If you suffer from IBS, chances are that you have asked yourself “What is WRONG with me?” You know something is up, but no-one can put their fingers on what triggers your IBS … until now!
It took me a VERY long time to find out what was wrong with me. Before that I was in the dark!
I, like you, had to put up with those difficult IBS symptoms that just kept coming back.
It seems totally logical to point the finger to yourself. After all, if your doctor says there is nothing wrong, it MUST be our fault, right?
If you having nothing seriously wrong, why do you feel so crappy?
And why do you spend all your time trying to eat, digest and poop?
IBS: What is wrong with me?
I had the belief that there had to be something “wrong” with me.
I originally thought there must be something physically wrong with my body. Tests showed that I had a longer colon than normal and that my epiglottis (the flap over my wind pipe) didn’t fit well.
But to me that didn’t really explain all the IBS symptoms I was dealing with.
If you consider your body like a car that you drive around in, you will have little chance of finding what is at the root of your IBS symptoms.
Our bodies are intricate learning machines. And they express what you have learned about yourself.
Your body is especially sensitive to what you have learned about yourself and the world around you. And your strong feelings and beliefs.
To get out of IBS, you don’t need new car parts. You need to understand what your body is telling you.
It must be my fault
My doctor told me it was psychosomatic, which I understood as meaning “it’s all in your head”. Aka you are making up all these IBS symptoms.
So I assumed it must be my fault. That I wasn’t doing or eating the “right” things. Because I had IBS to contend with – and no-one else around me did.
Psychosomatic actually means “relating to the interaction of mind and body” – the mind and emotions expressing themselves through the body. Which is important insight!
The mind body connection
The mind body connection has been gaining ground over the last 20 years, and gradually doctors and experts are taking this into consideration.
This is where I have found ALL the answers to IBS and what is wrong with me.
In my coaching practice I help IBS sufferers look for and release their IBS triggers. These are essentially the regular experiences that trigger strong emotional responses in their body.
IBS triggers are not easy to find when you live with them all the time, and they have become unconscious. Almost invisible.
What does an IBS trigger look like?
Here is an example of a trigger from my own experience. One of my IBS triggers was that I felt unseen. And every time I felt unseen or what I said was not acknowledged, especially at work, it would trigger my IBS symptoms.
I didn’t realise this was happening. For a long time I thought I had eaten something that set me off. Or that there was something wrong with my body. But the deep pain of feeling unseen was one of my invisible IBS triggers.
One day I stumbled across the trigger. And learned how to release it. That was when my IBS started to really change for the better.
To me, there is nothing more empowering than to fully understand why your body is reacting and creating IBS symptoms. And to learn how to change that for yourself.
7