Do you suffer with IBS and feel sensitive? Are you a sensitive person?
In my work with IBS sufferers, I have found that many are just like me – sensitive people. In fact IBS and being sensitive often go together.
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 a sensitive nervous system early on. We feel 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 hushed up or judged.
And we don’t know how to deal with the emotions rising within us.
So we get very good at avoiding conflict and becoming a brilliant chameleon to blend in well to circumstances.
Why you feel so sensitive
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 unexpressed anger becomes powerful and volatile.
And we feel overwhelmed every time we experience our emotions. It’s a really uncomfortable experience. If we avoid conflict to keep the peace, we start a war inside us instead.
IBS and being sensitive: 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.
When the pressure is too much
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.
You feel really sensitive.
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.
You may find you develop food sensitivity.
Maybe, like me, you have developed other sensitivies, like multiple chemical sensitivity too.
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?
If you are sensitive and 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 has ever shown you how to. (And it’s not as hard as you may think!)
You have this going on inside you, increasing your sensitivity and probably your IBS symptoms too.
Increasing the general load on your system.
THE vital missing piece for sensitives with IBS?
What if the answer is going back, finding and GENTLY releasing the specific emotions and traumas that are triggering your IBS?
And learning to allow your emotions, and your energy, to flow.
To lighten the load and start durably feeling much better.
Sounds scary? It really is easier than you would think.
In fact I would say it is much easier than having to regularly deal with IBS flare-ups.
But few people have the courage to do this.
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