In my past few posts, I’ve outlined some of the more tangible physiological aspects of the thyroid gland and its relationship with minerals and migraine headache. But in a truly holistic approach to healing, we must always consider the emotional/spiritual aspects as well. Healing the thyroid emotionally is a process of coming deeper into alignment with our inner authenticity and body awareness, and learning how to express that in our voice, our relationships to others, and in how we live our lives.
Migraineurs seem to have a tendency to feel more pressure than others when it comes to performance, meeting others’ expectations, and doing the “right” thing. This can be stressful. Since migraineurs may be more externally-motivated than others, while at the same time more physically challenged in their ability to meet life’s demands, it becomes clear that healing migraine is the act of reorienting to our own inner compass so that we can regulate our stress, relationships, and energy better.
The throat is where all these competing energies interface – the energies from the rest our body, including our heart’s desire – and where they meet with our mind’s concepts of how we think we “should” show up in the world.
The thyroid gland (and throat chakra in general) is the place in the body that integrates the lower half of the body and its chakras with the head. It is also the place where we can connect to our authentic self through the voice.
If there is compromised function in the thyroid gland, this can manifest emotionally in many ways – from an inability to speak one’s truth (hypo), to a tendency to verbalize externally without listening to others (hyper).
Because there are thyroid hormone receptors all throughout our body, all of which play a role in migraine by way of their influence on our muscle tone, blood sugar metabolism, and even how congested our sinus is, it is valuable to focus on healing this gland to become more balanced overall.
Luckily, we have access to ancient healing traditions such as Ayurveda that have elucidated very sophisticated insights into this part of our body through the concept of the chakra system.
Healer Donna Eden, author of Energy Medicine, says the following about the throat chakra:
The throat chakra has been referred to as the Holy Grail of the chakras because it holds information from all the chakras. Energies from the sixth and seventh chakras move town through the throat on their way to the trunk of the body; energies from the root, womb, solar plexus, and heart chakras move up through the throat on their way to the head. Within the sacred container of the throat chakra, all of this energy and information is “metabolized” – broken down and put back together into a form that becomes your unique expression in the world.
Speaking Up (Anabolic) and Listening (Catabolic)
What is your unique expression in the world? How do you express your sense of purpose and identity? Do you do this with ease? How able are you to receive others’ expression?
As a migraineur, are you able to speak for your unique needs in a way that elicits support from others? Are you comfortable asking for help, or do you minimize your needs?
What creative forms of self-expression offer you solace in the midst of healing a chronic pain condition like migraine? What forms of self-expression did you used to partake of before migraine, and how can you reincorporate them into your life? What new forms of self-expression are you drawn to exploring?
These are all questions that strike at the heart of how our throat chakra is doing, and how we are living through our throat chakra as a felt experience. Self-expression is at the heart of how we metabolize our experience of life.
Donna Eden spells it out clearly:
Just as the thyroid gland breaks down food and synthesizes it to build and maintain the physical body, the throat chackra breaks down the energies that travel through it and synthesizes them to build and maintain the energy body.
The two basic behavioral difficulties people have that are connected with the throat chackra are that they can’t speak up or they can’t shut up. Speaking up is an anabolic process – putting things together and expressing them. Keeping quiet is a catabolic process – receiving and assimilating.
I have a fast metabolism and lean towards hyper-thyroid, which, according to Donna Eden, is an anabolic orientation. I can synthesize information very rapidly and communicate it as well. But this can get out of balance.
Fast metabolic types like myself can help their thyroid by slowing down their drive to express and synthesize information, and by listening to others more. We can also help to balance our thyroid by tuning into our hearts, rather than letting our heads run the show. This synthesis of head and heart is the ultimate balance, with a clear flow of energy going back and forth between the top and bottom of the body.
Donna Eden has a fascinating description in her book of a woman who was hyperthyroid and always intent on speaking her “truth”, but was unable to connect to her tender heart. This woman’s sense of tempo and timing were also very out of synch with the people around her. Her hyoid bone, the thin bone that the thyroid is attached to, “seemed stuck, like a throttle that is always open”. Donna taught her how to bring better balance to her throat chakra by stretching and pulling on her neck and hyoid bone.
The converse is also true: those with slower thyroid function (catabolic) can balance their thyroid by speaking up more. Those who don’t speak up, rather than being overbearing like hyperthyroid folks, tend to not want to make waves or hurt other people. They tend to be very diplomatic and kind people with beautiful singing voices, but fear treading on other people’s truth and often withold themselves. Their relationships may be one-sided.
The Shield in Your Throat
It very may well be that many of us are not strictly hyper or hypo thyroid, but swing between different states, or are only comfortable with types of self-expression that were approved of by our parents. For example, I am very verbally analytical and expressive in written form, but have never learned to sing. Aside from the songs I would sing to my children at night, I never felt the same level of boldness expressing myself through song that I do in other forms of communication.
Knowing how much singing and humming tones the vagus nerve, and also wanting to grow in this area, I have finally begun to practice singing some Lakota songs with my husband. He is also teaching me how to drum.
In my own life, I have felt safe and sure expressing myself using the gifts I’ve felt confident of: analysis and synthesis of complex information. I believe this is because it is these skills that were valued by my father, whose opinion growing up I held high.
But I’ve noticed that whenever I have an emotion arise from the heart that is judged by me as “unacceptable”, I gulp. My emotions are often thwarted by what the head “judges” is acceptable or not, and so the emotion wells up and gets stuck in the throat.
I have witnessed this many times with clients as well. There is something about healing migraine that involves the ability to honor the sensitivity of feeling as it wells up and helping it to find a clear expression, one that feels comfortable and powerful even while vulnerable, so that the head and the heart can reconnect.
But the socially programmed mind does not like this. Doesn’t like it at all. Hence, the gulp – the shoving down of that which is “unacceptable.” I was not aware of this tendency of mine until I went into an altered state in a breath work journey and had an acute experience of myself swallowing any time that my brain thought of something that caused a feeling of apprehension or fear or danger. Usually the apprehension, fear, or danger was that which arose at the thought of some form of self-expression.
It can be hard on our thyroid gland when we shove back down essential parts of ourselves. I think this mechanism has to do with how we as social animals seek to control and stifle authentic expression so as to do what is seen as socially acceptable, which is a survival mechanism.
It’s very interesting, therefore, that in his book Gene Keys, Richard Rudd notes that:
In Dutch, the word for larynx is called schildklier, which means shield gland, suggesting that the larynx is a protective mechanism concealing a great secret. Interestingly, the word thyroid derives from the Greek word for shield. . . The thyroid gland can be employed by the conceptual mind and its societal programming to shove down or “shield” itself from uncomfortable emotions welling up from below.
I thought that this excerpt was fascinating because it speaks to something I’ve emotionally experienced in my thyroid gland. As I learn to validate and communicate my feelings to others – and even to sing! – I find that my relationships improve, there is a greater lightness of being, and less tension in my system. This healing requires reprogramming very deep-seated messages that we took in as children about the safety of being ourselves.
Laughter, Crying, Creativity & the Heart
Other forms of self-expression are laughter and crying. When you laugh or cry you enter the sacred realm of transformation. As Richard Rudd says, “It is through your laughter and your tears that the transcendent enters your body in order to alter your chemistry and the patterns of your breathing.“
As we become aware of tension in the throat area and stop shutting ourselves down, we find that our seriousness lifts, we enjoy life more, we cry and laugh more easily, and we become more loving and creative.
The second chakra (womb) and the fifth chakra (throat) are intimately connected. The second chakra is the seat of our creative power, and the fifth helps us to express it. It’s no wonder that many people, myself included, find their authentic expression through creative outlets. For me, this outlet has always been writing and beadwork – both forms of weaving.
So, to connect the heart and head, we sing, we laugh, we cry, be vulnerable, and create. By opening up our throat chakra, by witnessing and listening to others, and expressing ourselves, the energy from the heart can come up, nourishing our lives, and all the concepts and mental “shoulds” can get grounded back in our body and properly metabolized.
Richard Rudd says:
Beneath the layers of karma, ancestral fear and inevitable childhood conditioning beats an aspect of the great universal Heart.
Tools to Transform Imbalanced Throat Chackra Energy
So how can you tune in to your throat chakra as an energetic reality, and thereby support your thyroid gland and heart/brain health?
- Develop self-awareness around when you shut your self-expression down or “swallow” or shield your truth.
- Start a singing practice.
- Give yourself permission to laugh and cry.
- Massage your throat, pulling down on the hyoid bone.
- If you tend to have a fast metabolism and are very outspoken, practice listening and receiving more.
- If you tend to have a slow metabolism and are more meek, practice speaking up more.
- To balance the pressures from the head and integrate the head and the heart at the throat, pay attention to your heartspace and learn to honor your emotions, your sensitivity, and your heart’s desire.
- Speak soothing words to the inner child who thinks that her survival depends on staying shut down. The vulnerability required to express yourself with this strength will actually help her and you to thrive.
- . . . and of course, support your thyroid function through mineral balancing.
