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Throwing up is no fun for anyone. But, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a purpose.
Like fear—true fear—is one of the body’s safety mechanisms to warn us of imminent danger and protect us from harm, throwing up may not feel good, but, when that’s just what we need, not doing it could be far worse.
Throwing up is a purging. That is, when you throw up, you expel something. On one level, it is a physical purging; an expulsion of something material. But, it could also be a mental, emotional and/or spiritual purging as well.
A Physical Purge
We’re all used to throwing up if we’re sick, like with a bad cold or flu. Most of us have thrown up after eating spoiled food or simply food our bodies disagreed with; or, after inhaling a strong or foul, like sewage or smoke or chemical fumes. Pregnancy, excessive alcohol, hangover, motion sickness, overeating, even extreme physical pain can trigger the reflexive physical reactions of nausea and vomiting.
It seems it would go without saying but (to say it anyway) on a fundamental level, vomiting is a physical act. In response to some trigger, the muscles of the digestive system essentially “spasm” and reverse direction, taking churned up digestive juices (acids) and any food or other matter still processing in the stomach back up and out the same way it came in.
In some of these cases, the body is literally eliminating substances from itself that it cannot tolerate; in others, the body is merely responding as such. Either way, also like fear, it is a way the body protects itself from danger and harm.
Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Purges
While throwing up, by definition, always has a physical component, there may also be mental, emotional and/or spiritual factors involved.
Louise Hay, author of Heal Your Body, the groundbreaking compendium of mental causes for physical ailments and their “metaphysical” solutions, writes of vomiting that it is caused by a “violent rejection of ideas” and “fear of the new.”
If you’ve been throwing up and can’t directly trace it to a physical cause, ask yourself what ideas you may be rejecting or what newness in your life you are afraid of.
Louise Hay recommends as treatment for this ailment affirming that only good things come to and through you and you have the capability to “safely and joyously” digest life.
It could also be much simpler than that. You could have some emotion like guilt, self-doubt anger or grief so bottled up inside you that your body eventually gives out. It can’t hold it in any longer. It can’t keep up with this punishment. If you won’t cry or communicate or whatever it is you’re avoiding doing, the body takes over with its own way of getting bad things out.
Vomiting is a sign; it’s up to you to read it.
Author: Sage Kalmus
