If you are a woman living with IBS, you already know it is not just about your gut: your emotions (especially frustration, resentment, repression, and depression) are the main culprits. However, what should you do about the main culprits?
I guess you have tried binged eating, watching, or any other kind of quick escape. But have you ever asked yourself: does that really solve the problem? If your answer is positive you probably do not need this post. But if the answer is negative, it may be time to try something different, something new.
To self-manage your IBS, that “something new” means going East to learn from three Japanese.
The practices inspired by them center on one big word: gratitude. And the one-big-word solution comes in three ways: Marie Kondo–style way of folding clothes, a physics professor’s techniques for “purifying” the mind, and a gentle diary method where you write about your future.
Thanking Your Clothes: A Simple Ritual for IBS Women
I don’t know about you. I don’t like folding clothes, but in this part you will find Marie Kondo’s idea helpful for managing your emotions (and IBS), an easy way to ‘soothe’ yourself.
Instead of treating folding clothes as a boring chore (I am sorry that I do), you hold each piece of clothing, say “thank you” when folding it. Why do you have to do it? Why do you have to say “thank you? This is what Marie means by expressing gratitude, an attitude that force you to slow slow, feel the fabric in your hand, and most important of all, bring your anger out of your head and back into your body.
In the world of Western Medicine, this small act switches your nervous system from “fight mode” into something soft, sometimes as soft as water. And in the universe of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), this grateful attitude helps your Liver Qi move again instead of getting stuck and down to your digestive system (making your suffer from IBS).
Feeling frustrated and resentful?
In the last post, you were 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 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, when 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 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’s 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 breaths. And here comes one of the most important steps, 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)
Thanking your future
So what have you done: By learning to thank your clothes, the person who hurt you the most, and your future, you gently calm your emotions (and over time, your IBS will start to feel less intense).
Sources of wisdom
- 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 the methods suggested on levels I and II, are now an expert in your own emotions
