The Symbiotic Dance of Body and Emotion

He came to work on the lingering resentment he still felt. An organic farmer in Costa Rica, he was once a chef in the US. There, he worked as a pastry chef at a resort, but his body began to rebel. His knees swelled, causing him deep pain. He endured draining fluid and cortisone shots until he met a homeopathic doctor who transformed his life with a simple diet change—no gluten and no processed food. The symptoms disappeared yet the resentment persisted.

When we delved deeper into this resentment there were also memories from early childhood that echoed similar feelings and he was filled with anger.  While working at the resort he confessed, “I felt like an indentured servant, working seven days a week on my feet, serving wealthy aristocrats.” 

His knees loudly and clearly reflected his feelings, crying out in pain until it became so unbearable that he ended up in the emergency room. The bending and kneeling of his knees symbolized submission and servitude to him, making his physical symptoms a manifestation of his emotional turmoil. Although his physical symptoms vanished, his knees had another important message to share, one that was screaming to be acknowledged. This realization reflected his emotional state. When the lifestyle changes met this understanding—that his pain was his savior—it led to an expansion and deeper connection of his physical and emotional bodies. This allowed him not only to heal his physical pain but also to understand why it had happened in the first place.

This story echoes themes from Gabor Maté's "When the Body Says No." Maté shares the story of Harvey, a successful business executive who developed colorectal cancer. Harvey was known for always accommodating others, never expressing anger or frustration. His lifelong pattern of self-denial and emotional repression manifested in his illness. As Harvey's condition worsened, it became clear that his cancer was a physical manifestation of his accumulated stress and resentment. Understanding this connection was crucial for his emotional healing.

Many factors indeed affect our state of health, including genetics, lifestyle, the food we eat, and our exposure to cleaner or more toxic environments. I suggest that we not only include but also pay closer attention to the clear and unedited communication offered by our emotional and physical bodies, noting the symmetry in their expressions. There is so much richness we can harvest by really leaning into the messages transmitted in concert by both physical symptoms and emotional states.

This leaning in leads us to question our choices, beliefs we hold too loosely or too tightly, and relationship adjustments that can offer more relief. By reconsidering how we might change the rules of engagement, we can avoid continuing to engage in the same ways that lead to further deterioration and frustration.

The integrative systemic approach is a cross-pollination of methods that begins by guiding you to a place of curiosity, allowing you to dive into the various “systems” that make up your life experience and expand your understanding. Curiosity embodies both humility and innocence. At its core, this process involves examining all aspects that shape our experience, while also inviting and integrating elements that may initially seem separate or irrelevant but are actually contributing to our overall strengths and weaknesses.

This process enables us to explore our physical bodies, cultural influences, ancestral blueprints, work, relationships, successes, and failures. Through this comprehensive examination, we reveal blind spots and reframe the stories we tell ourselves to include crucial pieces we might have overlooked. By accessing and considering all this information, we can choose new elements to integrate, leading us to new, freer terrains as we move forward.

Have you ever considered how your body might be expressing what you’re feeling emotionally? What messages could your physical symptoms be sending you? Reflecting on these questions can help us understand the deep connections between our minds and bodies.

Often, our journey begins with a deficiency, pain, or issue that has prompted us to seek a better solution. In many sessions I have found that the symptoms we desperately want to eliminate often have a story or message to share. By honoring these symptoms and giving them space to express their message, they can shift.

When we expand our expectations from life to include everything—the good, the bad, and the seemingly irrelevant—we manage our experiences more gently. This shift helps us move away from feeling like we are in a constant internal civil war.

Encourage yourself to begin this cross-referencing not only when you do not feel well but when all is well! Start to weave and make these connections within yourself, as these will deepen and become second nature. Instead of separating the way we perceive ourselves and our experiences, see the incredible symphony that we are.

As living systems, we interact with far more than we realize. By uncovering and addressing the deeper connections that shape our well-being, we can achieve a more harmonious and integrated life experience.