This piece is just phenomenal. This is exactly what happened to me in my late teens and early twenties which I spent in and out of doctors, on more and more medication to help me survive the day, I was too young for it. Thankfully I discovered the role of the nervous system in my health symptoms and began healing from there. While I am not perfect and still experience mild symptoms from time to time, I have the tools to listen now and honour what my body is asking for. I hope that I can further spread this message to my own community for collective healing that is so so needed in our stressed out world. Thank you for sharing this work 💛
I'm late to the comments party here, but your email has been sitting in my inbox and I've read and re-read it very carefully.
Thank you so much for sharing all this. Yet again I'm sad that Western medical training treats people as a collection of individual symptoms in various parts of our bodies, rather than holistically looking at everything that happens in our lives to create these symptoms.
I wasn't aware of Sandy Newbigging, but have now just ordered his book 'Mind Detox' to educate myself. As a trainee psychotherapist I'm also very interested in doing his 'Mind Detox Practitioner Course' to add to my knowledge and expertise to help myself and help clients. I work with a few people who have chronic pain and auto-immune diseases at the moment and I would love to be able to offer some practical solutions along with psychotherapeutic help.
Can't wait to hear more about jour journey with all this. Hope you're feeling a little better.
That’s wonderful, Sally, that you have discovered Sandy’s work. He offers so many helpful tools and perspectives. I hope you find them helpful in your own practice!
It is wonderful that you are bringing this to your reader’s awareness. I’ve been reading Gabor Mate, Joe Dispenza and others for a while now, and I have a wholistic doc that treats us this way, taking into consideration our personalities, stress levels and life experience and intuitively ‘sees’ what is the problem. As a yoga teacher, not fitness but a spiritual practice, I see compensatory movement and resistance in my students and tailor my classes with this in mind. Between this doc, yoga, my massage therapist, TCM guy, thermography, and my bio-magnetism practitioner I am in my best health. I wish for you that all this work brings you to your authenticity and self-love so that your light shines brightly and you feel rooted, supported and well. 🤎🩵
I remember being in a toxic relationship and looking at our pics together, at that time I had severe acne problems and I didn't connect the dots. I always thought pain and health issues are the body's way of putting an alarm on a problem, just never thought how accurate it is in highlighting actual non-physical problems. your article put it so clear. Thanks for that!
Anne, this is a thoughtful post, and also one that has produced conflicting responses in me. On the one hand, Western medicine treats the disease rather than the underlying causes. (Unless they have pathologized your body as "obese"; then *everything* you have is because you're fat.) Other traditions offer more holistic approaches to the physical body and its inextricable connection to the body. I know, for instance, how much my catastrophic, anxiety-prone brain produces physical symptoms (dizziness, heart palpitations, brain fog, hypersensitivity, extreme nervousness). And so Sandy Newbigging's approach is appealing from that standpoint: WHY am I so anxious? What issues are still unresolved?
I also know from the intensive therapy I had after my complete nervous breakdown in 2003 that my anxiety and attendant physical symptoms were/are very much rooted in unresolved issues. Medication ALONE would not have helped me crawl out of the Pit of Anxious Doom. I had to pursue therapy (which was one of the most difficult but rewarding experiences of my life). At the same time, however, I worry that we (well, me, and women, especially) will find another way to blame ourselves for being sick.
I fully believe that Western society is sicker than it ever has been (yay end stage capitalism and technocracy!), and that we need to actively seek out mind-body balance. I'm just not sure how to achieve it when everything around us is doing its damndest to keep us from pursuing it, let alone achieving it.
Ugh, I think my reaction stems also from position at the bottom of the pit, where I've been residing for a little while, unwillingly. I've been experiencing some physical discomfort and pain that is at once rooted in a real physical condition (uterine fibroids are awesome!), and at the same time worsened because of my anxiety and catastrophic thinking.
Oh, Rebecca, I'm so sorry to hear that you are feeling stuck and are having so much pain!! Yes, the mind-body connection idea can make it seem like we are blaming ourselves, but it's actually hugely empowering to realize that we have it in our power to heal ourselves. The first thing is regulating the nervous system. That is the frontline for reducing the effects of stress on the body. I wish my doctor had told me about the vagus nerve, when I asked him how to reduce stress. There is a lot of good stuff coming out now about how to activate it to get our bodies back into the zone where we can heal. I hope you get some relief soon! And I definitely recommend Sandy Newbigging's work. I started with Body Calm. Now I'm reading Mind Detox, and meditating more and doing his GAAWO (gently alert, awareness wide open). He has a great Body Calm meditation on Insight Timer.
Oooh, Insight Timer! I just found that app and downloaded it to my phone. I'll definitely look for Sandy Newbigging's work when I'm back in the States next month.
A great piece, I really resonate with my own journey which has been a very physical portrayal of anxiety whilst my mind just shuts down. After quitting my old life and starting my new one last year I saw 10 years of symptoms almost disappear over night, now I will never not listen to what my body has to say, she knows better than I do!
This was one of the coolest pieces I’ve ever read! Now I’ll have to check out The Body Calm book. I always attributed physical pain to physical symptoms. Lower back pain? Straighten up. Knee pain? Stretch more often. But those explanations never accounted for the random pangs I’d feel in the most unexpected areas, like the elbow pain that once woke me from sleep. Thank you for this, Anne. I really appreciate it.
I literally just wrote a note on Substack asking whether it's anxiety, working parent malaise, or having p.m.d.d/ PCOS ( I have several autoimmune diseases and unfortunately lots of chronic symptoms), doctors and specialists do always want to say for chronic pain/fatigue/ headaches etc. "it's stress" which is maddening to hear, I can only "meditate/ excercise/ self care" so much stress away as a human/ woman/ mother in 2025?! Anyways I guess you can say after a decade of chronic illness and a lifetime of high functioning anxiety, I have started a journey of attempting healing/ pursuing wholeness (because chronic pain/ frequent panic attacks are no way to live) which feels a lot more like unraveling honestly and movement, therapy, meditation- so many threads have gone into this. This whole post makes me feel so seen and validated, I am very curious about the body calm book and will be looking this up, thank toy for sharing your journey! ❤️
Oh, Hannah, this is amazing to hear! SOmetimes when I write these posts I think, will anyone get this, or am I going off the deep end? Of course, I’d rather not that you and so many others are going through a lot of the suffering that I have been. (I have PCOS too. That’s a fun one!) I think regulating our nervous system (activatint or stimulating the vagus nerve) is the best thing we can do when we are so overwhelmed. Once we are more regulated, we can handle the meditation, exercise, self-care. Try out that video I included. And there are other great techniques as well. Sandy Newbigging’s GAAWO has been helpful for me too. He has a great Body Calm meditation on Insight Timer.
This is such an important conversation, especially for women! For so long in this world, we've had to operate and exist in ways that have been detrimental to us, and our health has greatly suffered for it. There is so, so much healing that happens when we come back into balance with how we are fundamentally and truly meant to live. Thank you. <3
This, today, is 100% what I am facing. I have a dream planned, to take off in 7 weeks, and for the past 4 weeks there has been one obstacle after the other that threatens to stop me. And last night I dreamt of a tsunami. Overwhelm taken hold today.
“Stress is a symptom of there being a conflict between what your mind wants and what your soul knows you need, for you to fulfill your life’s purpose”. This makes perfect sense for what is happening for me right now. Conflict between heart and head. Dream and “reality”. And it has become physical.
Thank you, I found this interesting and comforting today. I will hear what the body is telling me 🙏🏼
Anne, this article was so incredibly helpful to me at this juncture of my life. As I’ve been exploring in my own essays recently I do understand that the sudden onset of a debilitating low back pain and injury six weeks ago has a message for me beyond the physical symptoms. I truly believe in the mind-body connection. How interesting to hear that pain in the hips (because it’s there too) could be a feeling of being stuck, and low back pain a situation of feeling unsupported or unsure of supporting myself or others. I’ve learned from my yoga therapist & myofascial release therapist that there are only four causes of low back pain: anger, control, fear and stress. I’ve been digging deep these past several weeks to invite some answers from my subconscious, to feel my feelings. Letting the discomfort of anger flow, the tears come. The injury happened at a time when a brand-new exciting chapter of life was before me—a move to Barcelona, close to my daughters, new friends, adventures, maybe even romance after leaving a 33-year marriage and nursing my mom through dementia. She died last April and the silver lining to my grief was this move to Europe. And then the injury, forcing me to cancel a climb to Macchu Picchu and trip to Chile. The frustration of being captive to pain at a time when I wanted to spread my wings is particularly hard. Thanks for giving me hope and excellent resources. Look forward to reading Body Calm and learning more about your work with Sandy.
I'm so sorry, Amy, that you have had this injury just as you are spreading your wings! There is definitely something going on in there. I hope you can find some relief! How is your nervous system? I think most of us are so disregulated and don't even realize it!
So good to hear from your journey again, Anne, and what a great post. I hope new life in Manchester is brining more to write about!
This thing about the body using pain to communicate to us is so true. In my experience, it was with the somatic symptoms of anxiety. I've suffered from anxiety since I was a child, I used to say it was inbuilt in my being, but most of the time I couldn't pinpoint the reason for it. And, as it's usually the case with these things, I tried to get rid of it, saw it as something I needed "to fix" in myself.
However, over the recent course of my journey in psychotherapy - I'm lucky to have found a fantastic therapist who I trust - I had come to realise that the moments when I'd suffer most from anxiety like the spike in cortisol release, digestion issues, sleep problems and the endless mind spin, it was because my anxiety was sending me a signal that I needed to change certain circumstances of my life. It happened with a job I was unhappy with, a doomed relationship and an academic path that it wasn't for me. Whilst my mind would try to rationalise reasons to stay the course, my body was using my anxiety to shout at me to GET OUT of here because where I was it wasn't a place aligned to my path or my values. I came to see, after many years of course, that my anxiety is actually my biggest ally in life - quite far from an enemy indeed. This was probably the biggest revelation I had in therapy. I can't say I'm fully healed of course, but my relationship to it has changed and I feel incredibly better in my body and I try to resist less to the signals when they show up. A bonus experience is that I also feel so much more reassured in myself, it's like I have a big sister within who's got my back and who will do anything to get my attention if she sees me heading into the wrong thing - which has made rely much less on any type of external validation.
Thank you for sharing and for hosting this community. Onwards!
What a beautiful realization, Pamela! Thank you for sharing it with us. Our brain and our body are trying to do the best thing for us. They are protecting us all the time, just not in ways that we may recognize. I’m convinced that our early ancestors were more atuned to these things. Listening is everything! I’m also learning from Sandy Newbigging how important core beliefs are, things we believe on a subconscious level. Will write more about that in a future post.
Amazing read Anne. So much to think about. Many of my issues had common themes and common affirmations to address them. Clearly our subconsciouss is a hoarder of past conflicts, rejections. feeling and emotions. BTW, I ordered Sandy's book off the US Amazon site and I got the last one. It wasn't even a new copy. Onward. Let in the new and act to be happy!
Our childhood traumas lurk beneath it all it seems, especially where our conscious does not remember. It fascinates me to think that my arthritis is a result of some unknown mental conflict.
It’s quite possible. I’m reading the book Mind Detox by Sandy Newbigging and my mind is blown every other page. He is also teaching a masterclass on it today! The recoridng will be available.
Thank you Anne for sharing your personal and educational experiences. I have come to believe there is a mind-body connection that works for us and against us. Having experienced stress and burnout myself that has impacted my mental and physical health I am so glad that we are starting to talk about it more openly. I believe our family of origin and how we have been parented can be a factor in how we live our lives, in a healthy or unhealthy way....the scripts we have been fed! Ultimately recognizing the root cause of my anxiety, and developing greater insight into my personality and response to stress triggers has been helping me. I am also trying to set clearer boundaries for myself and others, and this is an ongoing lesson.
This piece is just phenomenal. This is exactly what happened to me in my late teens and early twenties which I spent in and out of doctors, on more and more medication to help me survive the day, I was too young for it. Thankfully I discovered the role of the nervous system in my health symptoms and began healing from there. While I am not perfect and still experience mild symptoms from time to time, I have the tools to listen now and honour what my body is asking for. I hope that I can further spread this message to my own community for collective healing that is so so needed in our stressed out world. Thank you for sharing this work 💛
Hi Anne, good to see you here and sharing your wonderful wisdom. This was very helpful - thank you.
I finally made to Italy! wow - what a journey its been
I will be visiting Scotland soon! Any favorite places? Places of beauty and peace and wonderful people??
Take good care and I an sure your school studies are progressing positively 🌻
Laura
I'm late to the comments party here, but your email has been sitting in my inbox and I've read and re-read it very carefully.
Thank you so much for sharing all this. Yet again I'm sad that Western medical training treats people as a collection of individual symptoms in various parts of our bodies, rather than holistically looking at everything that happens in our lives to create these symptoms.
I wasn't aware of Sandy Newbigging, but have now just ordered his book 'Mind Detox' to educate myself. As a trainee psychotherapist I'm also very interested in doing his 'Mind Detox Practitioner Course' to add to my knowledge and expertise to help myself and help clients. I work with a few people who have chronic pain and auto-immune diseases at the moment and I would love to be able to offer some practical solutions along with psychotherapeutic help.
Can't wait to hear more about jour journey with all this. Hope you're feeling a little better.
Thanks so much Anne!
That’s wonderful, Sally, that you have discovered Sandy’s work. He offers so many helpful tools and perspectives. I hope you find them helpful in your own practice!
It is wonderful that you are bringing this to your reader’s awareness. I’ve been reading Gabor Mate, Joe Dispenza and others for a while now, and I have a wholistic doc that treats us this way, taking into consideration our personalities, stress levels and life experience and intuitively ‘sees’ what is the problem. As a yoga teacher, not fitness but a spiritual practice, I see compensatory movement and resistance in my students and tailor my classes with this in mind. Between this doc, yoga, my massage therapist, TCM guy, thermography, and my bio-magnetism practitioner I am in my best health. I wish for you that all this work brings you to your authenticity and self-love so that your light shines brightly and you feel rooted, supported and well. 🤎🩵
Martha, it sounds as if you have quite a community of people and approaches that are supporting your health and well-being. That is so wonderful!
I remember being in a toxic relationship and looking at our pics together, at that time I had severe acne problems and I didn't connect the dots. I always thought pain and health issues are the body's way of putting an alarm on a problem, just never thought how accurate it is in highlighting actual non-physical problems. your article put it so clear. Thanks for that!
Anne, this is a thoughtful post, and also one that has produced conflicting responses in me. On the one hand, Western medicine treats the disease rather than the underlying causes. (Unless they have pathologized your body as "obese"; then *everything* you have is because you're fat.) Other traditions offer more holistic approaches to the physical body and its inextricable connection to the body. I know, for instance, how much my catastrophic, anxiety-prone brain produces physical symptoms (dizziness, heart palpitations, brain fog, hypersensitivity, extreme nervousness). And so Sandy Newbigging's approach is appealing from that standpoint: WHY am I so anxious? What issues are still unresolved?
I also know from the intensive therapy I had after my complete nervous breakdown in 2003 that my anxiety and attendant physical symptoms were/are very much rooted in unresolved issues. Medication ALONE would not have helped me crawl out of the Pit of Anxious Doom. I had to pursue therapy (which was one of the most difficult but rewarding experiences of my life). At the same time, however, I worry that we (well, me, and women, especially) will find another way to blame ourselves for being sick.
I fully believe that Western society is sicker than it ever has been (yay end stage capitalism and technocracy!), and that we need to actively seek out mind-body balance. I'm just not sure how to achieve it when everything around us is doing its damndest to keep us from pursuing it, let alone achieving it.
Ugh, I think my reaction stems also from position at the bottom of the pit, where I've been residing for a little while, unwillingly. I've been experiencing some physical discomfort and pain that is at once rooted in a real physical condition (uterine fibroids are awesome!), and at the same time worsened because of my anxiety and catastrophic thinking.
I just came upon this article: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2025/how-stress-affects-cancer?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
So I have some reading, thinking, writing, talking, working to do. Like you said in Part I, it's so hard to get UNstuck.
Thank you for writing these provocative posts.
So, I guess I'm still stuck!
Oh, Rebecca, I'm so sorry to hear that you are feeling stuck and are having so much pain!! Yes, the mind-body connection idea can make it seem like we are blaming ourselves, but it's actually hugely empowering to realize that we have it in our power to heal ourselves. The first thing is regulating the nervous system. That is the frontline for reducing the effects of stress on the body. I wish my doctor had told me about the vagus nerve, when I asked him how to reduce stress. There is a lot of good stuff coming out now about how to activate it to get our bodies back into the zone where we can heal. I hope you get some relief soon! And I definitely recommend Sandy Newbigging's work. I started with Body Calm. Now I'm reading Mind Detox, and meditating more and doing his GAAWO (gently alert, awareness wide open). He has a great Body Calm meditation on Insight Timer.
Oooh, Insight Timer! I just found that app and downloaded it to my phone. I'll definitely look for Sandy Newbigging's work when I'm back in the States next month.
A great piece, I really resonate with my own journey which has been a very physical portrayal of anxiety whilst my mind just shuts down. After quitting my old life and starting my new one last year I saw 10 years of symptoms almost disappear over night, now I will never not listen to what my body has to say, she knows better than I do!
Wonderful story! We have so much power to heal ourselves!!
This was one of the coolest pieces I’ve ever read! Now I’ll have to check out The Body Calm book. I always attributed physical pain to physical symptoms. Lower back pain? Straighten up. Knee pain? Stretch more often. But those explanations never accounted for the random pangs I’d feel in the most unexpected areas, like the elbow pain that once woke me from sleep. Thank you for this, Anne. I really appreciate it.
I’m so glad you found is useful! I hope you get a lot out of the Body Calm book.
I literally just wrote a note on Substack asking whether it's anxiety, working parent malaise, or having p.m.d.d/ PCOS ( I have several autoimmune diseases and unfortunately lots of chronic symptoms), doctors and specialists do always want to say for chronic pain/fatigue/ headaches etc. "it's stress" which is maddening to hear, I can only "meditate/ excercise/ self care" so much stress away as a human/ woman/ mother in 2025?! Anyways I guess you can say after a decade of chronic illness and a lifetime of high functioning anxiety, I have started a journey of attempting healing/ pursuing wholeness (because chronic pain/ frequent panic attacks are no way to live) which feels a lot more like unraveling honestly and movement, therapy, meditation- so many threads have gone into this. This whole post makes me feel so seen and validated, I am very curious about the body calm book and will be looking this up, thank toy for sharing your journey! ❤️
Oh, Hannah, this is amazing to hear! SOmetimes when I write these posts I think, will anyone get this, or am I going off the deep end? Of course, I’d rather not that you and so many others are going through a lot of the suffering that I have been. (I have PCOS too. That’s a fun one!) I think regulating our nervous system (activatint or stimulating the vagus nerve) is the best thing we can do when we are so overwhelmed. Once we are more regulated, we can handle the meditation, exercise, self-care. Try out that video I included. And there are other great techniques as well. Sandy Newbigging’s GAAWO has been helpful for me too. He has a great Body Calm meditation on Insight Timer.
This is such an important conversation, especially for women! For so long in this world, we've had to operate and exist in ways that have been detrimental to us, and our health has greatly suffered for it. There is so, so much healing that happens when we come back into balance with how we are fundamentally and truly meant to live. Thank you. <3
I’m so glad this resonated with you, Kaitlyn. Thank you for sharing!
This, today, is 100% what I am facing. I have a dream planned, to take off in 7 weeks, and for the past 4 weeks there has been one obstacle after the other that threatens to stop me. And last night I dreamt of a tsunami. Overwhelm taken hold today.
“Stress is a symptom of there being a conflict between what your mind wants and what your soul knows you need, for you to fulfill your life’s purpose”. This makes perfect sense for what is happening for me right now. Conflict between heart and head. Dream and “reality”. And it has become physical.
Thank you, I found this interesting and comforting today. I will hear what the body is telling me 🙏🏼
I hope you find some peace and get to take your trip. Sometimes the body has other plans for us.
Anne, this article was so incredibly helpful to me at this juncture of my life. As I’ve been exploring in my own essays recently I do understand that the sudden onset of a debilitating low back pain and injury six weeks ago has a message for me beyond the physical symptoms. I truly believe in the mind-body connection. How interesting to hear that pain in the hips (because it’s there too) could be a feeling of being stuck, and low back pain a situation of feeling unsupported or unsure of supporting myself or others. I’ve learned from my yoga therapist & myofascial release therapist that there are only four causes of low back pain: anger, control, fear and stress. I’ve been digging deep these past several weeks to invite some answers from my subconscious, to feel my feelings. Letting the discomfort of anger flow, the tears come. The injury happened at a time when a brand-new exciting chapter of life was before me—a move to Barcelona, close to my daughters, new friends, adventures, maybe even romance after leaving a 33-year marriage and nursing my mom through dementia. She died last April and the silver lining to my grief was this move to Europe. And then the injury, forcing me to cancel a climb to Macchu Picchu and trip to Chile. The frustration of being captive to pain at a time when I wanted to spread my wings is particularly hard. Thanks for giving me hope and excellent resources. Look forward to reading Body Calm and learning more about your work with Sandy.
I'm so sorry, Amy, that you have had this injury just as you are spreading your wings! There is definitely something going on in there. I hope you can find some relief! How is your nervous system? I think most of us are so disregulated and don't even realize it!
So good to hear from your journey again, Anne, and what a great post. I hope new life in Manchester is brining more to write about!
This thing about the body using pain to communicate to us is so true. In my experience, it was with the somatic symptoms of anxiety. I've suffered from anxiety since I was a child, I used to say it was inbuilt in my being, but most of the time I couldn't pinpoint the reason for it. And, as it's usually the case with these things, I tried to get rid of it, saw it as something I needed "to fix" in myself.
However, over the recent course of my journey in psychotherapy - I'm lucky to have found a fantastic therapist who I trust - I had come to realise that the moments when I'd suffer most from anxiety like the spike in cortisol release, digestion issues, sleep problems and the endless mind spin, it was because my anxiety was sending me a signal that I needed to change certain circumstances of my life. It happened with a job I was unhappy with, a doomed relationship and an academic path that it wasn't for me. Whilst my mind would try to rationalise reasons to stay the course, my body was using my anxiety to shout at me to GET OUT of here because where I was it wasn't a place aligned to my path or my values. I came to see, after many years of course, that my anxiety is actually my biggest ally in life - quite far from an enemy indeed. This was probably the biggest revelation I had in therapy. I can't say I'm fully healed of course, but my relationship to it has changed and I feel incredibly better in my body and I try to resist less to the signals when they show up. A bonus experience is that I also feel so much more reassured in myself, it's like I have a big sister within who's got my back and who will do anything to get my attention if she sees me heading into the wrong thing - which has made rely much less on any type of external validation.
Thank you for sharing and for hosting this community. Onwards!
What a beautiful realization, Pamela! Thank you for sharing it with us. Our brain and our body are trying to do the best thing for us. They are protecting us all the time, just not in ways that we may recognize. I’m convinced that our early ancestors were more atuned to these things. Listening is everything! I’m also learning from Sandy Newbigging how important core beliefs are, things we believe on a subconscious level. Will write more about that in a future post.
Amazing read Anne. So much to think about. Many of my issues had common themes and common affirmations to address them. Clearly our subconsciouss is a hoarder of past conflicts, rejections. feeling and emotions. BTW, I ordered Sandy's book off the US Amazon site and I got the last one. It wasn't even a new copy. Onward. Let in the new and act to be happy!
Hmm, I wonder if is books aren’t as readily available in the US. I’m glad you got a copy! I’m reading Mind Detox right now and being blown away!
Our childhood traumas lurk beneath it all it seems, especially where our conscious does not remember. It fascinates me to think that my arthritis is a result of some unknown mental conflict.
Can this really be true?
It’s quite possible. I’m reading the book Mind Detox by Sandy Newbigging and my mind is blown every other page. He is also teaching a masterclass on it today! The recoridng will be available.
Thank you Anne for sharing your personal and educational experiences. I have come to believe there is a mind-body connection that works for us and against us. Having experienced stress and burnout myself that has impacted my mental and physical health I am so glad that we are starting to talk about it more openly. I believe our family of origin and how we have been parented can be a factor in how we live our lives, in a healthy or unhealthy way....the scripts we have been fed! Ultimately recognizing the root cause of my anxiety, and developing greater insight into my personality and response to stress triggers has been helping me. I am also trying to set clearer boundaries for myself and others, and this is an ongoing lesson.
Sounds like you are on a healing path, Lucy. I’m so glad!
A continuous journey. I am going to investigate those reading resources you have shared.