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 has been able to put their finger 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.
IBS: What is wrong with me?
I held the firm 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 we consider our bodies like a car that we drive around in, we have little chance of finding what is at the root of our IBS symptoms.
I discovered that our bodies are intricate learning machines. And they express what we have learned about ourselves.
Our bodies are especially sensitive to what we have learned about ourselves and the world around us. And our strong feelings and beliefs.
To get out of IBS, we don’t need new car parts. We need to understand what our body is telling us.
It must be my fault
One doctor told me IBS 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 supposedly 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 unheard. And every time I felt unseen, orwhat 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.