Spiritual Meaning of Digestive Problems
Let's face it. Digestive issues are no walk in the park…especially when they turn chronic and feel like they’ve overstayed their welcome.
There is a whole industry dedicated to “fixing” digestive challenges…largely rooted in fear-based marketing, products, complexities, and concoctions focused outside of yourself…all to displace you from your own power. All to distract and distance you from where the real medicine lies…within you.
These undercurrents of disempowerment further disconnection from the body and spirit…or promote using the mind to overpower and control the body.
When you look at the energy, that isn’t harmony. No wonder it doesn’t feel safe deep in the body and nervous system! And when these methods don’t work, it leads to frustration and exhaustion, steeping you in narratives that you aren’t doing enough or you aren’t doing it right.
I hear stories all the time from people I’ve begun to work with how exhausting it is to manage all of the conflicting information they are taking in while trying to heal. And how refreshing it feels to SET IT ALL DOWN.
I get it because I have been there and walked that path with my own health challenges.
I'm all about turning off the noise and tuning into what desperately wants to be heard within.
Hello and welcome! My name is Steve, and I’m honored that you’ve found this space. If you are seeking a deeper answer to your digestive challenges, you are not alone! There is another way, one that works in partnership with your body, and I am happy you were led here.
Who am I? I’m Steve, and I specialize in guiding somatic healing to resolve health challenges. How? Based on what the body is presenting, I help you hone in on and address the exact emotional tensions dwelling within the body-mind-spirit. You know, those conflicting parts that you feel battling within you. Freeing up these tensions allows the body to complete its healing processes, and leads to you feeling more unified, peaceful, and appreciative of yourself.
Healing my own chronic challenges brought me to a place of deeply understanding the nuances of bodily conflicts and the dynamics mind-body energetics. My swollen lymph nodes were the gift to awaken me to my purpose as a healing guide, the impetus for deep appreciation of my authentic spirit, and the reason I now hold a potent space of transformation for others.
If someone would have told me that would all happen because of swollen lymph nodes…I would have never believed it.
Is your digestion “speaking” to you? Your body is calling to you…inviting you to go deeper.
If you’re intrigued, let’s get into the spiritual meaning of digestive challenges to help illuminate what the body-mind-spirit is communicating.
I’m happy you were lead here.
Digestion Spiritual Meaning
Digestion is typically thought of as the ability to break down food, but there is actually a whole lot more to it than that.
Digestion includes a sensory quality (analyzing if this is useful or harmful?), a motor quality (moving the food along), a secretory quality (secreting digestive fluids), an absorptive quality (absorbing nutrients), and excretory quality (getting rid of waste), and a hormonal quality (production of hormones that aid).
All of these have their own nuances to them, but rather than get bogged down by the details, let’s zoom out and simplify. I do this by looking at the energetics involved and distilling them down.
The main energy I want to bring light to is this:
Digestion (and the quality of our digestion) is a direct mirror for how we are able to digest our life experiences and all that it emotionally brings with it.
When there is digestive difficulty, it points to the individual having a difficult time “digesting” or processing what is going on in their life circumstances or what they are feeling.
Our digestive system is truly a wonder, and it is a very complex, yet intelligent system. Depending on where the disruption is occurring in the digestive process, we can begin to understand the deeper story at play.
For example, one of the main emotions associated with difficulty in digestion is anger. Anger directly impacts the intestines. This can look like resentment, bitterness, frustration, and rage from situations that are hard to take or difficult to digest.
The energetic conflicts according to German New Medicine (GNM) that can impact the stomach, liver, gallbladder, and rectum are categorized as either a territorial anger conflict or an identity conflict, depending on the gender, handedness, and hormone status.
High level, a territorial anger conflict relates to anger in the environment and places which one considers their domain; literally or figuratively. Think disputes/battles at home, feuds at the workplace, in the neighborhood, town or country in which one lives, etc. I would add anger in your “domain” to include your body too.
An identity conflict refers to the inability to establish one’s position or place (“territory”), literally or figuratively. An unwanted move, change of school/workplace can activate the conflict. GNM states that, “Feeling unsettled, not knowing where to belong, not finding one’s place in a relationship, within the family, the group at work, or in the culture and society at large as well as discrimination against one’s belief or sexual orientation are examples of what can evoke an identity conflict. The conflict is to a certain extent a decision conflict (not knowing what choice to make, not knowing where to go).”
One of the patterns that I have noticed when working with clients that are dealing with chronic digestion challenges is that there is a discomfort in witnessing, acknowledging, and knowing what to do with the emotions, especially connected to anger.
Oftentimes, we haven’t been taught how to deal with anger in a constructive way…or that anger is actually natural and healthy for us when allowed to flow! Instead, anger tends to be internalized…stuffed down…and “stomached” from a place of resistance.
As you can imagine, this creates tension and disrupts the digestive process. Resistance creates more resistance.
Working with anger or challenging emotions somatically in the body and nervous system is a nourishing and fruitful way to process conflicts.
It’s important to move into the body with this work because the mind (intellect) cannot “outsmart” the intelligence of the body and nervous system or override the disconnections of the spirit.
Digestive Problems and The Mind-Body-Spirit Connection
Most people hear ‘spiritual’ and associate it with religion or crystals. (I love me a good rock collection!)
However, the spirit is defined as “the nonphysical part of a person that is the seat of emotions and character; the mind and ego.”
Emotions are expressions of the spirit, and the spirit is critical to overall health. Think about these statements: “He's in low spirits. Her spirit is broken. My job is soul-crushing.” If we are disconnected from our spirit, we experience discord…physically, mentally, and emotionally.
We’ve been conditioned to make digestive issues about foods, fasting, enzymes, allergies, supplements, and deficiencies. Oftentimes, they work temporarily, but fail to give lasting results. These outside methods are not addressing the root cause energies at play that are creating the disharmony.
Once addressed, the outside tactics are no longer required. It’s simple and beautiful, just how the body was designed to operate…intelligently!
A client that I worked with had been on lifelong restrictive diets, a host of supplements and enzymes to treat “deficiencies” deemed by someone outside of her. She was convinced she needed to consistently fast to maintain any sense of normalcy with her system, even though she hated it.
What we helped her unlock was the only deficiency at play was not seeing or trusting the power of her own body's ability to handle and process the situations in which she found herself. And that rather than fighting her body and trying to control it based on conditioning she was taking in from the noisy world…she could offer it different energy!
She could instead, partner with her body to be a helpful ally in assisting a harmonious digestive process.
We uncovered that she had a very deep discomfort with anger. As a child, anger was modeled to her by her father in a harmful, and frightening way. He would have raging fits, yelling at whoever was in his path, and throwing things across the room. So she learned that it was best to stay quiet and “swallow it all” so as not to trigger any of these outbursts by her father..,and therefore remain safe.
But this created a long-standing pattern of resistance within her. The story of this pattern became, “Expressing myself isn't safe, even if I want to, and so I will just keep my mouth shut, swallow it, and stomach the repercussions so I can remain safe.”
While that may have helped her stay safe then, it was no longer a way to live. We are designed to be expressive beings! And this resistance was taking a toll on her body and well-being.
When we hold it all in, it creates internalized anger…resentment…bitterness. This pattern may have started off directed towards her father, but that no longer stands anymore. She has been out of his house for over 30 years and in fact, was no longer directing anger towards her.
SHE was now the person keeping this pattern in place. She is now the person she is truly angry at…because she will not allow herself to express.
The self-hatred, bitterness, resentment, and anger is hard to digest!
When we can’t express ourselves, we feel misunderstood and maybe even feel like we don’t know where we belong. That’s hard to digest too!
I want to be clear that this is just one example of how digestive issues can manifest. Yours will be unique to you.
One has to learn how to find safety with anger. We cannot eliminate it! No supplements or food or things outside of ourselves will address this.
Anger is a part of life, and we are designed to feel the full spectrum of human emotions. To address the internalized anger, bitterness, and resentment getting in the way of engaging in life and digesting the experiences of it more fully.
My family is my happy place, and I feel so grateful for their love and support. This is me and my wife Anne. Anne guides this healing work too and she is brilliant at it if you feel more drawn to her energy. :)
Through our work together, my client’s chronic digestive issues dissolved. And if she happens to feel digestive upset anytime now, she knows what to do and how to give the part of herself attention that is “speaking” through her body. In doing so, the body unfurls and relaxes.
TRUST was established between her and the body. Trust in herself was established. There’s no irony here in the saying, “Trust your gut.”
It is an honor and a joy to help people break out of the pain that has been restricting them for so long.
There is a different way to heal. One where you can partner with your body instead of fighting against it.
I’ve learned how to help myself and others feel confident, peaceful, and free in their bodies again. And I would be honored to help you too. ↓
Ready to open ease in your body & strength in yourself?
Let’s begin! I invite you to book an initial appointment to get started.
Over a connective call, we’ll get to the heart of the matters your body is expressing that you would like to bring ease to. You will consult directly with me so I can provide pinpointed intel and clarity to best serve your unique situation and help you find relief. Use the scheduler below, and I truly look forward to assisting you. ~Stephen
