When we discuss the causes of physical symptoms, many people tend to think in terms of the physical cause, or what is seen as the cause in physical cause-and-effect reality. Of course symptoms manifest in physical reality, through accidents, injuries, microorganisms, etc. It is important, though, to also understand that the symptom would not have manifested if the conditions for it were not there in the person’s consciousness.
For example, Type ‘A’ Behaviour is a personality profile that has been associated with heart disease. This means that there is a statistically significant correlation between people with Type ‘A’ Behaviour and those who develop heart disease. In other words, people with Type ‘A’ Behaviour have been seen to be more likely than others to develop heart disease. We can say that Type ‘A’ Behaviour is a heart disease personality. Whatever might be seen as the physical cause of heart disease, it is acknowledged that this personality type is a consistent element.
There is also a cancer personality, a near-sighted personality, an arthritis personality, etc. In fact, every physical symptom can be associated with a particular way of being. If you have a symptom, you have a way of being that correlates with that symptom.
The way of being that is associated with the symptom is not who you are, but rather a way of being you have adopted as the result of decisions you have made in response to events in your life. If you were not born with the symptom, you were not born with that way of being. Rather, it reflects decisions you made in your life in response to conditions at that time, and the stressed way of being with which you have identified since then.
What Is My Symptom Saying To Me?
If it was a symptom evident at birth, it was still reflecting tension in your consciousness about conditions in your life at that time; the decisions made at that time, at no matter which level, can still be changed, and those tensions released, to return to a way of being that more truly reflects who you really are.
The symptom on the physical level reflects tension in your consciousness about something that was happening in your life at the time the symptom began.
You made decisions in response to conditions in your life at that time, decisions that left you with stress, and which encouraged a way of being that correlates with the symptom that developed. In that way, it can be said that the way of being you adopted attracted or nourished that symptom, regardless of the apparent cause on the physical level.
If you have a stressed way of being that has resulted in a physical symptom, it is important to emphasize again that the way of being you have been experiencing is not who you really are, but just what you have been doing, a reflection of the way you have chosen to respond to conditions around you. You can make different choices. There is always a choice.
You Can Change Your Mind
No matter which methods you have decided to use to treat or release the symptom, you can also decide to release the stressed way of being associated with the symptom, which can be seen as the inner cause of the symptom. If the decisions you have made have resulted in a stressed way of being, if you have created a personality profile associated with a particular symptom, then it follows that it is possible to release the stressed way of being, the personality profile that attracted the symptom.
You can change your mind about something, and interact with your environment in a different way that is not as stressed, and that more reflects who you really are.
The effect of doing that can be to encourage the release of the symptom, since the environment that attracted or nourished it no longer exists to sustain it. By releasing the stress, and the stressed way of being, the inner cause, you can be more assured that the symptom will not have a tendency to return.
In this way, the process of healing implies a process of transformation, a release of a way of being that is not who you really are, and a return to who you really are, the real you.
We can explore the mechanism behind this process.
Everything begins with your consciousness.
Let’s look at what this means.
You are inside there, inside your body, looking out through your eyes, and things happen around you. It is you who decides what to think, what to feel and how to respond to these conditions.
The ‘you’ who is doing this deciding is what we are calling your consciousness.
The way you choose to respond – and there is always a choice – can leave you in balance, or can leave you with stress. When it leaves you with stress, you are out of balance in your consciousness. There is tension in your consciousness about something happening in your life at that time.
If the tension reaches a certain level of intensity, it can result in a symptom on the physical level. The symptom speaks a language, and this language reflects the idea that we create our reality, and points to what we consider to be the inner cause of the symptom.
We can say that on some level, the symptom served a positive purpose in terms of helping you to understand yourself and your response to life. The symptom was a message from a deeper part of your consciousness about tension you were holding about a situation in your life that needed to be resolved at that time.
We create our reality
Symptoms are the result of stress. When we are exploring the inner cause of the symptom, we consider that we have created the symptom through the stressed way we chose to respond to the conditions in our life at the time the symptom developed or was discovered.
When we say that we have created the symptom, it doesn’t mean that we have consciously chosen to have that symptom, but rather that the symptom was the logical conclusion of the particular thoughts and emotions we chose that left us with stress, and that resulted in the symptom.
It’s not something to feel guilty about, but rather to understand as a logical process, in order to choose to make different decisions, choosing different thoughts and emotions, different perceptions that could have the effect of releasing the inner cause, the stressed way of thinking that created the symptom.
If the symptom served to give us a message, once we have got the message and changed something accordingly, then the symptom has no further reason for being there and can be released, according to whatever we can allow ourselves to believe is possible.
The symptom speaks a language that reflects the idea that we create our reality. Whether or not we really understand the full meaning of that statement, that we create our reality, it is interesting to use the model as a way to understand what the symptom has been telling us about the stressed way we have chosen to respond to the conditions in our life at the time the symptom began.
The metaphor of the symptom becomes evident. We can see how it can make sense to us, how we can recognize ourselves in the metaphor.
When I had the tumour I could have said that I was paralyzed, and that I had difficulty walking. Changing the words in order to describe the symptom from the point of view that I created it, I would have said that I had been keeping myself from walking – in other words, I had been keeping myself from leaving a situation in which I had been unhappy. The deep part of me had wanted to walk away, but I had been giving myself reasons to stay in that unhappy situation, and the stress of doing that had reached catastrophic proportions in my body.
I recognized myself in that explanation.
Rather than saying that I was paralyzed, I would have to say that I had been paralyzing myself. In other words, I had been trying to be what I thought others wanted me to be, holding back the real me, and, again, the stress of that had reached catastrophic proportions in my body.
Again, I recognized myself in the explanation, and therefore I knew that I needed to do something different. My body was saying, ‘This is what you have been doing to yourself.’
If you have a symptom, that symptom on the physical level began with and reflected a certain tension in your consciousness about what was happening in your life at the time the symptom began or was detected.
By seeing things from this point of view, you can take responsibility for the symptom.
This is about responsibility without guilt. It’s not about beating yourself up about having created the symptom – it’s about understanding that if you decided to think in a certain way which then created the symptom, then deciding to think differently can be part of releasing the symptom. It’s strictly mechanics – cause and effect.
It is an empowering point of view.
When you take responsibility for the symptom, you put yourself in the driver’s seat. You are no longer the victim, with things happening to you that you can do nothing about. You can do something about it by changing your mind about something, by choosing another way of thinking or acting, which can have the effect of releasing the stress in your consciousness that had been associated with the symptom.
That’s what I did, and what worked for me.
‘Terminal’ conditions
Working with the idea that everything begins in your consciousness, if you have developed a symptom that could have death as its logical conclusion, it follows that the symptom must have begun with a deep decision to die.
Typically, anyone with a symptom diagnosed as terminal has been facing a situation in their life that they find unacceptable but see no way out of, except to die. If we understand that, it follows that the body has been carrying out the individual’s wishes, and the kind of symptom can tell a story about the reasons for not wanting to go on.
It also follows that if the individual can make a different deep decision, based on finding a way out of or resolving the situation they had seen as unacceptable, and releasing the tensions from their consciousness, their body will then be able to carry out the new decision by releasing the symptom that had been based on the old perceptions and their associated tensions.
We can say that the symptom on the physical level has been a reflection of the deeper part of your consciousness, the part that we refer to as the spirit, which the Western traditions know as the ‘unconscious’ or ‘subconscious’.
When you do not find a way to resolve something in your everyday consciousness, something about which you feel tension, you put it away in this deeper part of your consciousness, your spirit, where it is still running in the background. It is this tension running in the background that creates the symptom on the physical level.
It is this deeper part of your consciousness, your spirit, that is the real you, your higher self, the part of your consciousness that has been directing your life. It is this deep part of you that has been telling you through the symptom,‘This is what you have been doing to yourself.’
The implication is that you can do something different.
You can decide to do something that can have the effect of releasing the symptom.
Then, you can decide what to do.
©2018 by Martin Brofman. All Rights Reserved.
Publisher: Findhorn Press, an imprint of Inner Traditions Intl.
www.innertraditions.com
Article Source
The Inner Cause: A Psychology of Symptoms from A to Z
by Martin Brofman.
For each symptom discussed, the author explores the message of the symptom, which chakras are involved, how you may be affected, and which issues you might need to look at to resolve the tension or stress - -although a specific solution will always depend on the individual’s personal situation. With its correlation of symptoms and psychological states of being, The Inner Cause provides invaluable insight into how we can effectively support our own healing process physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Click here for more info and/or to order this paperback book or purchase the Kindle edition.
About the Author
Martin Brofman, Ph.D. (1940-2014), a former Wall Street computer expert, was a renowned healer and founder of the Brofman Foundation for the Advancement of Healing. He developed a special healing approach, the Body Mirror System, after he cured himself from a serious terminal illness in 1975. He helped many people over his more than 30 years in practice. Martin had said that he would not live to be 74 years old. In 2014, three months before his seventy-fourth birthday, he was gone… Since 2014, his wife, Annick Brofman, continues the legacy of his work within the Brofman Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland.
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