Energy Analysis of Headaches - Carol Ritberger

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From Carol Ritberger, http://www.ritberger.com/

 

Headaches are one of our most common medical problems. Most headaches are

the result of muscle tension due to either physical or psychological

overload A headache is the body's way of alerting us that the overload we

are experiencing is having an adverse impact on our physical body.

Headaches have a variety of causes. They can be caused either externally or

internally. Externally induced headaches can be caused from trauma to the

head, over exertion, environmental pollution, bright lights, loud noises,

perfume, stress, worry, conflict and anxiety. Internally induced headaches

can be caused from spinal misalignment, constipation, reaction to foods or

alcohol, hormone imbalances, allergies, high blood pressure, pH imbalances,

anemia, low blood sugar, TMJ (teporomandibular joint syndrome), and certain

infectious diseases.

 

Headaches come in many forms and can be categorized by their underlying

causes and where the pain occurs. There are six different types of

headaches:

 

Simple headache - Hammering, buzzing, pulsing in the top of the head.

Causes: stress, sensitivity to weather, high blood pressure, lack of oxygen

to brain, certain infectious diseases.

 

Tension headache - Dull, oppressive pain, pulsing in the temples of the

head. This headache will usually begin in the back of the head and neck and

spread to the forehead. Causes: muscular tension, spinal misalignment

constricted blood vessels.

 

Cluster headache - Piercing, burning pain. This headache will usually

affect one side of the head and always in the same place. Causes: unknown.

 

Migraine headache - Oppressive pain usually on one side of the head only.

Often accompanied by nausea, vomiting and vision problems. Causes:

hereditary factors, food reactions, allergies, hormone imbalances, low

blood sugar, pH imbalances, expanded blood vessels, and psychological

overload.

 

Sinus headache - Dull throbbing pain in the brow of head and behind the

eyes. This headache will also cause dull pain in the cheeks and nasal area.

Causes: allergies, sinusitis and the common cold.

 

Combination headache - Dull nagging, oppressive pain that usually begins in

the morning, ends after a short duration and then reoccurs at specific

times throughout the day. Causes: hormonal imbalances, reactions to foods

and medications.

 

While headaches can be painful, distressing and often debilitating, they

rarely reflect a serious medical condition. However, if you suffer from

chronic headaches or notice any change in the location or patterns of the

headache, it could be the signal of a more serious problem, so consult your

physician. They can usually determine the cause of the headache from your

medical history or a physical examination.

 

Energy Analysis:

 

Headaches develop as a result of psychological and emotional overload. They

represent tension between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. They

most often occur when there is confusion in the decision making process.

Headaches alert us that we have energetic tension occurring between what

our head is telling us to do and what our heart wants us to do.

Energetically headaches act as distractions or a way of escaping from

making decisions until we can find resolution between head and heart. They

act as blocks so we will take the time to evaluate information and untie

the mental knots. Each one of the headaches has a different energetic

meaning. For example:

 

Simple headache - The result from experiencing conflict and confusion over

perception and interpretation of information. Being hampered by self-doubt,

feelings of looking stupid or fear of appearing incompetent. Reflective of

the need to better understand. Being consumed by mental chatters or

overwhelmed by too many possibilities. Represents the need to take the time

to deal with emotional and mental issues that are bothering them.

 

Tension headache - Trying too hard Anxiety about things that are not being

handled or frustration because they cannot get closure. Feelings of

self-criticism, self-disgust and self-disapproval. The need for

perfectionism and never being satisfied with their performance. Afraid to

relax because they might be caught off guard. This causes energetic

build-up and energetic protrusion in the head.

 

Cluster headache - Reflective of deep distrust issues and feelings of

unworthiness. Frustration around having to put up with relationships,

situations, issues, pressures or people that they dislike yet feeling

inadequate in being able to create change. Being really bugged about

things. Fear around failures and the consciences of those failures.

Resentment for being responsible and accountable to others.

 

Migraine headache - Reflective of resentment, uncertainty, low self-esteem

and a lack of self-confidence. Feelings of entrapment and the inability to

take control over their lives. Suppressed anger, suppressed grief,

suppressed desires, and suppressed hurt feelings. There is a consistent

pattern between migraine headaches and a childhood where there was a highly

suppressive family. Reflects the unwillingness to do anything about

changing negative emotions or negative situations. Feelings of being

victims and an inner crying over not being able to do anything about it.

Fear of voicing feelings and thoughts.

 

Sinus headache - Reflective of congestion in the head The feeling that

there is too much going on at once. The tendency to hang on to old beliefs

and perceptions. Having difficulty making sense out of what is happening.

Suppressed emotions.

 

Combination headache - Experiencing feelings of being overwhelmed and

wanting to stop the world. Unwillingness to be present in the moment. The

feeling of being out of sync with the world and either awake at night or

asleep during the day. Resistance to experiencing what is happening at the

time. Displaying extreme excitement over something or over nothing. Chronic

feelings of agitation around an unsettled condition that seems impossible

to resolve. Combination headache refers to the fact that these headaches

begin as tension headaches in the morning and progress to migraine

headaches later in the day.

 

The Physical Outcome:

 

Each of these headaches, while their energetic patterns differ creates the

same outcome in the physical body. They cause a chemical imbalance to occur

in the brain and a chemistry change in the body. The result is that the

brain and the body lose their capacity to communicate effectively. The

brain responding to the confusion around what to do, becomes chemically

agitated, and sends the message to the body that there is a problem The

body reacts by going into a fight or flight (stress) response. This stress

response changes breathing patterns, heart rate and adrenal activity. The

heart rate increases, the breathing becomes shallow and rapid, and the

adrenals increase their output of stress hormones (adrenaline, cortisone

and cortisol). Each of these changes causes the blood vessels to constrict,

and the brain begins to experience an inadequate flow in blood and oxygen

When the blood vessels constrict we are most susceptible to simple, and

tension headaches.

 

However, if the stress response in the body is severe or lasts for a

prolonged period of time, then the body responds differently by telling the

blood vessels to expand. The result is the brain gets too much blood, too

many stress hormones and becomes overwhelmed The result is that we

experience cluster, migraine, and combination headaches.

 

Chakra System* Analysis:

 

The origin site of all headaches is the 3rd chakra. Headaches are the

result of the tension between the 3rd and 6th chakras, and how these

chakras are energetically connected in the decision making process.

Headaches are the body's way of telling us that there is confusion between

the adrenal glands and the pituitary gland.

 

3rd Chakra:

The 3rd chakra site is the solar plexus area of the body and includes these

organs and glands: liver, gallbladder, stomach, adrenals, kidneys and

spleen. The 3rd chakra is energetically designed to act as an interface to

accommodate the flow of information between the left and right hemispheres

of the brain Its energetic patterns represents the ability to integrate

left brain processing (masculine energy) with right brain processing

(feminine energy) as a means of expediting the decision making process. Its

primary function is to act as a link between physical (external stimuli)

and spiritual (internal stimuli). However, over the course of our human

evolution, this chakra has altered itself energetically to only respond to

the needs of the left brain, as that has been accepted as our primary way

of thinking and our social conditioning. The result is that we tend to

respond only to what our head is telling us. This behavior provides a

binary perspective and a limited number of solutions to our problems. This

way of decision making does not give us the whole picture and suppresses

the emotional aspect of who we are. The result is that we become stressed,

tension is created and that tension hinders the brain's ability to process

information.

 

6th Chakra:

The 6th chakra is the primary symptom site. This chakra is associated with

the pituitary gland, which is the master gland of the endocrine system. The

pituitary gland is located deep inside the brain directly behind the brow

area of the head. This gland is our chemical pharmacist and is responsible

for the (dispensing) sending chemical messages to the other endocrine

glands and (prescribing) telling those glands how to regulate their

hormonal output in order to help keep the body's chemistry in balance. The

pituitary gland responds directly and only to emotional feedback When we

are chemically in balance, then our body is less susceptible to muscle

tension and the stress response. When we are chemically out of balance,

then we are more susceptible to the ravages of stress and muscle tension.

 

Energetically, the 6th chakra is the window to the soul. Its energetic

patterns are associated with the right hemisphere (feminine energy) of the

brain It communicates its information through intuition (6th sense) by

creating a holistic perspective of the problem and offers a variety of

solutions. When we suppress emotions we prevent ourselves from seeing the

whole picture and from looking for other solutions. The result is that we

get struck in the decision making process. There is a direct energetic link

between the 3rd and the 6th chakras and there is a direct link between the

pituitary gland and the adrenal glands when it comes to stress and the

creation of muscle tension in the body. These linkages can help explain why

it is that when a person gets a cluster or migraine headache they will

suffer from nausea and experience vomiting. It also provides insight into

how food reactions, low blood sugar, pH imbalances, and medications can

cause headaches.

 

Personality Color* Susceptibility:

 

All personality types experience headaches at some time, however, each

personality color tends to have a higher predisposition to only certain

types of headaches. For example:

 

Red Personality Simple, tension and sinus headaches

Orange Personality Cluster, migraine, and combination headaches

Yellow Personality Tension, cluster and sinus headaches

Green Personality Simple, tension, migraine, sinus and combination

headaches

 

Case Study -Jamie (Green)

 

Jamie has suffered from migraine headaches since her early childhood She

was an only child and was told many times that she was not planned She grew

up with the burden of feeling unwanted. Throughout her entire childhood

there was always tremendous tension between her mother and father and she

found herself taking on the role of the peacemaker in order to minimize the

conflict between them. Her parents used her as the communication link

between the two of them and would emotionally manipulate her to take sides

with one or the other. They would indulge her with material things and at

the same time deprive her of the emotional nurturing she needed as a Green

personality type. In our session Jamie expressed confusion in how to make

decisions and the frustration around mixed messages. Because of her

personality color her decision making style was to pay attention to her

emotions and follow her heart, yet her conditioning to survive and minimize

conflict was to listen to her head and only do what it suggested As a child

when she would get a headache her parents would back off and leave her

alone allowing her time to process information emotionally.

 

In her current relationship, her husband sees her as indecisive and

incapable of making decisions at all. The result is that he has taken

control of all decision making within the family. Deep inside Jamie houses

years of suppressed anger and hurt feelings and has transferred those

feelings to her husband. She also experiences a low level of agitation in

not being in control of her life. Her conditioning from childhood is that

whenever she starts trying to make a decision, all of the old programming

replays itself and supports her beliefs that she is incapable of making

decisions. The confusion takes over and builds up pressure in the head and

causes migraine headaches. Her headaches have become so bad over the years

that when she came to see me they were lasting as long as three weeks and

she had become totally bedridden during these times. Her doctors were

frustrated because they had exhausted all of the medications typically

given for migraines. As we worked through the session Jamie, began to see

that the headaches were the result of the suppression of emotions and her

fear of making decisions. She had decided it was easier to have others make

decisions rather than she making the wrong decision Once Jamie understood

her personality decision making style she gave herself permission to take

the time to deal with her emotions. We also looked at her lifestyle, her

relationship with herself, her diet, and medications to see what could be

changed.

As a result of our session, Jamie made the decision to take the initiative

to pursue dealing with her headache problems by first seeing a

chiropractor. She then began cranial/sacral work, keeping a headache

journal to look for consistent patterns of behavior that could be

triggering the headaches, and working with her husband to start resolving

her relationship frustrations.

 

Treatment Options:

 

Conventional medicine

 

Alternative choices:

 

Cranial/sacral therapy Chiropractic Acupuncture

Acupressure Homeopathy Herbal remedies

Soothing foot baths Massage Relaxation techniques

Nutrition/diet Aromatherapy Biofeedback

Meditation Magnet therapy Cold compresses

 

This information is not meant to be a substitute for professional medical

care. As a medical intuitive, I do not dispense medical advice or prescribe

the use of any technique a form of treatment for physical or medical

problems. If you have a medical problem, see your physician or other

licensed practitioners. It is my intent to offer information of a general

nature to help you in our quest for emotional, psychological and spiritual

well being and good health. Should you choose to use any these options

offered by this information, Carol Ritberger, Ph.D., assumes no

responsibility for your actions.

 

* In my book " Your Personality, Your Health " there is an explanation of

chakras and the chakra system and an assessment to assist you in

determining your personality type by color.

 

1998 BCR Enterprises, Carol Ritberger, www.ritberger.com