But what if there was something going on completely unrelated to those symptoms, a root cause, that was not physical, but which simply manifested through the physical?  What if the true cause of your distress, pain or illness was at the level of subconscious mind, and that the only way the subconscious could communicate with you was through the body, as reflected in your symptoms? What if your body IS your subconscious mind? Then there would be a completely new way of viewing pain and illness, and that would be as spiritual messengers.

Why spiritual? Isn’t that just granting even more symbolic power to pain and illness? Can’t we just say I woke up with a bad back this morning because I moved some heavy boxes yesterday? Or I have breast cancer because it runs in my family? This, of course, is the way most of us speak and think of these things now. But I use the term spiritual because there is growing evidence that pain and illness are nothing less than direct feedback, a referendum if you will, on the course and direction of your life. And, even more profound, they tend to disappear when the root cause – the emotional or energetic cause, is identified and resolved. Spiritual, then, is the only adequate description of such a messenger.

Let’s start at the beginning. You probably think you are a physical being. But the last 60 years of quantum physics has established without much doubt that you are an energetic being, held together by electro-magnetic forces and “fields,” the likes of which we hardly can yet imagine, let alone comprehend. Quantum Physicist Ervin Lazlo notes, “in the emerging concept of the new sciences there is no categorical divide between the physical world, the living world, and the world of mind and consciousness. Matter is vanishing as a fundamental feature of reality, retreating before energy; and continuous fields are replacing discrete particles as the basic elements of an energy-bathed universe.” As the eminent Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin famously remarked, “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Now, we can easily veer off course and begin to discuss the nature of our physical reality and the role of consciousness, etc. But for now let us take comfort in the fact that we are much more than just our physical natures.

So what does this have to do with that pain in my back? Dr. Candace Pert concludes that “we can no longer think of the emotions as having less validity than physical or material substance, but instead must see them as cellular signals that are involved in the process of translating information into physical reality, literally transforming mind into matter.” Emotions take on an energetic life deep within you, and the only system designed to alert you to these repressed matters is your body. And the language of the body is “symptom.”  Which is why that chronic back pain will swiftly disappear once the emotional basis of that pain is identified and resolved. And will do so in ways that defy the traditional laws of physical healing.

Sound too easy? Such a mind-body communication system demands a level of brutal honesty, self-reflection, and introspection that few of us possess, whether it be about ourselves or others. Many of our most repressed emotional traumas arise during childhood and may not even be within our conscious purview. Or the negative feedback may instead be about the direction of our life, our work, our purpose. This is where the spiritual or energetic healer may be required, to bring an intuited awareness to these issues and shift them from one’s field.

But the exciting news is that pain and illness use a language to speak to us, and it is one that we can all learn. It is the language of location and function. The location of your pain or illness is no accident, and it typically concerns the basic function of the body part or organ that it affects. Breast cancer has been described by Deb Shapiro as the “feminine wound” and likely concerns deep-seated inadequacies over one’s worthiness or sexual attractiveness. Lower back pain predictably concerns the carrying of an unfair or unwanted task or responsibility.  Since your back is out of sight, it may concern issues you do not wish to see or confront. It may reflect resistance or conflict in some very fundamental direction of your life. It may be a simple as you not feeling supported in a time of struggle. If it is on your right side then it involves male issues, and female issues if on the left. Perhaps this explains how we have all gone to bed with no symptoms, only to wake with severe back pain. What were we lifting in our sleep?

While this is a very rudimentary introduction to the language of pain and illness, of symptom, if we can begin to discount or even ignore the physical symptoms and focus on the underlying emotional or psychological issue at its root cause, we will begin to bring our bodies under our conscious control. Direct awareness of what really ails us is the first step. Resolution of these issues or a change in the direction of one’s life will begin to bring a cessation of symptoms, for the message has been received. Make friends with your pain or illness. Listen carefully. It is telling you something that you cannot learn from any other source. It is a profoundly spiritual message.
Mike Davis is CEO of Energy Medicine Foundation and a member of the Mountain Spirit Co-Op in Prescott. He is the creator of Vibrational Realignment, a unique approach to spiritual healing, and can be reached at 928-862-0594 or at VibrationalRealignment.com.

Michael Davis is CEO of Energy Medicine Foundation and the creator of Vibrational Realignment, a unique approach to spiritual healing. He is a Certified Bodytalk and Advanced Psych-K practitioner, and has integrated Andean shamanic practices into his work. Michael is a frequent writer and lecturer on energy healing topics and has offices in Prescott and Phoeniz, Arizona. He can be contacted at bodytalkman@fastmail.fm or 928-254-0775.