Relationships

In the book "The 12 Stages of Healing", Donald Epstein, DC describes how we go through each of these stages on our healing path. The first stage is Suffering, and the second stage is Polarities. In the second stage we have gained enough flexibility to seek help in alleviating our suffering, but we also see ourselves as victims of what created the suffering in the first place. Many things may cause suffering such as viruses, being fired from a job, and relationships, to give a couple of examples. The problem with this is that the cause of the suffering always comes from the outside, it is never our fault, it is what happens to us.

Relationships can be a huge cause of suffering. One may get into a relationship that turns sour after a while, and hearts become broken. It is easy to blame the other person for causing the suffering: "He lied all the time", "She cheated on me!", "This person was abusive", and so on. We mend our hearts, and develop another relationship, and the scenario repeats itself. Many people go through this cycle time and again, then lament on why they can't find a decent guy/girl.

As one moves through the second stage, healing occurs when the sufferer stands back, takes a look at the choices that have been made, and realizes that maybe they are involved in how these relationships unfold. They may begin to see that there is a common thread in the people that have been chosen in the relationship and that they keep playing the same scenario over and over, just with different people. At this point, one becomes more whole. The healing comes with the realization that they are not the victim of a continuous stream of whack jobs, but rather they have been involves somehow in the person that they have dated. The same can be said for jobs that continue to fail too, but we will stick to relationships in today's column.

G is a young woman who did not have a healthy relationship with her mother while growing up, and related to me that at one point her mother tried to strangle her. Consequently G continues to hold a great deal of tension in her neck and shoulder area of the upper chest. The nerve system will take the stress of an event and store it in the tissues of the body when it senses that the stress is too much to deal with. The muscles contract and create a 'suit of armor' if you will, to protect us. G and I have made great strides in releasing this tension through her spinal entrainments..

At one point, G dropped out of care for a few months due to personal reasons, but had informed me of having started a relationship with someone at the just before taking a hiatus from care. Last week G returned, and presented with a great deal of neck tension again. G related that the relationship was toxic and had come to an end, and that the person had been a lot like her mother.

For some reason, we tend to gravitate towards the same type of person or situation that creates our suffering, over and over again. Because of this, when the situation turns bad, as it inevitably will, our nerve systems respond the same way as it always has to that circumstance. In this case it is neck stiffness and pain. It could just as easily have been low back pain, or asthma, or any other medical condition. We may see that the people appear to be different, but the nerve system sees them as all the same and responds the same way in its protective mode creating the same scenario in us.

When we have the realization that G had, that they are involved in the choices that have been made, then we can break free of the grip we have placed upon ourselves and move on to healthier choices leaving our suffering behind.

Until next time....