Biogenealogy: Decoding the Psychic Roots of Illness

While the idea that emotional stress lies at the origin of every illness is becoming more readily acceptable today, it also is possible to trace the root cause of an illness to our ancestors--their unresolved psychic distress can become part of the cellular memory inherited by their descendants. Until the issue has been settled successfully, it will continue to trigger illnesses in the generations that follow to offset the mind’s inability to resolve the problem. Illness is the body’s way of protecting those who experience severe emotional shock or excessive amounts of stress. Illness is therefore an ally, rather than the adversary conventional medicine purports it to be. Understanding illness in this way directs us to look for the psychic conflict that underlies it in order to eliminate the disease, rather than merely dealing with its overt physical symptoms. For example, diabetes, which creates excess sugar in the bloodstream, can be triggered by the stress caused by feelings of powerlessness: To compensate for the sense of powerlessness, the body manufactures more sugar to fuel the muscles. To stop this excess sugar production, the psychic distress beneath it must be resolved or it will be passed on to the next generation. When we discover the solutions that create harmony in the body and in our life, the body will no longer have to manufacture illness to restore a sense of balance, and illness will no longer be part of the bequest we leave our descendants.