Healing crisis- Are you ready for it?

We usually seek help when our symptoms bother us way too much or for way too long.

But in case of chronic pain or discomfort, the symptoms are just the superficial expression of the deeply rooted causes that remained in the dark and were never addressed properly.

If we choose to look at the human being holistically, without separating the systems, layers and aspects of the human expression, we can see that symptoms that may appear unrelated to each other are actually originating in the same traumatic event. And by trauma, I mean anything that had stressed the whole organism more than it could process at the time. It can be a sports injury (physical), a car accident (physical and emotional) or a heartbreak (emotional).

When we begin our natural healing journey, most commonly we are not yet in a place that can allow us to deal with that root cause, mainly because to do that we require safety and regulation. It is absolutely normal for the healing journey to take time and integrate one layer at a time. undo coping mechanisms and overrides we have adopted since the trauma, until the nervous system signals "I'm ready! I can do this!" And then... then it happens.

The experience is an aggravated state of the original issue. Since most traumas have both physical and emotional aspects (or in other words, they all have chemical and electrical expressions) we can expect difficult sensations in our overall experience.

Common healing crisis physical expressions are:
- Body aches (muscle aches/ joint pain)
- Shakes and shivers
- runny nose
- cough
- diarrhoea and vomiting

Common healing crisis emotional expressions are:
- Extreme grief
- Depression
- Crying
- Need for isolation
- Feeling extremely triggered
- Anger or even rage (With kids the rage will usually be directed towards the parent/s, with adults, the anger is associated with the therapist)

These will usually last between 2-4 days and no matter how hard the symptoms are, there is a clear feeling of acceptance of the process. The psyche knows it's ok, it's safe.

I sometimes joke with my clients that if you feel great after a session, you're not ready yet, especially with those who have experienced it in the past. But we shouldn’t underestimate the steps that are leading up to that moment.
Establishing trust, regulating the nervous system and preparing the body, mind and whatever is relevant to the individual therapeutic process are the fundamental steps that ensure true readiness to deal and heal.

Please, keep in mind that not everyone is going to have that big experience and that's ok. there are too many factors that determine whether a healing crisis can be expected or will it be a smooth and gradual process.
But that has to do with your individual blueprint- a topic that requires a new blog post.