There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
We live in interesting times. In the West, modern medicine has conquered diseases that ravaged previous generations—polio, tuberculosis, syphilis, typhoid fever. Today we are beset by maladies that seem to reflect the prevalence of toxins in our environment and an overload of stress in our lives (such as cancer and heart disease). Modern medicine seems incapable of defeating these ills. Furthermore, people are becoming affected by disorders that were noticed in earlier times but largely ignored in the twentieth century: chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and post-traumatic stress disorder. (Notice the word “syndrome” that comes into play. The word syndrome indicates that, while the symptoms of a given condition are evident, the cause or connection between them isn’t understood. Obviously, then, the condition can’t be well treated. These sorts of maladies seem to be increasingly characteristic of modern life.) More and more of us are also made ill by asthma and allergies, while depression casts an ever longer, worrisome shadow.
Perhaps you’re among the millions suffering from one or more of these chronic illnesses. Or maybe you have another condition that’s problematic, such as migraine headache, hypertension, ulcer, or rheumatoid arthritis. Mainstream medicine has had mixed success (at best) recognizing and treating these various conditions. Moreover, it’s “one size fits all” medicine. You as a person get overlooked while your problems are evaluated and addressed. Even complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), which is more personalized, raises the questions “What treatment is right for me? And if it works, why does it?”
What is needed is an approach that would bring into sharper focus the factors that lend themselves to various types of chronic illness. Equally valuable would be a way to determine which treatments offer the best chance of success. But where to begin?
Let’s start by acknowledging an important but generally overlooked fact: our feelings have a story to tell. They alert us to what’s going on inside of us, and they draw attention to our reactions to certain events. Like the proverbial tree falling in the woods: if it just misses falling on us—or if it flattens someone we know, or if it flattens us—then we’ll undoubtedly feel something about it. If it falls somewhere else, though, and we don’t hear it or see it, then it’s not affecting us and we may feel nothing at all.
Every feeling, then, has a story to tell. It might be a fleeting story, one line (“That ice cream tasted good”) or a narrative much more complex (“I can’t believe my spouse left me . . .”). Somewhere in that mix, probably closer to the complex side, are the feelings associated with illness. And not just the feelings but often the resulting symptoms as well. As you’ll gather in this book, many symptoms of chronic illness are clues to the feelings bottled up around them. Symptoms are signposts that, deciphered correctly, tell us something about the personality experiencing them.
That’s right—personality. Did you think who you are is entirely separate from what you’re feeling and what you’re going through? Far from it. No one else has your symptoms, your pains and ills. It’s you—your body, your self. And, as the Nietzsche quote that started this introduction points out, our bodies have wisdom to dispense if only we’re sufficiently tuned in. More wisdom, in the final analysis, than what your doctor tells you or what we, the authors, tell you. Because your lived experiences remain right there, in your body. In many cases, the symptoms you’re experiencing can reveal much about the “disharmonies within.” (That phrase is borrowed from Chinese medicine, which, like many ancient practices, concerns itself with energies and balance, vitality and flow.1 See chapter 8.)
Indeed, this book proposes that many chronic conditions have inherent meaning, illustrating nothing less than the characteristic way a person feels his or her feelings. Symptoms that you can’t shrug off or medicate away, that can’t be surgically removed or made to disappear—such chronic conditions are anchored in one’s personality, rooted in one’s temperament. To be truly understood and unraveled, we must view them in that lived, bodily context.
The word temperament comes from the Latin verb temperare, “to mix.” To “temper” is to adjust or modify something by adding, subtracting, or blending it with something else.2 Hundreds of years ago, temper was used as a noun by alchemists to refer to a mixture of elements, which led to the present day meaning of temperament as a blend of mental, emotional, and behavioral traits.3
This concept of blending continues to hold relevance, because, as we’ll see, the displaced energy of feelings is implicated in a variety of chronic conditions. That energy is literally dis-integrated, with attention called to it through our persistent aches and pains, fatigue, numbness, and so on. By realizing the source and the process that produce these symptoms, we can come home to ourselves, effecting a veritable alchemical transformation.
No, you are not your chronic illness. But it does have personal meaning for you—meaning that can be better disclosed by understanding your emotional type. Our term is intended to capture the way different people feel their feelings (or don’t). It relates to the brain; it relates to the rest of the body; it relates to your genetic inheritance; and it relates to the way you were raised. Your emotional type indicates how likely you are to be affected by certain chronic conditions. It’s a biologically based gauge of personality.
Given the rising incidence of so many chronic conditions—and the difficulty mainstream medicine has in recognizing and treating them—it’s not surprising that people are searching for new ways to relieve their suffering. In 2007 (the most recent year for which reliable data are available), more than 38% of American adults spent nearly $34 billion out-of-pocket on complementary and alternative therapies.4 Equally impressive is the fact that health care workers—especially doctors and nurses—avail themselves of such treatments more often than do the people who consult them.5 But are all forms of CAM equally beneficial? Are they equally beneficial for you?
In Your Emotional Type, you’ll see how and why your personality type indicates which therapies are best for you. Just as certain people are more susceptible to certain types of chronic illness, those same people will find certain therapeutic approaches more useful. It’s ultimately a matter of how much “gets” to you and how you manage intense, energetic feelings. The process is generally automatic and unconscious, and it has been part of you since you were a child. This book will help you unlock that puzzle, shedding new light on your symptoms, your personality, and your style of coping with stressors. Most of all, you’ll have a guide for what to do about it—which CAM treatments are right for you.
Significant illness has been called a “magnifier of life.”6 It forces us to confront aspects of ourselves we might not otherwise see, surely not to the degree we do when we’re in the throes of pain, fatigue, hyperreactivity, or malaise. This means that chronic health conditions offer a unique opportunity to gain insight into who we are. Medical authorities today have just begun to grasp that suffering can yield meaning,7 but this insight is really nothing new. The Chinese understood it when they stated in the venerable I Ching that “through introspection . . . external obstacles become an occasion for inner enrichment and education.”8
In this day and age, when information is a mere mouse click away, we have little excuse to simply turn ourselves over to the experts—especially when we have reason to doubt the efficacy of the conventional medical wisdom. Your Emotional Type provides an entirely fresh take on the source of your symptoms, why you literally feel the way you do. You’ll gain a valuable new framework to augment your health care decisions. Your individuality will be front and center as you gather insight into the ways your personality and your health interact. It’s a major step toward true “personalized medicine.”
Carl Jung observed that man “can make no progress with himself unless he becomes much better acquainted with his own nature.”9Your Emotional Type will allow you to do just that. By understanding your own style of feeling, you can speed the appropriate form of healing for you.