about self-healing:

The things which hurt, instruct.

~ Benjamin Franklin

Osteopath Vicky Vlachonis, who believes our history is written on the body, shares her powerful, holistic approach to pain (whether emotional or physical):

"First, we must “Reflect” and identify the causes of physical and emotional pain, then “Release” that pain, and finally “Radiate” into a positive, pain-free daily existence. Vicky believes that emotions, ALL emotions, are normal. They're neither good nor bad; they simply are. Furthermore, she teaches that problems don’t start because of emotions themselves. The trouble comes when you don’t express or release them. Layers of buried emotions build up in our scar tissue, causing adhesions in our fascia, the layer of tissue that stretches around all the muscles and organs. These festering, unprocessed emotions clog up circulation and generally create disharmony within the body, which is why once you really see and feel those buried emotions, and can pinpoint where the pain is actually coming from, you can consciously increase the flow of your body’s natural painkillers and anti-inflammatory chemicals to help you release the pain and heal.

Vicky confirms that we experience all our feelings, thoughts, actions, and reactions through these connections between our nervous system and our musculoskeletal system. Here are all the parts of the brain that intersect when we experience strong emotions:

• The limbic system, the site of our instinctual emotional reactions. • The hypothalamus, which connects with the endocrine system and the gut organs. • The amygdala, where we process sensory information into memory and learning. • The cortex, where we regulate emotion. Every emotion we experience leaves a trace throughout these areas of the brain. Those exact emotions can be retriggered by anything we experience, whether in the real world (through our senses) or purely in our minds, that seems similar to those memories written into our cells. Because emotional pain is the same as physical pain ~ not just metaphorically, but literally; the body and brain process both types of pain in absolutely the same way. So while it may make perfect sense to you that your body still holds on to an old tennis injury or the whiplash you got in college, it should also seem reasonable that the pain of your breakup with your college boyfriend might still be locked in your tissues in the same way. Those emotional and physical connections endure for years and years, drawing direct links between our past and our current experiences. Not surprisingly, researchers have found that people who endured trauma as children and still have lingering feelings of helplessness or despair have higher levels of inflammation in the body. Our early, unhealed wounds leave us more vulnerable to the many forms of pain. We haul our entire personal history around with us in our tissues and nervous system for life. Unless we become aware of our pain, we can remain befuddled and imprisoned by automatic responses to an event that we think we’ve long since consciously ‘gotten over.’" *I could not agree more* AND ... this is one of the many reasons I HEART Stretch Appeal!