Have you ever felt like your body was fighting against you? Maybe it is a rash that won’t go away, chronic fatigue that sleep cannot fix, or joint pain that doctors cannot fully explain. We are often taught to manage these symptoms with medication and move on. But what if those physical symptoms are not the enemy? What if they are actually a message?

In a recent conversation, we explored the profound connection between unprocessed emotional wounds and physical illness with Cindy Costley. Her experience challenges the way we look at chronic conditions and invites us to ask a difficult but necessary question: Is my body keeping the score of a past I have tried to forget?

The Girl Allergic to the World

Cindy’s story is extreme, yet it highlights a pattern many might recognize on a smaller scale. For the first few years of her life, she had mild allergies. Then, at age 15, she woke up one day and everything had changed.

She was suddenly covered in rashes from head to toe. After extensive testing, doctors discovered she was allergic to almost everything. At that time, she could only eat four foods. For the next 34 years, Cindy lived in a state of constant reaction. She normalized the suffering, telling herself she just had to work around it. She even joked that she had won the “allergy lottery”.

It was not until her late 40s, when her liver and kidneys began to shut down, that she realized she could no longer ignore what was happening. She had been diagnosed with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, a condition where the body is in a constant state of allergic response. But the diagnosis was only part of the puzzle.

The Body Keeps the Score

Trauma is often defined as an unhealed wound. When we experience something painful that we cannot process—either because we are too young or because we lack the support to speak about it—the emotion has to go somewhere.

For Cindy, her body decided early on to process her emotions somatically. Instead of feeling depression or anxiety, her body created physical reactions.

Through a process of deep healing and investigation, Cindy identified two major traumatic events she had suppressed:

* Age 6: She was molested by a neighbor.

* Age 14: She was group raped and left in a forest.

The severe allergic reactions she developed at age 15 were not random. Her body was reacting to the trauma she had endured just a year prior. As one healer told her, “Your body has been screaming at you all these years because you’re not addressing this issue”.

This phenomenon is supported by research, including the ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study. This study showed a deep correlation between childhood trauma and adult health issues like asthma, autoimmune disorders, and coronary disease.

Healing at the Cellular Level

Cindy’s path to recovery required her to stop treating the symptoms and start treating the cause. She realized that her symptoms were not her body working against her; they were her body working for her, trying to get her attention.

She utilized a method called desensitization. This process involves:

* Releasing Trapped Emotions: Acknowledging the specific trauma associated with the physical reaction.

* Reprogramming the Brain: Teaching the brain that it is now safe so it stops sending danger signals to the cells.

* Cellular Clearance: Addressing the “cellular imprint” that trauma leaves behind, which can alter things like inflammation pathways and hormone regulation.

Cindy eventually developed her own modality called Electromagnetic Body Desensitization Technique (EBDT). This technique scans a person’s timeline—starting from the womb—to clear these cellular stamps.

The Result: Freedom

The results of this work were life-altering. After decades of anaphylactic reactions to dairy, Cindy can now eat cheese without issue. She is no longer “the girl allergic to the world”. She is completely non-reactive to the things that used to hospitalize her.

This transformation mirrors my own experience. Diagnosed with seronegative rheumatoid arthritis at 48, I found that my joint pain was inextricably linked to emotional stress. When I began to listen to my body and address the underlying emotional roots, my blood work normalized over the course of a year.

Start Your Own Inquiry

If you are suffering from chronic conditions that do not seem to respond to traditional treatment, I invite you to get curious. This does not mean you must blame yourself or feel overwhelmed by the past. It simply means asking: Is there a part of me that is still hurting?

As Cindy reminds us, we cannot heal what we do not understand. Six or eight years are going to pass whether you address your trauma or not. You can spend those years managing symptoms, or you can spend them healing the root cause so the rest of your life is full of ease and peace.

The body is brilliant. It knows what we need. We just have to learn how to listen.

Connect with Cindy Costley

If you are ready to explore the underlying causes of your physical symptoms, you can reach out to Cindy directly. She is currently offering listeners free access to her Healing Impact Audit (for healers/coaches) and a Body Awareness Audit (for individuals).

* Website: https://theunderlyinganswers.com/

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theunderlyinganswers/

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