If you're coming to this post in the middle, go here for Part 1 or here for Part 2.
The (Final) Solution
My goal for the next few "IBS" attacks was to pay close attention to the sensations in my body during an attack to divine just what was going on and when. This wasn't terribly difficult as I'd been practicing mindfulness and meditation for years, I'd just never applied it in this particular way before.
I did quickly ascertain that anxiety was indeed a pretty big element, but the techniques I used to deal with it only lessened the symptoms, it didn't dissolve them completely. Apart from simple breathing exercises and assuring myself that I was safe, I also adopted a concept called "embracing the suck". This basically means instead of resisting the present situation, one simple acknowledges that it's pretty darned unpleasant and just accepting it. It doesn't mean rolling over and dying - anything you can do to improve the situation, by all means do it; but do it with an attitude of "it is what it is". It means being okay if you throw up or have to dash off to the bathroom for a possibly painful evacuation of the bowels; just don't fear those potentials. Accept that they may happen and plan accordingly.
At this juncture I vaguely recalled that I had tried to deal with the anxiety aspect of these attacks in the past as well; obviously it hadn't really worked then either (maybe that's why I had stopped calling it "Travel Anxiety"). There was clearly something else going on here, so what was it?
The answer was tension. My guts were tightening up in knots; and it just so happened that I had stumbled on a way to deal with it just a few years earlier. I felt like a pretty dense idiot that it had never occurred to me to use the technique here!
But let me backtrack a moment as this realization came in two, very different parts. The first was a statement made by my Karate instructor a while back in regards to self-defense techniques. His comment was that the population is split fairly evenly into two groups: one group tenses up when they feel pain and the other relaxes/collapses. Unfortunately there's no way to know who's in what group while they have a hand around your throat, so the first part of any self-defense technique that inflicts pain on your attacker is to first protect anything on yourself that's delicate (like your throat).
The second half of my "aha moment" was a simple relaxation technique that I'd been playing with for the previous five or so years. When I first started messing with it, I thought I'd stumbled on something new, amazing and different. I later realized that it's something every yoga instructor worth their salt teaches (have I mentioned I can be a bit dense sometimes?)
The "new" technique built off of exercises I'd been doing for close to fifteen years: While sitting or laying in a relaxed position, be mindful of any muscle tension anywhere in the body. It's best to focus on small sections at a time, so it's generally recommended to start either with your toes and work upward or your head and go downwards. It really doesn't matter though; you can start with your belly button if you want to; just find the tension in your body and consciously relax it. Do it again and again because it's very likely that once you've made it through the whole body, something near the beginning has tensed up again. It can feel like an exercise in futility until you've been doing it awhile. And I'd been doing it for quite a long while.
Nursing school opened up another aspect of this time-honored technique for me. There's lots of muscles in the body and thanks to anatomy and physiology class, I was learning them all. I could now imagine all the different muscle groups with all their varied layers. I'd start with the big, outer muscles and work my way "inward" to the deeper muscles. There were also different levels of tension to be found. So after going through and relaxing the "gross" tension, I'd go through and relax finer and finer levels of tension. (Who knew so much "hidden" tension could hide in one's feet?)
Now here's the thing (also thanks to nursing school), there's three types of muscles in the body: there's skeletal muscles - these are the ones we use to move about and create facial expressions. We have conscious control over skeletal muscles (for the most part); and these are the ones we typically focus on when doing these types of relaxation techniques. But there's two other types: smooth muscle - which lines the digestive system, lungs and some blood vessels; and cardiac muscles (that surprise, surprise make up your heart and do their own thing). Though these two other types of muscles are not subject to our conscious whim, they do response to our emotional state, and so with some clever mind games you actually can consciously control them to a certain degree. And this is the technique I had stumbled upon.
In fact I'd already been using this technique to stop menstrual cramps for a while already. It's pretty easy really: menstrual cramps are typically caused by the uterus tightening up as it expels all that nice, bloody lining it no longer needs. You can just as easily "tell" it to not tighten up so hard. Just imagine the sensation of a tightened fist and then relaxing that fist. You can apply that sensation to a grumpy uterus too. Works like a charm, but you have to be awake to do it (so night-time cramps unfortunately need a Tylenol to be gone away with, sadly). Also, the cramps can come back pretty quickly as soon as you lose focus, so some persistent crampies need near-constant attention; but it is doable.
Now lets go back to those two types of people: the "tensers" and the "relaxers". Image if you will two people who just ate a big meal. One leans back in their chair, unbuttons their pants and with a big sigh says, "Aaah, I ate too much!" The other person clutches their belly, arching forward and moans, "Oooh, I ate too much!" I'm sure you can imagine who's the tenser and who's the relaxer. The tenser likely feels nauseous because he's tensing up; there's nowhere for the food to go. Our relaxer might have some heartburn from an over-stuffed tummy, but otherwise he just feels really full. Tension inhibits the digestive process. Makes sense.
It was not difficult at all to marry these two concepts together and I have no idea why it didn't occur to me sooner (did I mention I can be a bit daft at times?) I now had a pretty solid hypothesis that tension was the source of my woes and that conscious relaxation was the solution. On my next IBS attack I was mindful of any tension in my gut and I consciously relaxed it while making sure my anxiety didn't get out of hand, and you know what? It worked like a charm. I could literally relax away my "IBS" symptoms. Stop it right in its tracks. That was it?
Apparently it was. After only a handful of attacks handled in this way, it really no longer became a problem. No matter what I ate at whatever time, I could deftly stop it before it started. Oddly enough I did end up having a "symptom-less IBS attack" a few months back. I don't remember the exact situation, but I do remember the sensations. IBS (or whatever the heck was plaguing me) has a unique sensation in the body, even sans the tension. I can't even explain it; it's just "IBS-y". So I felt "IBS-y" with a tender belly, but with the anxiety and tension removed, it never escalated. I remember clearly the thrill of being able to go to bed that night and lay down comfortably with the light off. No shakes, no ragged breathing. No chills, sweats or drooling. It was incredible! I was free.
Here's the thing though: Because I've been meditating for nearly half my life, I have no idea if this technique is one of those things where once you understand the concept, you're good to go; or if it's like learning to swim or ride a bike where you can "understand" it all you want, but you won't be able to do it until you find your own way. Try it and see.
I think this technique would work for any tension-based ailment, not just digestive issues. I feel there's many medical problems that have tension as a root cause, even if it's not initially obvious (like high blood pressure or inflammation issues that aren't allergy-related, etc); but of course I have no way of proving/testing that as yet.
Resolution
So what changes have I noticed since finding my cure? Well, I'm happy to report that I gained ten pounds in the span of just a few months. Believe me, in my case this is a good thing. I had always considered myself underweight and always had a hard time putting on and keeping pounds no matter what I tried. Now that I can relax my gut and let all those nice nutrients in, I've achieved a weight that's perfect for me. Your results may vary.
Travel has become far less an exercise in strategic planning around meal times, sleeping accommodations and locations of toilets. It truly doesn't matter now. It's a level of freedom I had never before thought possible.
Note that meds never came into play here. Though I'd been to a fair amount of therapy (which I highly recommend by the way), as mentioned at the beginning of all this, I was never diagnosed with anxiety. I'm not in the least advocating to handle anxiety issues (or any other mental health issues) without meds. I had never realized just how debilitating my anxiety was until I started writing up this whole series.
"It's all in your head"
I used to hate that phrase, and I've heard it a lot in life. It implies, "you're making it up," "it isn't real," "you're just looking for attention". It was so demoralizing because my symptoms were absolutely real and problematic; but because there was no detectable medical cause, it was "obviously fake".
Part of my healing involved "flipping the script": if it's "all in your head" then the power to getting better was completely within my control. No external source was going to fix this. No tests, prescriptions, weird treatments, special diets or rituals. It was all on me.
Claiming this inner power can be difficult for some, especially if you have a passive temperament (like me in my younger years) and just expect the answer to be in doctors, medicine or some external source. As odd as it sounds, another hurdle can be that some people identify with their illness/condition, it's a part of who they are. If it goes away, they'll lose a piece of themselves and that can be scary. This of course is usually unconscious, and requires a good long, honest look within. It is possible that whatever the problem is is serving some purpose in your life. Certainly there's nothing wrong with that, but know that if the problem is "yours" (not caused by an external problem), the solution is yours too.
And so that's my story. I hope it helps, or at the very least provided some interesting reading.
Speaking of reading, here's a short-ish list of books that have been helpful for me and may be for you also (if you haven't read them already):
"The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself", by Michael Alan Singer (2007)
I'm a late-comer to this book, but it's a wonderful read and very insightful. It does touch on tension and its role in the body.
"The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment", by Eckhart Tolle (1997)
This is a great book, and really lays out the concept of how to "embrace the suck".
"Energy Anatomy: The Science of Personal Power, Spirituality, and Health", by Caroline Myss (1996)
I can't recommend this and her other books and audio offerings enough. Myss presents her information in a no-nonsense way that invites the reader to take a good long, honest look at their own thought patterns and habits.
"Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma", by Peter A. Levine (1997)
This one actually deals with healing trauma, but it does hint at tension being the source of many other problems. It also mentions that trauma can be "trapped" in the body in the form of tension and that releasing that tension may bring up buried, traumatic memories. It's something to keep in mind if consciously releasing tension is new to you.
"Autobiography of a Yogi", by Paramahansa Yogananda (1946)
Okay, I'm recommending this one more because it's just an awesome book (I've read it through twice); but I was reading the part about him gaining weight right when I started putting weight on, so there's that.
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