healing chronic symptoms - part 2

A step by step practical guide

Let us assume you have followed the steps suggested in part 1 and you now think you know what your original conflict could have been. It’s always easier to explain with examples, so let’s use the example of not getting a desired and expected promotion at work. You have remembered that in your first job seven years ago, you were sure you would be promoted but during your annual review, your boss didn’t mention it and even worse, you find out straight after your meeting that your colleague got the promotion instead.

This is a very typical conflict shock. The event was unexpected, it felt like a big deal to you, and for a moment, you felt all alone. Ok, but so what, you say. That was years ago in my crappy first job. I’ve gone on to bigger and better things since then. It really doesn’t matter to me anymore. So why do I still have symptoms?

Let’s say, you went home that evening and talked to your boyfriend about your feelings. You expressed your disappointment to him and he sympathised. You think to yourself, “I’m going to look for another job.” You feel better. You could have resolved your conflict that night and you start to go into healing. But you go into work the next day and your healing is interrupted. Why? Because of ‘tracks’. These are the sensory impressions captured by your psyche at the moment of the conflict. And quite likely, the office could be one of them. Your boss could be another. The disinfectant the cleaner uses in the office could be another. Feeling disappointed could also be a track, the coffee you were drinking, and so on.

So fast forward years later, and though you don’t care about the job anymore, those tracks could still be out there retriggering your conflict continuously. This leads to chronic symptoms.

So what do to do? Well, if the event you remembered is the right conflict which started your symptoms, then there are two approaches. If it is no longer relevant to you and you feel no emotional charge when you think about it, then it may be enough to simply make the connection in your conscious mind between the event and your symptoms. You should notice an improvement in your symptoms within hours/days.

If there is no improvement, then either that event is not the conflict responsible for the symptoms, or there are still tracks which are hanging around, or there is still something about that event which is niggling at you. In the next post, I will talk about what to do in each of these circumstances.