The Body – Thoughts – Feelings Connection
The concept is really simple, yet profound. Your body, your thoughts and your feelings all exist in and are controlled by your brain. Altering one, or even better, two, will change the third. Let’s look at a panic attack for an example of how this would work.
During a panic attack the body feels like it is having a heart attack. Your chest constricts, your blood pressure rises, your skin temperature rises, your heart rate rises, your breathing becomes shallow and rapid, you have difficulty catching your breath. Your thoughts may race with fatalistic ideas; “I’m going to die”, “I’m having a heart attack”, “I’m going to go crazy”, “I can’t take this”, “I’m going to lose it”. Your emotions are that of terror and panic.
Let’s look at this. Emotions are the hardest to get hold of. They are nebulous and illusive. Thoughts are a bit easier, but your body is the easiest. Looking at the physical sensations your body experiences during a panic attack, which would be the easiest for you to control when panicked? Blood pressure and skin temperature may be tricky. But lungs are pretty easy. You can control how fast and how deep you inhale. So let’s start there. Slow your deepen your breathing. Do that for a minute or two. Now look at your thoughts. They are generated in your head. You can get control of them. Instead of allowing your mind to race along thinking, “I’m going to die!” or “I can’t take this!” get control of them and do some editing. Change it to: “I’m not going to die. I’m not having a heart attack. I’m having a panic attack. They last about 20 minutes, then it will be over. I can take it. I have taken it before and I will take it again. I just have to hang on until it passes.”
Now. How is that going to affect the panic? If you drag the body and mind into a calmer place, the emotions have to follow.
This can also work on depression. Granted, if the depression has a serious biochemical or genetic basis, medication may be required. But even with medication, if the body is sprawled in front of the television being stuffed with ice cream and potato chips and the mind is dragging along thinking, “My life sucks. It will never get any better. It’s always going to be like this.” depression is apt to follow and the medications are going to have a much harder time being effective.
Get the body up, give it a shower, dress it nicely and take it outside into the sunshine. Or take it to a funny movie. Or take it to visit that friend that always makes you laugh. Then edit your thinking. Change it to something more realistic: “My life doesn’t suck. I have these things in my life which are good (list several things). I have felt like this before and it does get better. It hasn’t always been like this and this will pass as soon as I do these things (make a list of things you have done before which have pulled you out of a depression and keep it handy). I’ve started taking my medication again and it usually takes 1-2 weeks to kick in. Then I will start to feel better.” Naturally, you will edit your thoughts to fit your life, these are merely examples. When you change what your mind is thinking and what your body is doing your emotions will have to follow.
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