Your Body’s Signals and Chiron

What if the pain in your body was actually the voice of your soul?

In the 1991 book Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection, Dr. John Sarno offered a radical idea—one that echoes what astrologers and healers have long understood. He proposed that chronic pain, especially in areas like the back, shoulders, and hips, can arise when the brain tries to protect us from emotions we’ve buried, perhaps deep within grief, anger, shame, fear. It does this by restricting blood flow, creating real pain as a form of distraction.

To me, this sounds like the work of Chiron, also known as the Wounded Healer archetype in astrology. The pain we feel often points to something deeper… a place we’ve neglected, a story we haven’t fully grieved, a truth waiting to be expressed.

Through Astrology, where Chiron is in your natal chart (also known as the horoscope) gives us clues into where the healing process might begin for you. Your 6th house shows how you might be storing any past pain in your body. Identifying the pain is only the beginning, because it describes the symptom. However, true healing comes when we can heal the cause of the symptom.

Today, modern research is catching up to this wisdom. A method called Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) invites people to do just that: to identify and express the emotions they’ve been avoiding. This approach has been shown to significantly reduce pain in individuals with fibromyalgia and chronic musculoskeletal conditions. It’s now considered a best practice for chronic pain treatment by the Department of Health and Human Services, alongside massage and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Astrology invites us to take a non-pathological approach to notice symptoms which are held in the various parts of who we are, who hold the pain so we can survive. However, your soul is asking you to thrive.

Whether through astrology, emotional release, or therapeutic coaching, true healing often begins when we stop numbing and start listening.

If your body has been calling for your attention, know this: it may be asking you to feel what you’ve been avoiding, to finally set you free. It can be uncomfortable, personal work… but it is rewarding!

I’m here if you’re ready to explore that healing journey together.

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My Poetry of Loss and Life