Before I get into today’s content, I just want to note that Dr. Sarah decided to open her own Substack account, which you can find here. From time to time she will guest post here, but meanwhile please feel free to sign up for her account to stay in touch with her fictional life and what she has to say on medical topics.
If you’ve known me for any time, you know that I have an enormous interest in the mind-body-spirit connection. Because I’m not a physician, I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of physical ailments, but because of my mind-body work as a Splankna practitioner and my years writing on health topics and being immersed in healthcare, I have studied and see patterns and connections between these three parts of the human being.
Sometimes I see only vague possibilities, other times there are more clear connections. The Body Keeps the Score, authored by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. is one body of research that shows these more clear-cut connections. However, today I’m going to touch on the more fuzzy areas. I can’t “prove” what I’m going to say any more than you can disprove it. Anyway, that’s not my point. I just want to open up possibilities.
I very recently came down with an allergic rash all over my abdominal region. Such rashes started when I moved to Colorado. They have been highly annoying (with the need for high doses of steroids to control and eliminate), confusing (after nearly 15 years we still don’t know the genesis), but no longer surprising.
This time, however, it occurred within hours of some emotional work I was doing and it made me wonder if there was a connection. I did a little internet research (yes, I know, be careful what you read on the internet!) and found more than one source that suggests I’m on to something.
This type of connection has always been an intricate part of medicine but at least in my experience it has been more covert. I don’t think doctors have always understood how to treat mind-body connections. Today, with functional medicine and other approaches to healing, such knowledge and ability is becoming more commonplace.
I remember many years ago if a physician suggested any symptom I had was due to stress, I’d get highly annoyed. “I’m not stressed,” I’d say! But that was more because such a declaration on the doctor’s part usually meant, “It’s all in your head. Now leave me alone.” One does not want to be dismissed when faced with a challenge. (Today, I believe that had they taken more time on their end to explore, and had I been more open to the possibility, I imagine we would have found past trauma that was still affecting me, as Van Der Kolk and others discuss.)
Anyway, back to my current rash. I’ll start with a study by Philip and Debrah Shenefelt, titled Spiritual and religious aspects of skin and skin disorders. This was a retrospective study analyzing content from between the 1960s and late 2013 which emphasized terms such as “spiritual”, “religious”, “skin”, and “skin disease”, as well as names of common skin diseases including “acne”, “eczema”, “dermatitis”, “leprosy”, and “psoriasis”.1
That study noted that “past traumatic experiences involve a memory that links to the skin.” The authors referenced another study that illustrates the point beautifully. That study is the case of a medical student who got hives when he ate chocolate.
Using psychosomatic hypnoanalysis, the researchers in that work determined that his hives started when he was four years old, after he had witnessed a snake eating a rabbit. The subsequent day he had received a chocolate bunny for Easter and immediately after eating it, he developed hives. As time went on, he continued to get hives associated with chocolate. But after some work on this memory, the medical student was able to eat chocolate again without developing hives.
“…healing of the skin continues to have a spiritual aspect and sometimes even today healing is hindered until the spiritual aspect is adequately addressed.”
The authors concluded, “Modern understandings of skin disorders and how to treat them have brought important advances, but healing of the skin continues to have a spiritual aspect and sometimes even today healing is hindered until the spiritual aspect is adequately addressed.”
Annmarie Gianni summarizes that same study by Shenefelt and Shenefelt, on her skincare web site. She lists some of the ways our skin reacts to stress:
“You release hormones that encourage inflammation and decrease blood flow to the skin.
The nerves in the skin become irritated, and may increase inflammation or stimulate allergic reactions.
Skin recruits the immune system to fight, which can cause inflammation.
There might be damage to your skin’s outer layer, resulting in dull, dry skin.
Skin healing, repair, and restoration is delayed.”
That work of course only scratches at the surface (no pun intended). But when coupled with that from spiritual healers2 you can see that there is not just a scientific basis for the psychological connection but also begin to believe that there is a spiritual connection (or both).
In addition, as seen in the case of the medical student, and my own “stress” reactions, one can see that the inciting events for physical reactions aren’t always something obvious, at least at the time. Therefore, when it comes to healing, determining whether something has an emotional, spiritual or physical root (or a combination) requires a bit of detective work.
In my case, regardless of the root I needed to first treat the reaction since a systemic allergic response can be life-threatening. But now that’s done, I’m free to ponder where it came from and perhaps heal it once and for all like the graduate student’s chocolate reaction.
Numerous organizations have provided details to help me get to the roots. For example, according to Elicia Miller, when a rash appears the body could be sending the message that it feels “‘roughed up.’...being rubbed the wrong way. There is a sense of being attacked, a fear of harm, and an abiding insecurity.”
The Spiritual Meanings group offers more context on the spiritual meaning of allergies. The author notes that “allergies can be linked to rejected or repressed aspects of ourselves” which can include “emotions, beliefs, or even parts of our identity that we have pushed away or denied.”3
That site associates different skin reactions with different responses. For example, an itchy red rash “can be a sign that we are holding onto negative emotions or limiting beliefs that are preventing us from living our lives to the fullest.”
The Spiritual Meanings content goes on to say “a rash can also be a sign of resistance to change.”
Spiritual wellness community Insight State provides yet another perspective. Its information on allergies offers that “Allergy is a reaction of the body’s immune system to a substance that has been declared ‘enemy,’” and therefore, “it symbolizes an aspect of the individual that has been rejected or repressed.”4
Many of these insights are meaningful in my life. But the question for me and anyone else who may be facing a similar issue is what do we do with this knowledge? Can we heal as completely as that medical student with the chocolate allergy?
For me it’s a very personal question. I’m tired of my body exploding into a rash in minutes with no warning. Even though it doesn’t happen much any more, still I’d like to eliminate the roots and heal once and for all.
From the various sites noted above, the healing can come in a variety of forms. Essential to the work is to identify the source of the resistance or fear and then to choose the modality best for the problem to be cleared. For example, someone may need to know they were once victim to emotional abandonment, neglect or abuse, or suffered some other big or small trauma (like the medical student with the chocolate). From there the information needs to be processed and healed.
For me, the answer lies in some deep spiritual work including prayer and meditation, as well as some mind-body work (for me that’s Splankna). I wish I could tell you I’ll report back with how that works out. But I fear it will be years until I know for sure if I got the roots since I have only been flaring up about once a year or so. But I’ll try to keep you posted.
Please share anything you have on this topic. I would love to hear about your experiences and how you healed them.
Shenefelt, Philip D, Shenefelt, Debrah A. Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2014; 7: 201–212. Published online 2014 Aug 2. Spiritual and religious aspects of skin and skin disorders.
I come from a Christian perspective, yet I believe that all spiritual healers have at least some aspect of the Truth that comes from the True Healer. When we sift through all these and combine them together, we get a picture of the amazing healing power of that Healer.
https://spiritual-meanings.com/allergies-spiritual-meaning/. Accessed Jan. 16, 2024.
https://www.insightstate.com/health/allergy-spiritual-meaning-causes-symptoms-prevention/. Accessed Jan. 16, 2024.