Please join us for an enlightening mini-workshop on understanding the connection between the mind and body to emotional and physical health.

The Mind-Body Connection Lecture Series new talk:

"How the Body Speaks its Mind: Are You Listening?"              

Date: September 24, 2019

Time: 6:30- 7:45 p.m.

Place: National Integrated Health Associates

           5225 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Suite 402

           Washington, D.C. 20015

Speaker: Kuno Bachbauer, LMFT

REGISTER

If you feel you have done everything “right”- and you are still not getting well…

You may benefit from a deeper understanding of the “LANGUAGE OF ILLNESS.”

If you are still not feeling better after doing all the right things, then maybe your health status is not because you missed the latest and greatest treatment, or have not taken enough supplements, but just maybe….

Your Body/Mind is trying to tell you something - and you don’t know how to listen.

As a holistic therapist, I have seen this in so many patients. They come to me with “the list” and yet, do not progress.

• You did a perfect integrative medical work-up. ✅

• You have searched for and destroyed those hidden viruses, bacteria, mold, Lyme. ✅

• You have suffered through the “right” diet- maybe it is the starchy McDougall diet, or it’s the exact opposite, foregoing all carbs with Keto. ✅

• You did your colonics, sauna, or another detoxification cleanse. ✅

• You had your dental check-up and maybe even a vitamin I.V. drip. ✅ 

And you are still not getting well. So, what is the body trying to tell you?

The following is a small attempt of a TRANSLATION of the “LANGUAGE OF ILLNESS:" 

1. Illness may tell you: “PLEASE STOP!”

Your body says: “No more of this!” or, “This is too much for me!”

A popular one is: “Get me out of here!”  “Here” may mean a relationship, a place, a job, a situation - an entanglement that has become a stressor for you. A wonderful resource for this understanding is the powerful book by Gabor Mate’ How the Body Says No.

2. Illness may tell you: “PLEASE SLOW DOWN AND LISTEN TO YOURSELF.”

Most of our nervous systems are not as strong as we would like them to be. You may want to be stronger than you really are, but your “inner child” i.e., the vulnerable part in you, may need more time and attention than you want to give. It may need you to listen to who you really are versus who you want to be.

3. Illness may tell you: “YOUR CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES STILL AFFECT YOU AND NEED YOUR ATTENTION.”

I have taught about the detrimental effects of difficult childhood situations in prior classes and articles.

In short: There is ample SCIENTIFIC & STATISTICAL evidence regarding the direct connection between “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs), and chronic illness that may develop later in life. This means that a “bad childhood” of neglect, violence, separation, or loss can predict detrimental health outcomes.  Resolving these issues with trauma work and deep psychotherapy helps prevent further damage.

4. Illness may tell you: “PLEASE RECOGNIZE MY PAIN FROM A LACK OF NEVER BEING TRULY SEEN AND VALIDATED.”

Not all of us have trauma from abuse, or parental neglect, people crossing boundaries.

There are other more subtle ways that our life can be negatively affected by. That can happen when we have been raised to be “performers." When others want us to be different than who we really are or when we were not feeling validated.  When parents, teachers, and the “corporate world” have taught us to be tough, smart and impenetrable without regards to our true limitations, our true feelings, or our gentle nature. In these moments, we may  feel hurt, but ignore our emotional pain! Instead, we learn repress our spontaneous impulses, and suppress the sense of violation that comes from living in a too-challenging-for-us world.  When we were never enough, when we had to grow up too soon because our parent’s limitations, or could not say “no” to the daily demands to our sense of self, we may have learned how to shut down. In all these cases, the “language of illness” may try to nudge us (if we let it!) to come back home to ourselves, to make your own needs and capacity to do things a priority, and to fully nurture our self-love.

5. Illness may tell you: “YOU ARE CARRYING UNWANTED, UNCONSCIOUS CONFLICTS FROM YOUR ANCESTORS. YOU NEED HELP UNTANGLING FROM THAT.”

A relatively new aspect to healing work is coming from Family Constellations work (Bert Hellinger) and an expanded understanding of Epigenetics. Both deal with the same situation: We are influenced by the choices and entanglements of our ancestors. We “inherit” conflicts and patterns that belong to our forefathers. Epigenetic transmissions, and unconscious, trans-generational loyalties, guilt, and conflicts can be passed down to us from earlier generations and influence our current life quality. If they are not uncovered and resolved properly, they also can affect our state of health.

6. Illness may tell you: “YOU HAVE AN INNER CONFLICT PATTERN THAT YOU CAN’T RESOLVE.”

Sometimes we carry unresolved conflicts and life situations in our heart. They also may play out in the form of a physical ailments when they are not resolved properly. Think of this as a “cry-for-help” from your soul when it is in stress. Psychosomatic Medicine, Holistic and Bio-psycho-social Medicine are medical traditions that were largely based in Psychoanalysis, with an understanding of the autonomic nervous system, systems-thinking and stress research that had been very popular in the 1960s (now almost forgotten - due to an over-focus on more cost-effective modern pharmacology) and focused on resolving psycho-emotional and psycho-social conflicts with some success.

7. Illness may tell you: “THERE IS AN INNER CALLING THAT YOU MUST LISTEN TO IN ORDER TO BE WELL.”

There is a spiritual aspect to every person. It must be understood and heeded to in order to stay well. Just as a plant needs just the “right” water and just the “right” sun light and fertilizer, we need the right inner environment to thrive. Some of us may need some help to discover that and learn what is the right “inner milieu”! Like a flower wilts in the wrong milieu – so does our body-mind.  Thus, any deep healing path will also include a search for one’s ideal inner milieu. This may be a spiritual path, nature, the right place, the right kind of friends, or finding one’s true professional calling.

8.Illness may tell you: “PLEASE NURTURE YOUR SPIRITUAL SELF.”

Just like I said above about tending to one’s optimal inner milieu, one has to grow and nurture the spiritual self diligently and consistently! This is much easier now than ever because there is a yoga studio just around every corner, meditation classes on the internet, and many flavors of mind-opening and inspirational teachings available in live seminars or on apps that may nurture, expand and heal your soul!

9.Illness may tell you: “PLEASE SAY ‘YES!’ TO THIS BENEFICIAL THING OR SITUATION IN YOUR LIFE THAT YOU ARE SO SCARED OF.”

This may be one of the most important points in my article: Just as you need to understand how your body says “NO” by using the language of illness, it may also help and nudge you to say “YES!”. It is an important skill to learn to discriminate whether we should be AFRAID of something because it is really bad for us, or because we are AFRAID of the EXPANSION that would come from something that we really want or need to do in order to have a happy and expanded life!  Another aspect of holding back and resisting to say “Yes!” to our innate goodness is something called “The Shame of the Higher Self” (From: The Pathwork of Self Transformation).  This phrase speaks to how our way of “hiding our light under the table” is in itself a negative aspect within us and it can make us sick by stopping our natural flow of life!

10.Illness may tell you: “PLEASE LOOK FOR THE MEANING OF YOUR LIFE.”

Lastly, I want to remind you about the work of Austrian-American psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, MD. His Logotherapy approach helped many patients regain mental and physical balance by finding the specific meaning for their lives. In his work, he focused on showing that even the most difficult situation and the most complicated illness and even one’s last moments in life can have power, meaning and healing for a person. If HEALING IS “MAKING WHOLE”, it can lead one to a state of personal transformation, growth and wholeness - no matter what the circumstances are.

This long list is enough for now to get you thinking that illness may not ONLY be a physiological mishap, a genetic distortion, purely a mechanical or biochemical process, or the fault of some evil bug or cancer that has taken hostage of your body.

Consider this: What if Illness Has Meaning?

• What if ILLNESS (….and HEALTH) could be the language of your body?

• What if illness is a “divine” tool to guide you in order to get you to be a certain way or do (or not do) certain things so that you can fully express yourself in being THE MOST OPTIMAL PERSON that is possible for you in this lifetime, with all the talents that you bring to this world?

I believe that we all have a certain potential that wants to be expressed on this planet!

We can allow that potential - or limit our lives with the choices we make, with how we manage our emotions and life situations we are in.

Please join me for the next Mini-Workshop and we will explore these issues further – together!

REGISTER

Kuno Bachbauer, LMFT,  Dr. med. (Austria). As a body-centered psychotherapist, he has a life-long interest in personal growth, mind-body medicine, and understanding the neurobiology of emotion and spiritual transformation. He is a certified Core Energetics practitioner and teaches internationally. He practices at CoreConstellations Center in Rockville, Maryland, and also offers mind-body counseling sessions at NIHA as part of its Integrative Medicine approach.