The Interconnectedness of the Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual in Effective Communication

Effective communication has a direct role in physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness. Effective communication allows for mental, emotional, and spiritual expression that often prevents the manifestation of physical symptoms. It is well known that emotional, mental, and spiritual dysfunction and disturbance manifests as physicals symptoms on the body. Being unable to share your authentic voice is confining, limiting, and unnatural. Over time, repressed thoughts and emotions find a way to express themselves even if verbally unspoken. Think about it this way, those unconfronted, unexpressed thoughts and emotions do not go away unnoticed. However, they may change form into chronic pain or dis-ease on the body.

Dis-ease, known as disease, is an altered state of being that is out of alignment with your ideal nature. While most people only consider the concrete, physical manifestations, the dis-ease is cumulative and encompasses many factors other than the direct, physical result. Dis-ease is the combination of emotional, mental, and spiritual disturbance that are unresolved. While it can be difficult to pinpoint the direct cause of most physical symptoms, it is well understood that there is always a cascade of events that facilitate any physical dysfunction and disturbance in the body. Regardless if there is an acute event or chronic event, multiple factors precipitate the likelihood of the event, the severity and the intensity of what transpires, and the lasting impact on the body- all of which depend on the interconnectedness between the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical.

Effective communication even amongst oneself is an avenue you can use to release thoughts and emotions to prevent or minimize detrimental or adverse physical manifestations. Expressing your innermost truths may result in an emotional release such as crying that will allow the energetic space of the thoughts and emotions to move outward instead of inward to be stored. Often, the expression of the mental, emotional, and spiritual results in noticeable physical relief on the body. Being able to release your thoughts and emotions effectively will minimize the likelihood those thoughts and emotions will stay within your body and permeate over time.

If you’ve ever wondered how to go about recognizing any potential blockages or dysfunction within, the journal exercise below might be helpful. Recognizing the interconnectedness between the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical is something that even a novice or someone who is new to this process can traverse with relative ease. It only takes a certain degree of honesty with oneself.

Journal Exercise:

Describe a time when you expressed a deep truth or difficult topic with your partner or amongst yourself. Consider the following questions to guide you through this exercise.

1. Identify the mental thoughts you felt prior to the experience and thoughts you felt after the experience. Specifically, how did your mental thoughts shift once there was effective communication?

2. Now do the same for the emotional aspect. Specifically, how did your emotional state shift once there was effective communication? Did you experience an emotional release?

3. Similarly, do the same for the spiritual or energetic state before and after the experience. Did you feel lighter or heavier once you expressed your truth? How did your energy body change and/or did you feel energy move?

4. Finally, identify the physical state before and after the experience. Did self-expression result in any physical manifestations on the body? Consider body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, body pain, body pressure, changes in salvia, heart palpations, vision changes, physical tension in body, etc.

5. Did you notice an interdependence and interconnectedness between your thoughts, emotions, spiritual/energetic state, and physical state? How did the expression of the mental impact your physical body? How did the expression of the emotional impact your physical body? How did your spiritual/ energetic state impact your physical body?

This journal exercise helps illustrate the interconnectedness of the four bodies during one, acute event, but consider the impact of these four bodies long-term or on a chronic basis. This is why effective communication expressed consistently in the short-term during acute events is so crucial to overall health and wellness long-term. Effective communication is the avenue for all four bodies to be expressed and recognized.

- Jaclyn