IBS: Do you feel sensitive?

Do you feel sensitive?

In my work with IBS sufferers, I have found that many are just like me – sensitive people.

If you are a sensitive person, you know. You are gentle, empathic and genuinely interested in others.

Yet life, and other people, often feel painful.

It is because we feel so deeply that we can develop IBS.

All we wanted was a quiet life!

We are born with, or develop early on a sensitive nervous system. More sensitive than most.

Often we are born into a less than ideal environment, full of judging and conflicts, that keep us on edge.

And when we start voicing our needs and opinions or start wanting to express who we are, we are judged.

And that judgement goes through us, right to the bones.

And we don’t know how to deal with the emotions rising within us.

Why you feel so sensitive

emotions on the run

If you don’t express your emotions (and we are not encouraged to) they gradually pile up. Every time we feel hurt, judged, misunderstood, angry, the pile gets bigger.

Until our unexpressed anger becomes powerful and volatile.

And we feel overwhelmed every time we experience our emotions. It’s a really uncomfortable experience. Feeling sensitive and on edge.

If we avoid conflict to keep the peace, we start a war inside us instead.

How the body reacts

The body is designed to rebalance. But as waves of emotion are added to the “not to be expressed” pile, your body starts reacting. It swings out of balance and compensates as best it can.

This may be in the form of frequent colds, throat problems (the seat of expression) allergies, food intolerance, migraines, vomiting etc.

Signs that your immune system is struggling.

One day you have a single emotionally charged situation to handle, or a build up of ones that makes the dam break inside you.

That emotion has to go somewhere, so it hits the nervous system.

Maybe you think it’s food poisoning.

Or parasites.

Or you have no clue why your body feels like it has been reprogrammed overnight and has gone out of control.

You digestion suddenly goes haywire and you find your new friend – the bathroom.

Your body stabilises a little, but you still never really know what it’s going to do next.

And that feeling keeps you on edge. It’s embarrassing not to have control of your body, to have to rush out of a meeting, or even in the middle of your own presentation. It has become painful to eat, painful to digest, painful going to the bathroom.

And you feel locked in a prison with little room for movement, let alone fun. With no idea where to go from here.

A way out for sensitive souls?

releasing emotions

If traditional approaches to IBS are not working for you, consider this…

If you could see all the hurt, judgement and emotions you have felt and kept hold of, it would look a lot like a volcano: a big, dark volatile mass, smouldering and under pressure.

Because your body has stocked anything you haven’t let flow through you. Nobody taught you how to.

You have this going on inside you, increasing your sensitivity and anxiety.

Increasing the general load on your system.

What if the answer is going back and gently releasing this stockpile of emotions and traumas. Letting a little air out of the balloon (and your intestines) each time.

And learning to allow your emotions, and your energy, to flow.

To lighten the load and start feeling better.

Few have the courage to do this.

Do you?