What If the Meaning of Life Is in the Body?

What If the Meaning of Life Is in the Body?

By Julie Peters

Posted on January 6, 2025

How would your day-to-day life change if you knew your sole purpose in this life was to be in your body well?

The meaning of life is a big concept, of course, and no one has ever been able to satisfactorily answer what, exactly, it is. And yet many of us still wonder what it is we’re doing here, what our purpose is, and what we must accomplish during the short time we have on Earth.

Some believe we should pray, connect with God, and join with divinity. Others believe we must follow the rules of a religion to have a good life. Some of us believe there is no meaning; we’re just here following our animal instincts. From other perspectives, our higher self has some plan for us—but we don’t ever get to find out what the plan is.

What if the meaning of life was a little simpler than all that? What if the meaning of life is being in a body well?

Discovering Your “Spark” Through Lived Experience

The Pixar movie Soul addresses this very question through an exploration of death, the afterlife, and the before-life, when we are souls getting ready to come down to Earth and begin our lives. In the movie, Joe Gardner is a musician who finds himself suddenly dead on the very day he’s supposed to play jazz with his hero. He connects with a soul named 22 in the before-life who has no interest at all in becoming alive, and the two scheme to get Joe back into his body and allow 22 to avoid having to go through the bother of living a life.

The two work to help 22 find her “spark,” which is the inspiration with which she will live her life on Earth (so that she can give it to Joe). The two spend a lot of time trying to figure out what a “spark” actually is. Joe is sure his is jazz music, while 22 has never felt interested in any of the mundane tasks of human life. Through a series of hijinks, the two end up on Earth, with 22 inhabiting Joe’s body and Joe stuck for a little while in the body of a cat. While in Joe’s body, 22 experiences things she couldn’t in the before-life that introduce her to concepts like music, art, performance, and so on. She gets to eat pizza. She walks and feels the breeze from a subway vent. She collects a maple seed pirouetting from a tree. She listens to music, feeling the rhythm with a body she’d never had before. And, sure enough, she finds her spark.

The movie carefully avoids defining the meaning of life, but there is a moment in the movie when the beings of the before-life explain that our purpose is not about having a particular “thing” to accomplish. It’s more about the desire to experience life on Earth, in a body.

The Meaning of Life as Experiencing Your Body

Some people are so sure they know the purpose of life that they devote their entire existence to worship through abstinence. They don’t drink, barely eat, and never have sex. Most of their time is spent in deep contemplation and meditation. What if one of these people made it to the afterlife expecting a great reward, only to discover they’d gotten it completely wrong and needed to go back and try again? What if the meaning of life is about experiencing rather than denying your body?

There are plenty of theories about what happens before and after life, but the one thing we know for sure is that we have some limited amount of time to exist in a body. Even if our consciousness continues in some heaven-like place, it’s without a body that can feel pleasure or suffering. If we are reborn into endless new lives, we only get this body, this life, once.

Emotions are physical, after all. Big emotions like sadness, joy, and rage are fundamentally physical. We may have thoughts about them, but they are called feelings because we feel them. Whatever we can think or judge or imagine about our before-lives and afterlives, we likely can’t feel them.

There is a funny moment in Soul when Joe and 22 are experimenting with the different theoretical experiences that could help 22 find her spark. They come across a piece of theoretical pizza. They try to eat it, but they can’t smell or taste it, and when they put it in their mouths, the piece of pizza pops, fully formed, right back out of their behinds. They can experience almost any theoretical reality in the before-life, but they can’t smell, taste, or touch anything. These are the gifts we can only have during the short time when we exist within a body.

So, what if our work here is not so much about changing the world or leaving some type of mark, but simply experiencing the world? Having empathy, connection, loss, grief, joy, and pain? How would your day-to-day life change if you knew your sole purpose in this life was to be in your body well?

Julie Peters

• https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/meaning-of-life-the-body

The Spiritual Meaning of Eye Issues

The Spiritual Meaning of Eye Issues

By Julie Peters

Posted on February 13, 2025

When issues arise with the eyes and our vision, we may want to consider how we are “seeing” things and ourselves.

Vision changes are common enough, especially as we age or during major hormonal changes, like with pregnancy. We can also get styes, dry eyes, cysts, and all kinds of other issues in and around our eyes. Of course, it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor, ophthalmologist, or other healthcare practitioner to address any eye issues directly, but let’s also think about the spiritual meaning of issues surrounding the eyes.

Clear Seeing

The eyes are the organs through which we see and perceive the world. When issues come up with the eyes, we may want to consider how we are “seeing” things.

• Is something happening in your life or in the world that has confused the sense you make of the world around you, the way you “see” things?

• Has your perception changed or been changing about yourself, the people around you, or the world?

• Is there something you are not seeing that you want to see?

• Is there something you’ve seen that you wish you hadn’t?

• What do you spend most of your time looking at?

• What is your relationship like with whatever it is you spend most of your time looking at?

The Sixth Chakra

In the Hindu chakra system, the eyes are connected to the sixth chakra, ajna, which is located between and just above the eyes, in the location of the metaphorical third eye. This is the energy center related to seeing, both inwardly and outwardly. It represents our intuition—our ability to know and understand the world literally as well as intuitively. One of the best ways to support the sixth chakra is to sit in meditation, allowing your mind to quiet enough that you can see, hear, and feel inwardly.

• Do you feel connected to your intuition, your inner knowing that comes from a non-rational place?

• Have you been ignoring your intuition about something?

• Does your intuition feel confused by fear, trauma, or unhelpful inner narratives?

• Did something happen that completely confused your intuition?

• Do you ever get quiet enough to be able to listen to your intuition, or are you too busy to pay attention?

Overvaluing Logic

Seeing is related to a very masculine, rational, logical way of knowing. We trust what we see with our own eyes, sometimes to the detriment of other forms of knowing. Knowing with touch, smell, taste, and other subtler forms of perception are often more related to the feminine—the unseen powers of the universe. When we over-focus on seeing at the cost of knowing, we may be privileging logic over intuition and, by extension, masculine energy over feminine energy.

• What happens when you close your eyes?

• How connected are you to what you are feeling—both to emotion and your other senses?

• If you were to close your eyes to the world for a little while, what might you feel, sense, or know differently?

• Do you tend to overthink problems without pausing to feel into them?

• Do you move ahead with something because it “makes sense” even if it doesn’t feel right to you?

• Do you honor your other forms of knowing beyond thinking, logic, and analysis?

• Do you have internalized gender bias, especially around things like rationality, logic, and intuition?

Seeing Out Versus Seeing In

We see out of the eyes, but the eyes are also a prominent part of our faces, which is what others see. Especially if there is a stye, cyst, lump, or some other visual change to your eye, you may want to think about how you are perceived as well as how you are perceiving.

• How do you feel about yourself at this moment?

• Do you feel that you are worthy of love, care, and attention, just as you are?

• Do you fear that there is something about your inner or outer self that makes you less worthy of attention?

• Do you feel your outer appearance matches who you are and how you feel on the inside?

• Is there something you would like to communicate to the outside world about yourself? Something you feel others don’t see or understand about you?

The Eyes as a Method of Connection

One of the simplest, quickest ways we make connections with other people is through eye contact. So much information can be expressed through the micro-expressions of the eyes. When we look into each other’s eyes and take the time to listen and hear, we can feel “seen” and connected with each other in important ways.

• Do you feel seen, understood, and connected with?

• Is there someone you’d like to feel more connected with?

• Are you lonely?

• Do you look others in the eye, willing and able to see their truth as you reveal your own? Or do you shy away from seeing and being seen completely?

• Does intimacy instigate fear or anxiety?

The Need for Tears

Especially if your eyes are dry or if you have blockages like styes or cysts, your eyes might have a buildup of tears.

• Is there something you haven’t been grieving completely?

• Is there an unresolved sadness in your life, even if it’s from a long time ago?

• Is there something happening in your life that is hard to accept or understand?

• Have you been crying enough? Or too much?

Notice how these questions resonate for you and use them to ask your body what wisdom it is holding through the symptoms it is showing. Remember that your body is always on your side, always trying to bring you back to balance (even if it doesn’t feel that way!). Consider helping your body rebalance by attending to spiritual and emotional concerns. Along with any medical advice you might need to follow, your eyes might just start to feel better.

Julie Peters

• https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/spiritual-meaning-eye-issues

How Helpful Is Plant Medicine for Pain and Mental Health?

How Helpful Is Plant Medicine for Pain and Mental Health?

By Julie Peters

Posted on November 18, 2024

Many people report that plant medicines have helped ease their pain, anxiety, and depression. But it’s important not to see sacred plant medicines as “magic pills.” Explore more about the history and potential of plant medicines.

Plant medicines have been used for generations in many cultures to heal mental and physical health issues. When talk therapy was not an option (and before it existed), spirituality often met that need, helping people put their problems into a larger context to find hope and faith. Plant medicines have often assisted with that journey.

An Introduction to Plant Medicine

Medicines like ayahuasca and psilocybin mushrooms are known for their ability to bring on hallucinations. When these kinds of plant medicines are given in a ritual context, which usually includes guidance, safe boundaries, and trained sober guides, those hallucinations can spark useful insights and open the mind to seeing things in a different way.

Many people report that these plant medicine experiences help them by easing their pain, resolving health issues, calming anxiety, and dissipating depression, among other self-reported benefits.

While the benefits of plant medicines may be eye-catching, it’s important to note that both ayahuasca and psilocybin mushrooms are federally illegal in the US. (Ayahuasca is only legally utilized by a handful of “ayahuasca churches,” and psilocybin mushrooms are either legal or decriminalized in only Colorado, Oregon, and a handful of cities in other states.) Where these medicines are legal, it is important to do one’s research on the plant medicine retreats or treatments being offered and to consult with a trusted healthcare practitioner as you do your research.

A Therapist’s Perspective on Plant Medicine

In my experience as a counseling therapist who incorporates work with both the body and the imagination into her practice, it is incredibly helpful to be able to address mental health concerns in non-mental ways. The mind is very useful, but it can also get stuck in trauma-based patterns. To resolve trauma, I find we need to be able to talk to the body, the nervous system, and sometimes the spirit in order to really make movement toward change. One way to do this is through working with images and symbols, which plant medicines can help to bring to the surface.

I don’t personally use plant medicines in my practice—any therapist who does should be specifically trained to do so in a legal context. But I’ve also found that the kinds of insights and shifts that are experienced during plant medicine ceremonies can also be accessed through the imagination alone when we are properly guided. When we stop trying so hard to analyze and judge what’s happening to us and allow the body to share its wisdom, we can have major insights without needing to partake in plant medicine.

At the same time, it’s not easy for everyone to access their inner world. Sometimes we have defense mechanisms in place within us that help us feel safe. Many of us feel better in the realm of thought than the wild world of the spirit or the body. Plant medicines could lower inhibitions enough for someone to be able to access this wisdom without having to work so hard or struggle with old defensive patterns.

There’s also nothing wrong with needing a little help to create change in the ways we want to. Human beings don’t live in a vacuum, and we cannot expect someone to get better through willpower alone. Medication, food, lifestyle changes, therapy, and plant medicines are all examples of interventions that have the capacity to help us get better and live happier lives when utilized legally and with a skillful practitioner.

The Possibilities of Microdosing

Psychedelics could also be helpful in small doses that don’t induce hallucinations. Some people have been experimenting with microdosing psychedelic substances to see if the effects are helpful for mental health. This is theoretically a gentler, subtler way of working with plant medicines to assist with improving mental health.

Microdosing means taking a very small amount of a psychedelic, usually psilocybin or LSD (though LSD is a synthetic compound and not a plant medicine), on a semi-regular basis. This sub-hallucinogenic or sub-perceptual dose is intended to be used alongside a regular routine of life and work with the intention of subtly improving mood, empathy, and pain perception.

People who try microdosing are reporting lots of benefits, including improved focus, more regular menstrual cycles, more creativity, and more empathy. Some people also report more sensitivity and heightened emotions, which can be either a positive or negative effect depending on the person.

Side effects are generally minimal, especially with psilocybin. LSD can sometimes bring on anxiety, and too high a dose of psilocybin could cause an unwanted hallucination. Both drugs could also theoretically affect heart rate. The biggest risks at this point are the legal restrictions around such medicines, though they are being increasingly decriminalized and/or approved for medical use, especially as studies find benefits with relatively low risks.

Plant Medicines as Teachers

Studies on microdosing have shown plenty of self-reported benefits. Other studies show that microdosing has no greater effect than a placebo. Neuroimaging studies have, however, seen that these psychedelic medicines increase brain activity, serotonin levels, and neuroplasticity.

Plant medicines are somewhat difficult to study well. Changes in mood are subtle and subjective, and many studies rely on surveys and self-reports, which are notoriously difficult to measure objectively. But the cultures that have used these medicines for generations don’t think of them as magic pills to be used to cure unhappiness.

These plant medicines are teachers. They can shift our mental state, give us insights, and help us to feel our feelings—not just the positive ones, but the negative ones as well. Pharmaceutical medicines for mental health are commonly used to lift mood or numb negative experiences, while plant teachers are there to help us understand ourselves and our symptoms better. If we treat them like magic pills that make all our problems go away, we are really missing the point.

Julie Peters

• https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/how-helpful-is-plant-medicine

Is Abstinence the Only Cure for Addiction?

Is Abstinence the Only Cure for Addiction?

By Julie Peters

Posted on October 15, 2024

Abstinence has long been recommended as the ultimate treatment for addiction. But what if the research supports a different approach to recovery?

In the classical protocols for addiction, abstinence is king. Twelve-step programs and other strategies help people quit a certain substance or behavior and stay off it forever. While this strategy absolutely works for some people, it doesn’t work for everyone. According to the American Addiction Centers, only about five to 12 percent of people who go through a 12-step program actually succeed in recovering from their addiction. So what if there’s another way to work with addiction? What if abstinence isn’t the only option?

The Link Between Addiction and Trauma

As addiction and trauma research has increased and improved in recent decades, it’s become clear that addiction and trauma are almost always linked. Addiction isn’t the problem, essentially; it’s a coping mechanism. Regardless of one’s behavior or the substance they are using, the addiction is a misplaced way for the person to calm themselves, quiet extreme emotions, and, in many cases, function despite deep emotional pain. For some people, their addiction is truly standing between them and death.

In many traditional forms of therapy, a therapist will not see a client if they are actively using. To paraphrase Adi Jaffe, who wrote the book The Abstinence Myth, that’s a bit like telling someone with a broken leg they can get help down the hall, but they have to walk all the way there without their crutches. Obviously, some substances will interfere with cognition, making it harder for someone to benefit from therapy. But therapy doesn’t necessarily always have to be about cognition—it can also be about connection, care, listening, and a safe place to start working out what’s going on with the pain that sits beneath the addiction.

Concerns with Non-Substance Addictions

There are also a few logical quandaries that arise when practicing the belief that abstinence is the only option for addiction recovery. If one is addicted to food, sex, or work, quitting those things completely isn’t really an option. Recovery is going to have to include working on the relationship with those things in order to heal. It’s also easy enough for people experiencing addiction to switch from one addiction to another; to give up a certain substance but then find another way to dull their emotional pain.

There are also many addictions that are seen as socially acceptable. Caffeine is an addictive substance, and addiction to work can lead to the breakdown of one’s health and relationships. In a society that is hyperfocused on productivity, there is very little stigma surrounding addictions to things that make us more productive, even when those things greatly impact our well-being.

Is It an Addiction?

Further complicating the issue, in recent years, plant medicines like cannabis and psilocybin have been increasingly studied and legalized. If someone is regularly using a substance that was formerly illegal but is now legal for medicinal use, does that qualify as an addiction?

One simple way to know whether you are addicted to something or not is this: Pleasure (or the experience of taking good medicine) brings us more deeply into our bodies and into our feelings, helping us feel more like our authentic selves. It can increase our empathy as well as our ability to communicate, express feelings, and care for ourselves. Addiction is simply the relief of no longer having to feel your feelings.

From this perspective, it’s really not about the substance but rather about an addictive energy. Drinking wine for the sensual experience, to enhance the taste of food, or as an act to share with another person is an expression of pleasure and connection to your body. Drinking wine to disconnect and dull your feelings, especially to the point of consistently harming your body with hangovers and impairment, is more like an addiction.

Addiction Versus Connection

One of the strongest elements of 12-step programs is the group aspect. People are encouraged to come together to talk about their feelings, problems, and relationships with the substance or addiction they are struggling with. As many recovery programs and specialists remind us, the opposite of addiction is connection, not abstinence.

We know that addictions tend to seem hereditary. But if we think of addiction from a wider perspective, we can also see that what might be passed down are survival and coping mechanisms, not necessarily an addiction itself. In his book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, Gabor Maté, M.D., explains what he learned from his decades as a doctor in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, known for its disproportionately high rates of drug use. Maté could see addictive behaviors being passed down through families, especially where there was no infrastructure to support people through safe housing, healthy food, and recovery programs.

A New Way to Heal Addiction

So what if addiction could be healed by healing the trauma that sits behind it? What if addictive energy is a powerful survival mechanism, not something to be fought but to be understood and supported so that it can rest?

There are many strategies to help people with trauma and addiction. Medication and even some plant medicines (utilized legally with a skilled and qualified practitioner) could help someone heal their addictive energy. Private therapy, especially when it addresses trauma and the body, can be transformative. Groups, whether in a 12-step program or elsewhere, can help establish connection, which supports the fight against addiction. Specific therapeutic techniques like EMDR and neurofeedback can also help some people.

Of course, many of these resources require money. Specialized therapies that might be helpful in particular cases might not be available in someone’s area. Even when free and accessible mental health programs are available in places like hospitals, they may be more re-traumatizing than helpful due to a lack of resources for both patients and the potentially underpaid and overworked staff.

But perhaps the approach to understanding ourselves and our addictions better is simple. Connecting with friends and speaking the truth can be powerful. Twelve-step programs have a lot of benefits and are free and found in all major cities. Mindfulness meditation can help teach us to get curious about our addiction and how it works and what it might be protecting us from.

However we choose to approach addiction, maybe we don’t have to think of abstinence as the only choice and the only way. Maybe this could be the start of a kinder, gentler recovery process. This strategy could certainly lead to abstinence, and that may indeed be the best thing for you. But if we didn’t have to start there, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to get there.

Julie Peters

• https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/abstinence-for-addiction

Is It My Intuition or Fear?

Is It My Intuition or Fear?

By Julie Peters

Posted on October 17, 2024

Intuition and fear often feel similar but have very different effects on our decision-making processes. Explore a therapeutic perspective on differentiating between the two.

We all know that having a connection to our intuition is a good thing. It can help us differentiate a good friend from someone who is trying to take advantage of us. It can help us move toward what we want even when other people might disagree with our choices. It can help us know whether we should go up or down, right or left. Or can it?

Intuition is, essentially, our sixth sense. It’s a feeling of knowing beneath our cognitive understanding. It’s knowing without being able to explain how we know. But what if our intuition is broken? What if what we’ve been feeling all along is actually something else, like fear?

Where Does Intuition Come From?

Intuition is important, but it’s complex. On a literal level, intuition is a sense, judgment, feeling, or emotion that arises before we have time to cognitively decide how we feel. It doesn’t come from our prefrontal cortex, the rational, thinking aspect of our brains—it comes from more primitive places: older parts of the brain, like the amygdala, and our nervous system, which is more sensitive in our gut than in our mind. Intuitive information tends to come through the body, not the thinking mind.

What we must keep in mind is that most of this information is learned. Our intuition is essentially a collection of information that we’ve gathered throughout our lives that our bodies have stored in places that don’t need thinking to activate. If we’ve been traumatized by men, for example, our “intuitive” reaction to a new man might be to push him away—even if he’s a lovely person.

There may be something more to intuition, however. Many people believe we can access something bigger than ourselves when we pay attention. We could call this Spirit, the collective unconscious, guidance from angels or spirit guides, or advice from a higher self. This type of intuition is a little different, and it works differently from the aforementioned quick reactions based on past experiences.

A Gut Feeling Versus Spiritual Intuition

In my experience, this spiritual intuition is slower and more long acting. It shows up when we are paying attention without fear or judgment; when we are “tuned in” to ourselves or another person. One way to know if this type of intuition is true spiritual guidance or just fear is if it sticks around no matter your mood, over days, weeks, or even months. This type of guidance helps you grow and learn and not just keep you safe.

Another way of defining intuition is through understanding our inner emotional compass. We were born with the capacity to feel a number of core emotions that are intended to guide us specifically in our relationships. Fear is a core emotion that tells us something is unsafe. This emotion gets a pretty bad rap, and yes, it can hold us back when we’re confusing unsafe with uncomfortable. But when things are genuinely unsafe, we should listen to our fear and get away.

Similarly, anger is a much-maligned emotion that’s supposed to help us understand our needs and boundaries and ensure we are protected. When we constantly suppress our anger, we can’t discern what our needs and boundaries even are, let alone stand up for them.

With both fear and anger (and most of the other core emotions), it’s a good idea to measure these emotions against our intelligence and the general context of what we’re experiencing. Ideally, we don’t need to react the moment we feel these emotions, but rather slow down and feel into them so we can understand the message they are trying to give us, cleared of any emotional or contextual debris (like, for example, we are tired, hungry, or dysregulated).

Intuition and the Attachment Styles

Intuition may be most challenging when it comes to love. That’s because our love relationships tend to trigger our oldest relational wounds, and it’s very easy for fear to arise and tell us we’d better not take the risk (whether that’s to stay, leave, approach someone, etc.). We learn love through the dynamics we grew up with, so if love was associated with anxiety and abandonment, for example, our “intuition” may look for those feelings in love relationships and avoid someone who invokes feelings of safety and stability.

Most of us form an attachment style in childhood that can show up in our romantic relationships looking like intuition. If we grew up with secure, consistent love, we will tend to assume love is available and possible. We’ll be less likely to become dysregulated with our partners, and it might be easier to move into a safe, connected state when we can attend to our intuition.

If we grew up with inconsistency around love in some way (including the loss of a parent or experiences of trauma), we will tend to experience anxious attachment, which means we’re much less likely to trust in our lovers. Our intuition can be overridden by a need for reassurance and closeness—even when we don’t particularly like the person we’re with.

If our needs were consistently unmet in childhood, we tend to experience avoidant attachment, which means we feel safer alone, used to meeting our own needs without the complication of another. Our intuitive responses to love will tend to lean towards breakups, distance, and separateness because those experiences feel safer. We don’t decide these reactions cognitively; they are wired in as strategies to deal with stressful childhood experiences that influence us well into adulthood.

How to Discern Between Intuition and Fear

So how do we know if it’s intuition or fear? Well, there’s truly no simple answer to this question, as intuition and fear both come with so many layers based on what we’ve been through and how tapped in we are to Spirit and ourselves. As many of us have learned, even when we’re feeling tapped in and are listening to ourselves closely, our intuition can still turn out to be wrong.

It’s important we don’t think of this “sixth sense” as infallible, like being able to look into a crystal ball and tell the future. Especially when it comes to love, it takes time to get to know people and figure out if someone is a good choice for us in the long term. Some of the work around intuition might be about trusting ourselves to take risks and make mistakes and know we’ll be okay if things don’t go the way we hoped.

That being said, here are a few hints to be able to tell the difference between unreasonable fear and healthy intuition:

• Intuition comes through when you feel calm and safe, not when you are already dysregulated.

• If you’re afraid, ask yourself if you are actually in danger or if something simply feels uncomfortable, challenging, or unfamiliar.

• Pay attention to the intuitive feeling when it arises—does it pass when you eat well or get enough sleep or when an argument is resolved? Or does it stick around through various moods and cycles?

• Try to set aside overthinking and rationalization and notice what is happening in your body.
  Allow yourself to settle into one side of a decision. What do you feel in your body? If there is tension, nausea, and a sense of being “not right,” that is likely an intuitive “no.” Do the opposite, and look for a sense of settling, exhaling, calmness, and “rightness,” even if there might also be emotions like sadness and fear. That is closer to an intuitive “yes” from your body.

• Compare your intuitive feeling against your past experiences and the opinions of trusted friends and loved ones. Maybe even ask the opinion of various “parts” of yourself.

• Keep in mind that intuition is just one aspect of decision making, and it’s a good idea to use all your parts, your bodily reactions, your emotions, and your mind when deciding what to do.

Julie Peters

• https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/intuition-or-fear

The Spiritual Meaning of Heartburn, Acid Reflux, and GERD

The Spiritual Meaning of Heartburn, Acid Reflux, and GERD

By Julie Peters

Posted on August 16, 2025

Heartburn, acid reflux, and GERD can all signal issues with your emotions and energy.

Heartburn is a very common experience that most of us will go through at one point or another. Stress and certain physical conditions such as pregnancy, asthma, and obesity can increase the likelihood of heartburn. Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a chronic form of acid reflux that can lead to other troublesome issues, such as esophageal irritation. As always, talk to your doctor if you’re experiencing these conditions, especially if your symptoms are more than just a passing discomfort. In the meantime, let’s consider the spiritual and emotional meanings of heartburn, acid reflux, and GERD.

A Burning Heart

The English language can be surprisingly evocative of spiritual and emotional meanings, even in its most common clichés. The phrase society has agreed upon to describe the experience of acid rising up into the esophagus when it’s not supposed to is heartburn.

Consider the following questions:

• What is happening in your heart right now?

• Is there presently a burning, a yearning, or a pain in your emotional world?

• If your heart is “on fire” in some way, what choices do you have? Can you go after what you want, correct what doesn’t feel right, or otherwise listen to the desires and feelings of your heart?

• Is there something you must suppress, avoid, or let go of, any of which could break your heart?

Rising Energy

Acid reflux is a condition with an upward flow: Food is supposed to go down your esophagus and stay in your stomach, sealed by a sphincter that separates the stomach from the esophagus. With acid reflux and especially GERD, this sphincter does not effectively prevent the stomach acid from rising into the esophagus. Metaphorically, you are not completely “swallowing” whatever is going on.

Consider the following questions:

• Is there something happening that you are trying to suppress, avoid, or push down?

• Have you received some information that’s very difficult for you to “swallow?”

• Is there something you would like to eject, reject, purge, or release from your body?

• What would happen if you relaxed your body and allowed that rising energy to come up?

Energetic Issues Related to the Stomach, Spleen, and Solar Plexus Chakra

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the stomach and spleen are especially affected by worry and anxiety. In Ayurveda, the stomach is connected to manipura chakra, the solar plexus energy center. This is where we find our power, our will, and our sense of identity and ego.

The solar plexus is also the location of the agni, or digestive fire. We need lots of digestive fire to process both food and the world, and in some cases, heartburn is actually caused by too little acid in the stomach: The esophageal sphincter is not getting the message from the acid that it needs to close.

Consider the following questions:

• Have you been stressed or worried about something?

• Is there a sense of powerlessness connected to that worry?

• What is your relationship with control or personal agency?

• Is something happening that makes you feel out of control?

• What might you need in order to feel more powerful and more connected to your sense of choice?

• Do you feel confident in who you are?

• Do you stand up for yourself, speak your truth, and say what you want—and go for it?

• Do you tend to hesitate, procrastinate, and struggle to get things done?

• Do you have strategies to help you process stressful or difficult news?

Energetic Issues Related to the Throat Chakra

Heartburn originates in the stomach, but we feel it higher, in the chest and throat. Energetically, there is something from lower in the body trying to rise into the throat. In addition to hearing and listening, the throat chakra is an energy center related to speech, self-expression, and truth. As we’ve discussed, acid reflux can indicate our struggle to assimilate something we’ve heard, but we may also want to consider what we are saying—or not saying.

Consider the following questions:

• Do you speak the truth from your own perspective?

• Are you willing to listen to others’ perspectives without fear that it threatens your own?

• Is there a truth that you’ve been keeping to yourself?

• If you had all the freedom in the world and did not fear the consequences, what would you say?

GERD and Chronic Issues with Expression

While most heartburn is occasional, GERD is a disease in which the esophageal sphincter consistently misfires. When acid reflux is chronic, we may want to consider deeper, more longstanding issues.

Consider the following questions:

• What is your relationship like with boundaries, whether your own or those of others?

• Do you have trouble separating areas of your life? Do you find that issues unintentionally seep from one area of your life to another?

• Do you consistently try to “swallow down” a feeling or concern rather than talking about it or dealing with it?

• Do you struggle with identifying, processing, or communicating your emotions?

• Are any of the above issues chronic? For example, you are always keeping secrets, never speaking your truth, or have unresolved issues from the past that still trigger you today?

Issues with the Food-Love Connection

Human beings are predisposed to connect food and love. Our first experiences of being held, cuddled, and physically soothed came with food, whether we were breastfed or bottle-fed, and the connection expands from there. Stomach acid is supposed to help us break down our food, separating it into different parts and then allowing it to nourish our bodies.

Consider the following questions:

• What is your relationship like with love?

• Does your current relationship include a lot of boundary-crossing?

• Do you sometimes struggle to let people in, or to receive and trust love?

• When love is being offered, do you tend to recoil or move away, feeling stressed by too much attention and care?

• Do you feel your needs are being met in your current relationship?

• Do you struggle to connect on a deep enough level to maintain a relationship?

• When in a partnership, do you feel able to fully express yourself, your needs, and your boundaries?

Take some time to sit with these questions and notice what resonates. Give your body time to tell you what it wants you to know. In addition to any medical help you may benefit from, let the signals you’re receiving from your body teach you something about what you might need.

Julie Peters

• https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/spiritual-meaning-heartburn-acid-reflux-gerd