Sometimes when patients first come to the Happy Spine, they express that along with how they’re feeling physically, they also at the same time feel like there’s something lacking in their lives. They have a sense that something deeper and more fulfilling is possible for themselves.
Karen was one such person. Last year, she started NeuroSpinal care with us and her goals included feeling better physically as well as feeling more relaxed, more present, more energy and more passion for life. She had struggled with depression for a good part of her life.
I explained to her that by helping her nervous system heal and rebalance, she would be able to achieve a lot of her goals. As we worked together, visit by visit, she started to feel better physically and she was able to start feeling more relaxed, more passionate and more present. Measuring her nervous system showed that it was healing and rebalancing.
As she was coming to the end of her initial phase of care, she started to notice that the depression that she had been dealing with for many years started to get stronger. So much so in fact, that she felt disappointed because she thought she had finally turned the corner on this. She felt so disappointed that she started to feel angry, which she ended up projecting towards me. (She shared this with me after the fact)
Karen was experiencing a normal part of the healing process. Often times, as the nervous system heals, a person will start to re-experience symptoms or problems that they thought had “disappeared”. It’s normal to even think that the sessions at the Happy Spine didn’t work. I totally understand this reaction because I’ve had the opportunity to see it happen many times before.
So what’s going on here? Why do the symptoms first disappear only to reappear at a later time? And how does this fit into the healing process?
In Karen’s case, after the initial upset, she decided to trust the process. She started a gratitude journal, making notes every day of what she can be grateful for. What she started to notice was that there were some days when she would feel depressed and she will continue feeling this way for the rest of her life. And then some days she noticed that she wasn’t feeling depressed at all.
Being able to observe herself with and without depression, helped her see for one that her thoughts of “this is never going to end” were not consistently true. And if they weren’t consistently true, then how could she trust them?
Byron Katie, who is known for “The Work” developed 4 questions that you can ask yourself to help your mind heal. The four questions are as follows:
- Is it true?
- Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
- How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
- Who would you be without the thought?
During the healing process, it’s not just the body that can heal. The mind can also heal and it is during this part of the process that is why symptoms can reappear. It can seem counterintuitive at first. Like I said before, it’s normal that people have thoughts like “oh this treatment didn’t work” or they feel discouraged because they seem to be at back where they started, but it’s actually a very important and auspicious time.
The mind is ready to heal the triggers, the hurts from the past, the trauma and the negative emotions. Unfortunately some people don’t see this potential and they leave feeling discouraged and disappointed. Others, like Karen are able to dig deeper within themselves, feeling like there’s more going on here than meets the eye. And they’re able to heal their minds as well as their bodies.
They are able to discover and explore that there is more to life.