Have you ever wondered what you have done to deserve IBS? You know that your IBS is not all in your head. What if your IBS is not actually your fault?
This is something I wish someone had told me all those years I was trying to beat IBS. Because there was always that nagging doubt that I was just doing everything wrong. That I could and should be doing better.
There had to be something wrong with me – or with my body.
Today I know that this is not the case.
Did you know that some of the nicest, most sensitive and smartest people get IBS?
So what IS going on?
IBS is not all in your head
Your doctor may have told you that IBS is psychosomatic. And you may have Googled that and read “all in your head”. And that just makes you feel so wild.
So let me reassure you. Because we already feel such pain and shame around IBS.
Your IBS is NOT your fault.
“Psychosomatic” doesn’t mean that it has been made up by you.
(Seriously, why on earth would someone?)
And it doesn’t mean that you are crazy either. Or that IBS is all in your head.
Even if you may have family members or colleagues who don’t really understand what you’re going through, and insinuate that it’s you.
They don’t know. They’ve never had IBS.
Why IBS is not your fault
Despite popular belief,
it’s not what you are eating…
it’s not what you are doing…
and it’s not because you are “swallowing too much air”!
We do not consciously create our IBS. IBS is psychosomatic.
Psychosomatic means created by an UNCONSCIOUS reaction between the brain and our body.
A mind body connection we learned when we were little children.
Either immitating the adults around us and what they are doing.
Or as a coping mechanism to attempt to keep us out of harm’s way.
It’s like a routine that is re-enacted every time you hit one of your specific IBS triggers.
IBS triggers are unconscious for the most part. Which means we have difficulty seeing them.
They are very familiar, and have become part of the furniture.
And there may be several triggers that fire at once, making it even more complicated to notice what creates what in our system.
The good news is that research has given us the power to choose a different outcome.
A smart alternative to putting up with IBS
In the 1960’s (yes as long ago as that) research into neuroscience and specifically neuroplasticity came up with an amazing discovery.
Some very clever researchers found that we can get access to our unconscious reactions. And change them. Imagine uncovering your IBS triggers and becoming conscious of them.
What if you could then unlearn some of your IBS trigger loops?
And no longer have to put up with the symptoms?
Wouldn’t that be incredibly empowering?
Not only is this highly effective. But this is the work that gets me REALLY EXCITED!