpleasant.

A long time ago a colleague told me, "The more you resist, the more it persists." She was right.

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