- What happened when a researcher at a recent conference asked for help with a migraine before an interview
- Why, in my framework, pent-up emotions and stress are so often tied to migraines
- What it means to empty the cup, and what the pressure costs a person, a family, and an office
A Migraine Before an Interview
At a recent conference on consciousness, a researcher who knew of my work came to me with a migraine shortly before she was to be interviewed and asked whether I could help. It took about ten minutes for it to clear up. She smiled, still surprised that it could be gone in such a short time, and our conversation turned to whether I would be interested in coming to her university to study what I was doing that was creating these changes. People come hopeful that this approach will work for them, and I understand why.
The Pressure Beneath the Pain
In my framework, a headache is a warning light, like the engine light on a dashboard, the way the body and mind signal that something underneath is not running properly. When I developed this protocol, it took two years in my practice helping those in need until I recognized that the internal pressure behind many headaches and migraines was due to often unknown or unresolved emotional states of tension underneath.
This isn’t a new concept, but what was new to me at the time was how quickly relief could come, and it remains new to most people outside my practice.
As I worked with people suffering with headaches or migraines in person and over Zoom, I kept noticing the same thing: emotions people held with regret, such as shame, non-forgiveness, anxiousness, or the shock of a trauma of some kind, seemed to cause patterns that had been inwardly affecting their lives for too long, and headaches at times came with them. When I helped clear those underlying states, headaches often resolved with them during the session. The peace that would flood in once the pain was gone was profound.
Migraines are no longer my main focus, because I see them as a downstream effect of the stress that comes from tension being held. I work at what I see as the source, which can help bring changes in the symptom at the same time.
Emptying the Cup
In my framework, a migraine can be a spill-over of an extraordinary amount of internal pressure that can build up over many years. Very often, pent-up emotions and high levels of stress are tied to migraines, and the Field of Consciousness Method addresses the underlying emotional tension that my experience has shown me can lead to them. There may be other causes, but whatever the suspected cause, when we empty the cup, the other factors tend not to spill over as often or as strongly.
A migraine may clear within a session, but it often returns until the unresolved stress is released. As the emotions resolve, the migraines can become less frequent, until they are rare. Depending on the person, the same pressure can show up in other ways: for some, it’s sleepless nights, a short temper, or a decision that keeps getting postponed.
Over the years I have worked with hundreds of people with headaches and migraines and have been listed as the referral for headaches and migraines in the MasterClass in Childbirth and Menopause Support apps, created by the School of Antenatal, a leading antenatal education provider in the UK, Australia, and America. In that time, I have noticed that many people see headaches as different from migraines, and I agree, since migraines can be far more debilitating and have a number of other symptoms. In my protocol, I see both as an inner experience of overwhelm, with too many unresolved emotions running below the surface, even if the person isn’t aware of it.
The Cost of Severe Migraines
I remember when one woman I was beginning to work with told me that she had to lock herself in her bedroom for three days out of the month, in the dark with earplugs. She was unable to be around her family while a severe migraine ran its course. I realized that three days was ten percent of the month. That seemed like a heavy price to pay alone and in the dark, until I began working with people who were doing the same thing, but for fifteen days a month. One of them, a woman in her mid-thirties, had spent about half of every month in a dark room for almost eighteen years when we first started working together.
In my view, the dark room is an instinctive way of quieting an overwhelmed body and mind. When we are overstimulated internally, with too many emotions running at once, the pressure comes down only when as much external stimulus as possible is taken away. The lights go off, the sound goes quiet, and the engine that has been revving nonstop can quiet down. The cost of this necessary solitude is missing time with family and at work. The quality of life sometimes suffers as well.
Pressure and Responsibility
People who have lived with severe migraines tend to be open to anything that comes with a good referral, because they have tried everything. The people I meet at the top are often in a different position, since they are expected to keep going and keep deciding.
A principal with a migraine on the morning of a family meeting and a chief investment officer working through one ahead of an investment committee both bring that pain with them into the decisions they make and the conversations they have with those who rely on them. Roles at this level are hard to hand off, so many people push through, and some keep it to themselves.
In my framework, the pressure behind these headaches can build quietly from the weight of responsibility, which may be why they so often arrive before a board meeting or a hard conversation. For a principal, a key member of the office, or even a family member, there is something that can be done about it.
Noticing What Came Before
A simple place to start is to notice what was happening, or what you were bracing for, in the hours before your last headache. These can be clues as to its emotional origin. A new, sudden, or severe headache should always be checked by a doctor first, and this work is meant to sit alongside medical care, not replace it.
If the emotions you carry and the headaches you live with are connected, what would it be like to put down some of that weight?
I know how debilitating migraines can be. If you have any questions about how this work approaches migraines or the pressure behind them, they are always welcome.
