I have always been a journaler. I have written off and on throughout my entire life. I am currently re-reading my old journals for a writing project that I am working on and in doing so, I found my journals from the few years just prior to my very first SVT episode. As I scoured those tender pages, (with the gift of hindsight knowledge,) I got a real glimpse into exactly what I was going through prior to the onset of my SVT and just how little I was speaking and living my HEART TURTH.
I decided to share my insights here to help others see the obvious connections to how a physical health issue can have its roots in emotional form.
My observations confirmed my theory about SVT; that SVT is a health issue that arises from a combination of factors and root causes. These factors culminate, over time, to create the perfect storm of SVT. I believe those root causes are physical + nutritional, emotional+ mental, energetic + spiritual. While I discuss the power of changing our diet, and doing everything we can from a nutritional perspective to help ourselves, I am only beginning to share the depths that I believe that emotional wounding and thus emotional healing can have on our suffering and capacity to heal our SVT.
I also believe that the way we view our SVT, (our perception of it), is the difference between being a victim of SVT or our initiation into becoming empowered and entering self-responsibility, the true beginning of any self-healing journey. SVT is our crossroads. Both our view of it and response to it, dictates our future experience. We have a choice in how we navigate our SVT. As we learn to both hear + then fully express our heart truth, will enable this process with ease or resistance.
As I re-read my old journals, some of the themes that came up for the 1-3 years prior to my first SVT reflect the amount of resistance I was exuding in following my heart (or even really connecting with it for that matter.) I was IGNORING important indicators and signs that are so easy to see in hindsight! As Oprah says, the Universe whispers and when we ignore it, it gets louder and louder. For me, I believe that my SVT was a “louder” way of my heart getting my attention.That’s the thing about SVT…we simply can not ignore it!
Here are some of the things I can clearly see in hindsight in re-reading my old journals, that preluded the onset on my SVT, and display the disconnection to my heart truth and ability to speak and express it in my life.
- DEPLETION– I was utterly exhausted. I was endlessly working excessive long hours, and staying up late every night, sometimes working til 3-4am. And of course all for a boss that didn’t “appreciate me” anyway. I was constantly PUSHING myself PAST my limits and depleting my source energy. I was not protecting myself and setting boundaries.
- Not surprisingly…I had major boundary issues– I was unfulfilled at my job as a Fashion Designer in NYC. I didn’t like working for an over re-active, unappreciative, verbally abusive boss and yet I accepted my stressful job and the way I was treated as “normal”. I could never stand up for myself, ask for the raise I deserved, or the assistant I needed, or the time off I desperately desired. I never left work on time to purse my personal life, or get massages, or take a yoga class etc. I “blamed” my boss, and was “passive aggressive” about it, rather than standing up for myself, and setting hours that felt stable for me. I ENDURED it ( a major way we DEPLETE ourselves over time). I used to be proud of my high endurance for pain level that I brought to every scenario. Now I see it for what it is, a childhood survival tactic. I had no choice but to endure long, painful, uncomfortable situations so I brought this pattern straight into adulthood! I did not have the skills I needed to be able to set those boundaries with my boss, (nor to uphold them) nor was I able to actively “leave” what felt many times like a volatile, abusive environment. (And of course, this mirrored an aspect of my home life that was a lifelong pattern so its no wonder I re-creaeted it in my work life…We will keep re-creating and repeating patterns until we break through them!)
- Self-Neglect and Ignoring my needs-I desperately craved time off, more time to myself in general, doing restorative practices that I NEVER made time for, and nourishing foods that I had “no time” to cook. There was a general lack of connection to my own needs and a constant ignoring of them. I wasn’t making time or space to nurture or nourish myself.
- I had MIGRAINES-My body was crying out for help for years prior to SVT with other symptoms such as migraines, constipation, hemorrhoids, rashes, anxiety and panic attacks. I never got to the ROOT of those issues, and just lived my life sort of “used to them” and suffered through it, (which is why they progressed and culminated into something that actually would finally demand my attention like SVT). Migraines, panic attacks and SVT also all have similar physical + nutritional root causes; such as undiagnosed food allergies and sensitivities, leaky gut syndrome and over-burdened lymphatic systems. (Check out my e-guide called The SVT Prevention Diet HERE)
- Lack of Spiritual Connection-I did not have spiritual practices and consistent routines that could have supported my efforts to HEAR my INTUITION more clearly or access the advice and direction that I so deeply longed for.
- Ignoring my own INTUITION- Because I didn’t have the solid connection to my intuition that I craved, when I did have internal guidance, I didn’t respond to it. I ignored it when it did speak to me.
- SEEKING LOVE and FULFILLMENT outside myself- Ughh. This one is a little hard to admit but it was a little cringy to re-read just how much I wrote/dreamt about romantic love. To say that I was searching for love or my soulmate, or dream/fantasy scenarios would be an understatement. Further, I was way too crushed when someone didn’t love me back. It was just so painfully evident to me now in hindsight, that what I was desperately searching for then, could only be found by looking within. Until you create and develop a GOOD relationship with yourself, we are never going to find this from someone else. So obvious I know, but I wasn’t practicing what I KNEW. I was in such desperate need of self-LOVE and I was the definition of looking for love in all the wrong places. I now know that self-love is cultivated by engaging in consistent self-care and self-healing practices and especially through learning how to hold space and self-compassion for ourselves, but this was a long process for me to learn and Im so grateful I know this now. If I could back in time and give myself any bit of advice, it would be to spend time on caring about what I wanted, what I liked, and forging a relationship with myself.. to get to know myself, instead of constantly wondering and worrying about finding romantic love and worrying about if they “Loved me” or trying to twist myself into someone that “they would love”. Choosing ME over any other relationship first was a major message that I missed just prior to the onset of my SVT. So once again, a real detachment from my own heart;(
- Self-hatred-This one is a combination of constantly talking to myself harshly or critically, and re-cycling negative emotions over and over again without knowing how to hold space for myself to RELEASE emotions thru self-compassion. OMG. so sad how long I did this to myself!
- Unhealed Childhood WOUNDING-My sacred wounds were ever present, just under the surface, dictating every scenario I attracted. I wish I explored this more or had the guidance on how to do so. Inner child healing work is such a massive part of healing our heart wounds and one of my FAVORITE types of healing work to guide people through today. I needed this then, and now, and it’s an ongoing process. I will continue to speak on this massive topic in future posts.
- Unhealthy relationship with Food-Eating poorly- and constantly, constantly craving SUGARY, EASY, CARB DENSE foods plagued me along with overeating, binge eating, binging and purging, and soothing my emotions with food were overall major themes in my life.
In summary, I can identify in hindsight, the obvious ways that the disconnection from my heart truth was playing out in the experiences that I was attracting in my life. AND, I can also see how each of those things was a pre-cursor in some way to the manifestation of SVT.
Instead of taking time pursue my spirituality and ground myself into healing practices that I was fully committed to, I immersed myself in coping strategies. I was a work-alholic, I was a binge eater. I was obsessed with love and other things outside of own internal landscape. My career and relationships were built on trying to be things that I wasn’t. I was always trying to prove myself, striving instead of being. And Living a life of “TRYING” is exhausting and depleting. (depletion is the foundation for SVT). All of my experiences were reflections of how I felt about myself and sadly back then I didn’t have the understanding yet of how The Law of Attraction was playing out in my life. I was driven by trying, proving, exerting, instead of being, allowing, and connecting. (By the way those are out of balance masculine energy qualities. There was no understanding of the divine feminine energy, that is the healing yin energy, we so desperately need for balance.) In Chinese medicine, not surprisingly, SVT is called Heart YIN deficiency. Overall, I had no idea what it meant to HOLD SPACE for MYSELF or how I was constantly making decisions from a place of fear and disconnect, instead of from a place of peace, flow, and heart connection.
Proving yourself worthy, working overtime, allowing abuse, PUSHING yourself, exhaustion and disconnection from your heart, are ALL fuel for SVT.
It’s NO WONDER I developed a Heart Chakra ISSUE.
My heart, my symptoms and my experiences were all REFLECTING back to me how I was feeling INSIDE, but I simply didn’t have the awareness or ability for these issues to safely come up for healing.
Inevitably in my case, my BODY had to physically do something more drastic to get my attention and demand that I stop ignoring, pushing, and depleting myself! There is only so much stored and unresolved TRAUMA that your nervous system can take!
My main message today is that there is that you too can gain the awareness of hindsight knowledge and look back on your life to try to find patterns or experiences that may have led up to your physical manifestations.
If you kept a journal, re-read them. I cannot stress how important this is to do, in fact, I mentioned in the beginning of this blog post that I was re-reading my journals for a project that I am working on and it has to do with the VALUE of re-reading old journals!!! The point is, take some time to reflect. We go through life so quickly, learning so many lessons, its so helpful for your self-growth to take some time to PROCESS all the lessons, to learn from our mistakes and to see where we are NOT learning what we may need to learn…(Hint: study the patterns that are on repeat;)
Finally, remember that there is always so much that we can do to help change the direction of our life and health. Reflecting on your experiences and analyzing why we are attracting what we are attracting, is an essential part of self-healing.This is not an exercise to criticize yourself, but just the opposite…to realize how much love, guidance and support you needed then…and spoiler alert..still do now. So as you develop this self-love skill, you can not only give it to your younger self and your inner child, BUT you can also start treating your CURRENT self different RIGHT now! Thats right…its ALL a lesson on being kinder to yourself, more loving, more present, and holding yourself with loving self-compassion!!!
In conclusion, below are some of the things that I think could have helped me when I was younger to move through the life lessons a little faster without so much suffering…and who knows, maybe even not set myself up for SVT…
ESSENTIALS TO FINDING OUR HEART TRUTH…
- JOURNALing- JOURNALING is free and simple tool that can help us connect to our heart truth. While I always was a fan of journaling, I believe that having a daily practice is when you can make strides in deepening your relationship with your intuition, trusting yourself, and seeing patterns emerge in your writing. Its helpful to try some of the many styles of journaling such as release writing, intuitive Q + A, letter writing, affirmation journaling, vision journaling etc. I recently wrote a new FREE e-guide called, “Journaling with your Intuition” to help people explore their relationship with their intuition. You can download my free e-guide HERE.
- Get to know Yourself! – Not only do I suggest taking time to actually get to know yourself, but then building self-esteem so that as we discover things about ourselves, we can confidently portray them to the world, is key. I was deficient in all 3 of these areas and they go hand in hand. Its NEVER too late to get to know yourself, to re-prioritize things in your life or to make new declarations about who you are, what you like, what you want to pursue etc. When was the last time you asked yourself what you like? What brings you joy? What are your favorite pass-times? What do you need? What are you ready to let go of? What do you want more of?
- Make a Default Energetic Pattern List. Im obsessed with this method of defining and then “Disentangling from your Default Energetic Patterns.” Read more about what this is and how to do it on my other website HERE
- Consider Vision Journaling, Art Journaling and making Vision Boards. I am a big fan of affirmations and vision boarding or vision journaling to help explore and create a vision for the things you want to expand in your life. I cannot say enough about how creative and healing it is to allow yourself the time and space to bring to life the VISION that you hold for yourself through imagery and intention. Vision Journaling allows you to explore your dreams through imagery that ignites your intuition. Then, using those images to create an actual art piece/ (vision Board or vision journal) is a way to put those dreams into an existence structure. A place for them to take their first step toward manifestation. The LAW of ATTRACTION is such a supportive, high vibrational piece to our healing puzzle, and vision is the tool to help you ignite the process. I am so in love with journaling and vision journaling that I have begun to create one of a kind, art journaling, + vision journaling
kits to help people with this process. I am working on new kits all the time that come with journals, crafting paper, fabrics, trims, affirmations and everything you need to get creative! Browse them HERE
I hope that you enjoy some of these suggestions! Thank you for being here! More of my resources below;)
All the best,
Laura
xo
More Heal SVT Naturally RESOURCES for You:
- Get my TOP TEN TIPS to HEAL SVT NATURALLY a free 14 page e-guide when you sign up for my email list for FREE HERE
- The SVT Prevention Diet e-guide, GET IT HERE
- Heal SVT Naturally INSTAGRAM page HERE
- Join The Heal SVT Naturally Private Facebook Group HERE
- To book a private session with me HERE
- Journaling TOOLS: SVT Journaling Page HERE
- Learn more about The Heal SVT Naturally Self Empowerment E-guide series HERE
- Like and follow my personal Heal SVT Naturally FB Page HERE
- Please comment below with any questions. I LOVE to hear from you and try to answer as many q’s as possible!
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