When the body talks: Exploring the emotional roots of disease
An intro to German New Medicine (GNM)
What if the cure for your symptoms isn’t in the medicine cabinet, but in your mind?
Anyone who knows me knows that I am the most health-conscious person in the group— I eat whole foods, I don’t drink or do drugs, I workout… I do all the “right things”. And yet, I have the most health issues out of all of my friends and family…
so what gives?!
Since I started working with my new coach Ryan Rose, I’ve been introduced to a new approach of looking at my health symptoms. To be honest, in all the many years of being immersed in the wellness world, I had never heard of this philosophy before. I was beyond intrigued– it felt like a combination of concepts that I had already wholeheartedly believed in (like the mind-body connection) and other concepts that were the exact opposite of everything I knew to be true in the western world. Let me explain.
Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer, a German doctor, developed German New Medicine (GNM) after his son tragically passed away, and he soon developed testicular cancer. At first, he didn’t consider the connection, but later realized his emotional trauma seemed to align with his illness. Hamer discovered that emotional stress, like grief, could trigger a myriad of diseases— including cancer. He believed that testicular cancer, in particular, was tied to emotional struggles around family and trauma around losing a child, as the testicles represent a man’s role in nurturing and protecting his family.
Hamer’s own diagnosis led him to see disease not as random but as a physical response to unresolved emotional trauma. Noticing similar patterns in his patients, he developed the idea that healing emotional wounds could be the missing key to help the body heal— and German New Medicine was born.
GNM is a new way of treating your physical symptoms by looking at the timeline of emotional events that lead up to the health crisis. Instead of seeing symptoms as “the body is broken and needs to be fixed”, GNM encourages finding the emotional source of the health issues to resolve them. Think of it like your body’s way of showing you there’s something deeper going on, and if you don’t address it, the illness will keep showing up.
How Does GNM Work?
There are 5 Major Laws of Biology (AKA How GNM Explains Disease) that explain how this mind-body connection works. In short:
Law 1: Every disease is caused by an unresolved emotional conflict or trauma, which creates a "conflict shock" that messes with how your body operates.
Law 2: The conflict is linked to a part of the brain, and it affects specific organs connected to that brain area.
Law 3: The disease itself goes through 3 phases: First, you get the shock, next the disease appears (think of it like your body “playing out” the emotional conflict), and lastly it goes into a healing phase when the conflict is resolved.
Law 4: The healing phase can cause more symptoms (this is the part that seems to confuse me the most), but it’s part of the body’s natural way of dealing with the emotional conflict.
Law 5: Your body is always trying to "heal" by resolving emotional conflicts. If you can fix the emotional issue, your body can heal itself.
Let’s use me as an example…
My biggest most concerning symptom right now (that I talked about in great detail in my last post) is dizziness or vertigo. In GNM, dizziness and vertigo are thought to be linked to emotional conflicts that mess with your sense of direction or stability in life.
The Emotional Conflict (phase 1): Dizziness happens when you’re emotionally “off-balance” or feeling like you’ve lost your direction in life. This could be from anything that throws you off, like a breakup, job loss, or major life shift.
The Body’s Response (phase 2): Your inner ear and balance system are linked to your ability to feel grounded and oriented. So if you're feeling emotionally unstable, your body might reflect that with dizziness or vertigo.
The Healing Phase (phase 3): GNM says that once you work through and resolve that emotional conflict, your physical symptoms like dizziness should start to fade, and you’ll feel more balanced—both physically and mentally.
I can personally attest to this insight as being pretty damn accurate! It’s actually wild. We are putting the pieces of my health timeline together to figure out where this all stems from, and are getting closer to the mark.
The Controversy
Now, not everyone buys into GNM. It’s definitely been called quack science before. But in my experience, the quack science is usually dead-on, and it's mainstream medicine that needs to catch up. Traditional medicine is all about biology, anatomy, and treatment, so the whole mind-body connection thing can be seen as pretty “out there”.
If you’re someone who’s into doing the deep, inner work (like me!) and already believes in mind-body wellness, GNM will make a lot of sense. It’s about realizing that the stress, trauma, and emotional issues you face can have a major impact on your health. For some people, GNM can be a tool for thinking differently about health, and it can encourage healing through self-awareness and emotional growth.
At the end of the day, it’s all about balance, baby!
Regardless if you follow GNM or not, taking care of your mental wellbeing is just as important (if not more) as going to the gym or eating right (it’s all connected). So if you know you are dealing with major emotional baggage, it's definitely worth considering the impact it could have on your health—and how addressing it could lead to better overall well-being, once and for all.
I’m really excited to see where this work with coach Ryan takes me, as I dive deeper into the root cause of my physical symptoms using tools like GNM! Updates to come :)
xoxo Lauren
PS let me know if you have any questions about GNM— leave a comment below!