Understanding my stomach problems: stress, anxiety and escapism

When I was 27 years old I started to have stomach problems - digestion and constipation. It was a very strange and unexpected illness that I could not understand, and after years of looking to others for answers, found that no one else seems to understand the point either. I have tried MANY different kinds of ways of eating, diets, cutting food out, introducing new foods, medicines, and no one thing has offered a clear and consistent solution to my stomach problems.

Through this process I acquired some misleading beliefs about food, where so much of my attention with regards to the starting/creation point of my illness was focused "out there" on the food, almost like a form of fear and blame. "good foods and bad foods". Now, this is not to say that I did not learn a few things about how my body handles certain foods - I did learn some interesting things, like for instance the fact that my body finds it very difficult to digest whole wheat, but there was a critical point that I was leaving out, that I was not considering and factoring in as to what could be the cause of these stomach problems.

Myself.

I am a person who has carried a lot of nervousness, stress and anxiety throughout my life, but because of my want and desire to be successful in this world, I have had a tendency to suppress and hide such points - even from myself - to bury them deep and not really get in touch with what I am feeling/experiencing within myself, which has been a problem as I had cut myself off from really understanding WHY I had all of these inner feelings and experiences.

What I began to notice over time was a direct correlation between stress, anxiety and having stomach problems/diarrhea - thinking so much that I would literally make myself 'sick to my stomach'. Yet over time I have acquired all of these beliefs about food which still fuck with me to this day. Just as one example - being obsessed with foods that are high in fibre as this is such a common belief is that the reason that people have stomach problems and constipation is simply because they do not eat enough fibre. Yet I had proved to myself already through testing this point out that fibre does not an automatic solution to stomach problems at all. Sure, it can assist one with digestion, but it is hardly the 'whole story'.

So I have come to a point in my understanding where I can see directly that anxiety and stress create my experience of having stomach problems, so the next natural question is: how do I create this inner experience as stress and anxiety as a form of fear within myself?

I have been in this process of clearing my mind and stopping my mind for some time, and it takes real work at times! Extensive writing and self reflection, research - sometimes it takes quite a large extent of writing and focus to even get to the point that needs addressing! So it can be a laborious process that requires real dedication and a determination to push through personal limitations/boundaries and do the necessary hard work that it takes to 'get to the bottom of' my own mind.

So what I am beginning to see is how such efforts are supportive in relieving stress and anxiety, which have an effect on my stomach and bowel movements. The deeper I go, the more I work to get out of my mind and back into my physical body, the more the stress is alleviated - as I go deep I go into the bowels of my hell as my deep inner mind and from this I can access the point of my bowels to be able to have bowel movements - movements from the bowels, from the deepest depth and core of myself.

Here I will share some self forgiveness and self corrective statements on these mental points and others which affect my overall level of mental activity and thus my health.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to want and desire to introspect from the starting point of wanting/desiring attention and to make more money, as I see and realize that this is coming from a starting point of fear and fear of loss and thus is not my true self expression and a real self movement

I commit myself to move myself from my deepest core, which means to go straight to the point of my own mind and the challenges that I experience within my inner world that only I am able to understand, sort out and direct

I forgive myself that I've not accepted and allowed myself to be diligent in applying myself and the tools of writing and self investigation and self corrective application, always being straight to the point in my actions rather than only staying within my own mind and thoughts/perceptions

I commit myself to become diligent and direct in my process where I always go straight to the core/straight to the point of myself and what I am dealing with/experiencing within myself so that I may act with priority in understanding

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to focus on what I am from a starting point of defining certain foods as 'giving a better chance that they will be good for my stomach' to the point where I become obsessed with what I allow myself to eat and what not, and that I've accepted and allowed myself to deceive myself from seeing, realizing and understanding how such health issues are self created and simply focus on my inner world as my thoughts, feelings and emotions than focusing so much on my outer world

I forgive myself that not I've accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand that the only 'unhealthy' form of eating is to eat from a starting point of wanting to create good feelings within myself as a form of addiction to escape reality

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to fear enjoying food/flavours because I fear that the food will hurt me as a way of deceiving myself from not looking into the point of who I am within enjoyment - whether or not my enjoyment of the fruits of life is done in gratefulness of self responsibility or self interest of escaping reality in self interest as intoxication of feelings/bodily experiences

I forgive myself that I've not accepted and allowed myself to see how I have utilized music as a form of escaping reality within the reasoning/rationalization that music 'relaxes me' when in fact my relationship with music is quite an intense one wherein I create more inner tension as I escape into my own mind as these recordings of music/songs that I play to myself over and over again to distract myself from my own inner experiences

I forgive myself that I've not accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand how the recordings of music in my mind are no different to thought in that I replay them over and over inside my own head to the point where I can lose touch with my inner experiences as thoughts, feelings and emotions through generating energy as stress/anxiety through the repetitive thoughts as musical recordings in my mind

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to use beautiful imagery as pictures/colours and other images that I have defined as "beautiful within my mind" in the same way that I use music to distract myself from my inner experiences where I flood the mind and busy it with images and sounds that hide the truth of myself from being revealed to myself as my inner thoughts, feelings and emotions

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to define certain things in my outer world like coffee and cigarettes as being the the solution to my stomach problems, assuming that those things will save me from my stomach problems

I forgive myself that I've not accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand how the real point that cut me off from myself and getting in touch with the core of my being is an obsessive preoccupation with entertainment as sounds/pictures that I have defined as 'likeable' because I identify with their symbolism and the elitism that such symbolism represents, projecting myself within some kind of mental vehicle where I can have some sense of being special and leaving my actual self as my physical body behind, the disregard of which creates physical health issues such as stomach problems

I commit myself to stop my tendency to obsess with forms of entertainment as escapism through points like food, music and pictures/movies, and within this point of stopping to engage myself and my process through writing and self investigation as a practical point of living self correction until the point become more natural and no longer requires extensive effort as it does currently

Commit myself to use this journey of self investigation through writing to get to the bottom of the thoughts, feelings and emotions and the memories/experiences that these inner experiences are based on so that I can open up a deeper understanding of WHY I have such a tendency to escape and WHY I experience the anxiety and stress that I do, sufficiently to be able to stop creating it and live a life without fear as stress and anxiety

For more context on my Journey to Life, feel free to investigate the following links and resources.

Understanding Oneness and Equality

The Journey to Life Process of Self Honesty and Self Forgiveness

Self-Support resources on virtually every topic imaginable

Feel free to connect with me on Facebook as well.

Thanks for sharing the time to read!