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If you are a woman in the U.S. living with IBS, you already know it is not just about your gut: your emotions (especially anxiety and frustration) are the main culprits.
In this post, I will attempt to solve this typical US problem for females by going East and by turning to three Japanese. The practices inspired by them center on one big word: gratitude. The practices are a Marie Kondo–style way of folding clothes, a gentle diary method where you write about your future, and a physics professor’s easy techniques for “purifying” the mind. By learning to thank your clothes, your future, and even the person who hurt you the most, you gently calm your emotions (and over time, your IBS will start to feel less intense).
How to fold clothes to clear your mind
I don’t know about you. I don’t like folding clothes, but in this post you will find Marie Kondo’s idea helpful for managing your emotions (and IBS).
Feeling frustrated and resented?
In the last post, you are asked to talk to yourself or write down your feelings. In this process, have you asked yourself the following questions, questions that go deep down into your negative feelings?
Why are you frustrated?
What makes you resentful?
Or let me ‘visit’ your experience, emotion, and feeling! Have you ever wondered why the following(s) happened to you?
- suffering from IBS
- your parents not loving you
- feeling of being looked down upon
- encountering setbacks in your career
- the one you love hurting or leaving you
How to soothe your Liver (& yourself)
This is the most difficult, if not the toughest, method. What Professor Tasaka suggests is a special way to treat those who have hurt you, or those who treated you badly, to the point that it leaves a mark, a huge one indeed, in the deeper layers of your mind. The method is:
Thank those who hurt your feelings
Is that supposed to be a joke? Why should you thank the person who hurt you while instead you want to do the opposite? And the bigger issue is: the solution is totally impractical. Facing the one who hurt you and saying thank you? How (on earth) is that possible?
Well, it is possible as what Professor Tasaka wants us to do is to
- say ‘thank you’ in your mind
- without meeting the one who hurt you
How to say ‘thank you’
Let me give you an example. Let say Mr Wrong leaves you for the wrong reasons you feel frustrated and resentful, if not depressed.
So with this level III method, you first picture him (e.g. his face, his voice), then take a few deep breathes. And here comes one of the most important step, a step you may have done in the level II solution: Think about what emotions you have with him.
And then to Mr Right, you say it in your mind, calmly:
Mr Wrong, thank you.
Yes, just say the name and then thank you, no more or no less.
Why do you have to thank him?
Indeed, what you want is not to thank him, but to receive an apology from him? Well, if you ask for apologies then you will fall into a trap, the trap of negative emotions, emotions that you are familiar with (anger, frustration, and resentment).
In other words, level III solution frees you from your negative emotions, and most important of all as pointed out by Professor Tasaka, in his book ‘Three Techniques for Improving Luck and Purifying the Mind’:
The reason why we feel pains deep down inside our hearts is because of our emotion of blaming.
Simply stated, if you feel thankful to the one who hurts you the negative feelings are away from you, and so is your IBS!
(Forgiveness is from within Shetty (section: forgiveness is a two-way street)
Experts in this post
- Hiroshi Tasaka, Honorary Professor at the Graduate School of Tama University, author of Three Techniques for Improving Luck and Purifying the Mind
- You (yourself), with methods suggested on levels I and II you are now an expert of your own emotion
