So, you finally go on vacation and the first thing that happens is that you get a raging head cold. You shift some energy and find a better feeling emotional place, only to wake up nauseous the next day. You finally manage to stand up to your passive aggressive mother in law, and promptly get a herpes blister on your lip. What the hell, Universe? Are you being punished for being kind to yourself? Is the Universe sending you a message that you’re doing it wrong? Or, perhaps it’s the answer behind door number three – there’s a perfectly good explanation for what’s happening. I’ll give you teensy hint: It’s door number 3, y’all.

This isn’t a metaphor, people

You’re not being punished for being kind to yourself and you’re not doing it wrong. When you shift energy from a lower to a higher state, you are actually shifting energy. This isn’t some metaphor, or some theoretical blah-blah, you are actually changing from a lower frequency to a higher one. And this, dun-dun-dun-dunnnnnn, has consequences.

Actually, that isn’t quite accurate. When you hold on to beliefs and thoughts that don’t serve you, when you focus on frequencies that contract the vibration of Who You Really Are and what you really want, and you do it for a long enough time, THAT has consequences. First, you feel some negative emotion. If you’re sensitive enough, you’ll be able to notice this feedback at this early stage and do something about it (focus in a way that feels better). But if, like most people alive today, you were taught not to pay attention to your stupid, unnecessary, girly feelings, and push on ahead, the discord created by this resistance (the contradictory frequency) will manifest in bigger and more obvious ways.

When the non-physical becomes physical

When you think a thought, you actually begin to vibrate at the frequency of that thought. If the thought is “positive”, if it matches or closely resembles the thought you want to be thinking, it’s said to have a high frequency. So, if you’re thinking “I love myself” (or I love [insert anything here]), that will match what Who You Really Are (which, incidentally, is also Who You Really Want To Be) is thinking. This thought will feel good. If you think “OMG, I can’t believe how stupid I am!”, that will not match what Who You Really Are is thinking. This thought will feel bad.

What few people realize is that the feeling, the emotion, is already a type of physical manifestation. Emotions are actually caused by chemical processes in the brain. So, when you focus on a thought, the distance between that thought and the one you REALLY want to think will create a response. Your brain then translates that response into all kinds of wonderful (and not so wonderful) chemicals, which are then distributed throughout your body. When you have an extreme emotional response, you’ll actually feel it somewhere in your physical body. Anxiety can make your stomach hurt. Grief can actually make your heart tighten up painfully. Disgust can make your skin crawl with pins and needles and goosebumps, etc. But even in the more subtle stages, emotions are already a physical manifestation of the energy we’ve attuned ourselves to.

When we hold on to a contradictory frequency or “resistance” for any length of time, that discord is spread throughout our energy body AND our physical body. Your body is always trying to find balance, but since you and your focus are the boss, it must mirror the vibration you’re holding on to back to you. It will seek the frequency of What You Really Want, but will have to respond to what you’re actually focusing on.

To put it in simpler terms: Your body wants to be whole and healthy and balanced and a happy shiny puppy. But if you keep focusing on stuff that feels bad, it creates an actual, physical response that mucks up the works. You might as well be eating poison. That’s right, your thoughts are actually translated into physical responses that either help or hurt your body. Hold on to the resistance long enough, and you’ll create physical ailments and eventually, disease.

Taking out the trash

Now, let’s say that you’ve been focusing on all kinds of ugly, bad feeling, gunky thoughts. You’ve been holding yourself in a situation that doesn’t feel good, because of obligation or some other bullshit reason. You’ve been suffering because you figure that your pain will translate into gain at some point. You’ve been sacrificing yourself for others, for work, for God or whatever. In other words, you’ve been doing stuff that doesn’t feel good.

And then you stop. You go on vacation and relax. You take up meditation. You hire a coach or do some energy work yourself and manage to gain a different perspective. You start to think better feeling thoughts. You begin to focus on a frequency that’s more closely aligned with Who You Really Are. This is a good thing. Only now that you’ve done that, your physical body also has to shift. As the beneficial changes you’ve just made to your energy body translate into the physical, your body begins to heal, which may entail physical symptoms of that healing. This is called “purging”, and it’s basically a way for your body to take out the trash.

You may not realize just how much of an effect your workaholism has had on your body, for example. But when you go on vacation and your whole system seems to break down into a mucus-y, sniffly, stuffy, achey breaky mess, that’s your body rebalancing itself and undoing all the damage you’ve been doing by not noticing just how bad it feels to work 18 hours a day. The worse your purging symptoms are, the greater the energy shift achieved and/or, the more damage the resistance you’ve just released was doing.

Purging symptoms

Purging can take many forms. Here are a few I’ve noticed:

• Increased Fatigue (the need to sleep a lot more)
• Yawning
• Crying
• Nausea, stomach ache, vomiting (puking is an extreme symptom, usually brought on by large shifts like the ones achieved in shamanic ceremonies)
• Diarrhea or simply increased pooping (Ha! Made you laugh!)
• Flu like symptoms, head cold
• Heavier menstrual cycle, increased cramping
• Jittery, manic energy (NOT the euphoria that comes after a shift. This usually shows up after the purging)
• Problems falling asleep or staying asleep
• Lack of appetite
• Increased appetite and cravings
• Increased mucus production (stuffy nose, mucus in the throat, coughing)
• Increased sensitivity to hot and cold temperatures
• Etc.

You may have noticed that these symptoms are all over the place and many of them contradict each other. This is because everyone purges differently. Not only that, but some people will tend to have a lot of physical symptoms, while others may have very few or even none, no matter how much energy work they do. You are an individual, unique flower in this Universe. You get to have your own, individual, unique purging symptoms.

Don’t fight it

Purging is a good thing, if not always convenient. The best possible thing you can do is to honor your body and just go with it. If you get sick or tired, rest. Don’t try to push through it. You want this stuff to come out. This is as a physical manifestation of the negative energy you are releasing. It is a rebalancing of physical consequences your body has already suffered. Allow it to happen.

In many cases, you’ll find that you’re grateful for the “excuse” to relax and take it easy, if you allow yourself to do so. While having a head cold isn’t fun, getting plenty of sleep or spending the day in front of the TV and doing nothing can feel like a huge relief from the ordeal you’re normally putting yourself through. Pay attention to that.

If you don’t fight the symptoms but succumb to them, if you take your body’s cue and just take it easy for a bit, the symptoms will pass much faster. If you resist the purging you are, in fact, creating more resistance. Think about it.

Bottom line

This purging will not last forever, nor will you always have to suffer as much when you shift some energy. As you clean up your vibration more and more, the symptoms will get lighter. You may have some stomach issues today, but within a few months of deliberately feeling better, you may find that your purging takes the form of crying, instead. If you no longer put the same pressure on yourself at work, you’ll no longer get sick when you go on vacation. If you learn to stand up for yourself on a regular basis and honor your boundaries all the time, your body will no longer need to react to the one time you do it.

Allow your body to do what it needs to do. It’s simply finding its balance and undoing all the damage that was done by focusing in a way that didn’t serve you. It’s healing. All you have to do is let it.

Have you experienced purging symptoms? Share in the comments! I love to read what you have to say!