I’ve had sciatic pain in my left leg for over 20 years. There’ve been times when it was excruciating, times when it was a continual dull ache, and times when I’ve barely felt a thing.

For some reason, it flared up recently. And even after I went to my massage therapist for her usual magic which LITERALLY makes the pain go away for months, it came right back!

That got me thinking about the chiropractor Dr. Scott Walker. He’s the founder of NET- Neuro-Emotional Technique of which I am a certified practitioner (learn more here).

The story Dr. Walker likes to tell about how he came upon this technique was that he was manipulating a patient, and the next week she returned with the same pain! This got him thinking that there must be something else going on besides his patient needing a physical adjustment. He stumbled into the recognition that we hold emotions in our physical tissue.

We also store old beliefs or stories of limitation.

Lying in bed the other night with my leg throbbing, I began to wonder. Is there an old story or belief buried in my hip that is asking to be released? I couldn’t sleep anyway so I had a think about it.

The origin of this sciatic pain is from an injury I incurred in high school when I rowed crew. Full confession, when I tried out for the team as a junior, I was the only one who didn’t make it. They called me the alternate, a fancy way of saying I was the worst. I’ll never forget how dejected I felt. It didn’t matter that within a week a girl quit and I was on the team. That experience of being cut re-enforced my belief at the time that I wasn’t good enough.

Once I was part of the team, I then made myself indispensable by offering to row either port and starboard (I’m fairly ambidextrous). I was literally willing to bend my way into being what they wanted me to be.

This injury got exacerbated roughly ten years later when I became pregnant with my first daughter. That summer, 7 months big, I spent a lot of time in Indonesia, mostly sitting like a compliant daughter in-law, legs folded to the side, left pelvic bone boring into the cold tile floor. Once again, I was trying to fit in, trying to be what I thought other people wanted me to be. As a result, I got sciatica.

As I lay in bed remembering all this, I wondered; Is it time to let go of this old story? The one where I believe that I have to be other than who I am and how I am to be loved and accepted?  

I fell asleep contemplating this idea.

The next day, I shared all of this with my husband. And after saying it all out loud, I noticed that the pain actually began to recede. Within a few days it was gone!

Now I’m NOT saying I no longer have sciatic pain. But that part – that old story that was kicking up the burning sensation- is gone. And honestly, I’ll take it.

What about you? Is there a lingering physical pain or ailment you have? Do you think there’s an emotional origin story there for you?

Why not do an inquiry and see what reveals itself?

Put it this way, it certainly won’t hurt.

And if you would like help with this, schedule a free 30-minute consult with me!

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Photo credit to MabelAmber on Pixabay