Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Spastic Colon, or IBS as it is most commonly known is said to affect at least 30% of people in the US and UK. This means millions of people worldwide suffer from IBS, the symptoms of which are characterised by abdominal pains, bloating, flatulence, diarrhoea or constipation, bleeding and fatigue. The good news is that IBS can be treated naturally with shamanic healing, which gets right to the root of the problem.
No one knows what causes IBS in the first instance and there is no known cure. Many people go for years without seeking assistance – perhaps this is due to embarrassment. IBS attacks can be triggered by certain foods, such as wheat, dairy, some fruits and vegetables, soya products, or liquids such as alcohol and caffeine. The attacks can be crippling as well as anxiety provoking, and generally they make life very miserable indeed. IBS is a major cause of work absenteeism and sadly can often lead people to lose their jobs altogether due to repeated absenteeism or more commonly, reluctance to travel either to or from work or for work related duties.
Life was made extremely miserable by IBS for one of my remote telephone clients – who I shall call Suki. Her condition was so severe that she could not bear to be more than a few feet away from a toilet at any one time. Suki was lucky in that her employers allowed her to work full time from home – but over the years her home had become a prison as she was too scared to leave the house in case she suffered an attack.
Understandably, Suki became depressed and also believed she was suffering from social anxiety phobias. Although she was in a relationship, she was unable to go out with her partner. Her world became very small, and she was also on an extremely restrictive diet in an attempt to keep her symptoms under control, so there were very few joys in life which resulted in the deepening of her depression. In addition, she did not sleep properly and therefore suffered from extreme fatigue.
Suki contacted me in the hope that shamanic healing would assist her with her problems. It became clear fairly early on that Suki did not have a social anxiety problem – she was just very scared of embarrassing herself in public and not being able to get to a toilet in time. Of course this would be worrying for anyone! But I also noticed that Suki worried about a great many things, in fact she worried all the time and had a very “busy head.” For example if a hairdresser was booked in to see her for a home visit, she would count down the days on the calendar and worry about the appointment a great deal beforehand, so it was clear she also suffered from a great deal of generalised anxiety and needed help in this area.
One day, I met a friend for lunch. She had a very busy life and a very busy head and carried a lot of stress in her life, although she was not a particularly anxious person. I knew she had suffered for many years with ulcerative colitis – a condition which causes similar symptoms to IBS but is more severe. She was being very careful about what she ate, so careful in fact that most of the menu was off limits to her and we spent ages trying to find something she could safely eat. At that moment, I noticed the similarities in character between her and Suki and an idea came to me during that lunch. I have often noticed when working with people that the body mirrors itself. If you imagine a line in the midsection of the torso and the torso folded up in half, then the head and the lower colon are at opposite ends of the spine. Which led me to wonder – does IBS stand for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or Irritable Brain Syndrome? And are they in fact, one and the same?
So I tested the theory out and taught Suki to meditate. I also noticed that she was spectacularly ungrounded! (This means her spirit did not inhabit her body very well – it was floating around her head area, instead of being in her body and being connected to the Earth).
However, I noticed that Suki was resistant to grounding – to being present in her body and we soon discovered that she had come to hate and despise her body for disappointing her and causing her so many problems in her life. I explained to her that I had on several occasions noticed that a body will exhibit –indeed often create a problem, in order to bring to the person’s attention that they do in fact have a body and that body needs a) love and care and b) inhabiting by us, by our spirit. Pain, I believe, is one of the body’s ways of trying to get us into our body for pain is in itself very grounding. But it was affecting Suki in reverse, the pain was causing her to try to detach further from her body. Suki came to understand that she needed to be grounded and was given a simple meditation technique to try and reduce the business in her head.
Like many of my clients, Suki had suffered some traumas in life, so we worked hard on healing her issues and putting her past behind her. She had come to the conclusion – as do many people – that she was pretty worthless and as a result of this she did not love herself or look after herself well at all. Again, I taught her that unloved bodies rarely function well! Our bodies carry out millions of processes for us in each second and they do want to be loved and appreciated for their efforts! She resolved to be kinder to herself, and looked into ways in which she could nurture her body. We also carried out extensive Inner Child work and chakra/energy body clearing, and then bought her back to wholeness with Soul Retrieval and Power Retrieval techniques.
Suki was determined to get well, she did all of her homework and along the way she started to realise how badly she had been treating herself, which again is something I see a lot in my healing practice. She only had one session with me a month, for a period of four months. I was delighted to hear at her fourth session that her symptoms had completely cleared up, she was eating a wider range of food and enjoying them, and she had started to leave the house and finally visit her partner’s family and her friends, which was of course aiding her relationship. She was being kinder to herself, practising being in the present moment – instead of worrying about future or past events – and said that she now felt she was “in” her body. Not only that, but she was thinking kindly about her body and being more compassionate with it, rather than hating it. I was so happy that Suki was now able to move forward and enjoy her life. Suki kindly sent me this testimonial, which she has allowed me to share with you.
“I have suffered from severe IBS, social phobia, anxiety, panic attacks and fatigue to name but a few of my complaints. I had become housebound and had not lived my life for many years. Over the years I have tried various therapies, but none of them really helped or some of them only making me feel a little better temporarily (some even made me feel worse!). Feeling desperate I turned to Dawn for help. I found the Shamanic Healing and Soul Retrieval to be positive and fun. Healing work with Dawn was very encouraging and deeply effective. I always felt guided in the right healing path. Soon I started to feel something shifting within me. Healing was very gentle but definite and deep and on-going. Now I feel so much calmer, grounded and at peace. I have also had sleeping problems all my life but I sleep much better and deeper now. I feel positive, more relaxed and have more energy. My everyday IBS is gone (only minor hiccups occasionally, when work gets extremely stressful), and I am no longer scared of people. I can at last start to enjoy life again. Thank you so much for your help, Dawn!”