This is a story of my client, Matilda*.
She came to me because she had persistent daily headaches for almost a decade. Every day in the last nine years she would wake up with an intense tension headache, that she explained as having an extremely tight rubber band around her head. The pain would somewhat dwindle by the end of the day, (pain intensity from 7-8 to 3-4), but would never leave. She had trouble sleeping, very low energy, was feeling tired and overwhelmed by the noise, and had little motivation to do things she loves. She was very ambitious creating exciting plans to expand her career, but due to the constant headaches had no energy or concentration to do things and move on with her projects. She felt no joy in spending time with her children and partner, and was unhappy and frustrated because of that.
Before she came to me, she tried variety of medical and alternative cures, like headache pills, acupuncture, chiropractor, homeopathy, essential oils, healing magnets on the ears… You name it, she tried it…and nothing worked. Some of them gave her a temporary relief, but headaches were still there… exhausting her… every day.
When struggling with chronic physical issue, like headache, migraine or IBS, people usually first go to see a doctor, do the tests, and start with medical treatments, such as pills. That’s what I would do, and I think everyone should do first. This is how Matilda started, and most of my clients. Sometimes pills work. When clinical treatments don’t work, despite changing and adjusting medications, people then look for the alternative medicine treatments, such as massage or acupuncture. They also work sometimes for some people. But when none of those treatments provide a relief, and a person exhausts all of the approaches that cure the body, then they remember to look into the mind and soul…because some hints for healing might be there.
That’s where I come in. I am a psychologist and a therapist, and I look only into the mind and soul. The mind may have the answer on some questions that medicine can’t provide. For example, why did they get that disorder in the first place? And, why they are holding on to it for so long, despite variety of treatments they are committing to?
I asked Matilda, what was going on in her life before she started getting headaches…and there was a hint. One year before the headaches came, she lost her job, got seriously ill, and had a very violent break up with the partner she was together for a decade…all in the period of several months. She soldiered through all of it…staying strong and brave…moving forward, not looking back…because that’s who she was…but never gave her self a chance to pause, process those difficult feelings and properly heal.
You may think that was the cause of her headaches….but no. It was just a trigger. For the real root cause we needed to dig deeper… because it was not so obvious… it was hidden in her subconscious mind.
In the session, she easily regressed to the scenes from her past…and we uncovered the cause pretty quickly. It was related to her feeling of abandonment by her father ….and being a nuisance to her single mother…and her desperate need to get attention, to feel loved, needed and safe…to feel nurtured. It was at her age of 6 that she formed a belief that she needed to be ill in order to meet her basic emotional needs… which, for a young child, is equal to the survival. It was then that she started developing variety of physical illnesses, allergies, inflammations…. she would cure one, but soon after another one would show up… And like that all her life…in and out of treatments.
You may ask, what subconscious feelings of abandonment have with chronic headaches? Logically thinking, probably nothing. But subconscious mind is not logical… it operates on a level of a two-years old…it’s all about feelings and beliefs…and it controls 90% of your psyche. We usually have no access to the subconscious mind… because it’s not conscious… and as a result, it keeps operating in the same way like in the childhood…it doesn’t get updated to accommodate our conscious experiences, our logic and our extensive education. It’s pure….and the safety is it’s primary concern.
So, when Matilda and me dealt with those feelings that were locked in her childish mind… when she recognized them…acknowledged them…soothed them….then she could let them go. She was not trapped in her old thinking pattern anymore… She was free.
Immediately after the session, Matilda’s head pain diminished from 5 to 2. Few days after, she wrote me that she feels “energized, full of joy, even playful”. The recording I made for her was making her “pleasant, energizing and soothing”. Headaches were noticeably weaker. After years of not being able to stay asleep, she started “sleeping through the night and waking up naturally, little before the alarm, with the sensation that the night is finished, full of energy”.
Eventually, headaches completely dissipated. Several months passed since our session together…and she is still free of headaches. She feels energetic, and she is rapidly advancing her career. She is free to enjoy and cherish time with her family and friends….and she loves her life. She still has some other health issues, but feels that she is more resilient and has better coping skills… and she is healing…one thing at a time.
I admire all of my clients who have the courage to look inside of their soul to find the answers…who don’t give absolute power to their healers expecting them to fix them…but who understand that for the healing they also need to take the full responsibility… have unshakable determination… they need to set their mind and heart so that it aligns with the treatment of the body… That is the beginning of the process…That’s what Matilda did.
*This story is shared with the client’s consent. The name of the client and some personal details are changed to protect client’s privacy.