What To Do When Your Efforts For Health Don’t Seem To Be Working
Annnnd I am sick.
It’s just a cold, likely the Rhinovirus, and I want to talk about why I really got it and what it is teaching me.
I don’t ‘catch’ what is going around during cold and flu season. I worked diligently for over 9 years, from age 25–34, to heal my chronic childhood illnesses with the guidance of my own Naturopathic Physician and mentor, Dr Dickson Thom. He took me through The Four Phases of Healing and after I completed the brain protocol (utilizing homeopathy to heal epigenetic and intergenerational trauma) in 2014 I now only get sick when one of two things happen:
I have allowed myself to get MAJORLY run down, burning the candle at every possible end, usually with a layer of emotional stress on top of it. Then, no surprise, I get sick as my body reminds me my self care is non-negotiable.
I have had a major shift emotionally or spiritually, often following an intense spiritual retreat or ceremony, and my body is discharging held inflammation or toxicity that no longer is a match for my level of life and vitality and, just as it is designed to do, my body kicks it out. I call this a ‘spiritual flu’ and the last time I had one was actually just as I went into my 28-day plant medicine dieta in Peru last November.
This time I was sure it was #1 as I just completed helping my mother move into a new home and have been processing deep pockets of grief about my father’s death inside every cabinet, box, and closet. Yes, I have been under more stress than usual, but as my symptoms have started to subside the downloads are coming in and it is unquestionable to me that this was in fact a spiritual healing; cleaning out the old and making space for the new creative life force energy to come in.
Is this how YOU see your colds, bronchitis, or flus? If not, I invite you to try it on.
Are you listening for the lessons, the inspiration, and the downloads as you come back into wellness after a winter illness? Are you allowing yourself to meditate, journal, and hear the guidance from inside your body-mind? Or did you down the last dose of cold medicine and just jump right back into work and your usual routines?
While looking for inspiration for this weeks newsletter, I went back to some journaling I have done over the years. Today’s content comes directly from morning pages I wrote on January 9, 2020! Interesting timing to muse about what it takes to heal, I think.
If you hear your story in any of today’s words, reach out to me and schedule a free conversation. I am here to help you find your way into a new model of health, a new way of healing and a new way to use your illnesses as guidance for fulfilling your souls purpose.
Why does it seem like my “usual” health efforts no longer work? Can we heal all the way?
What is healing? What does it look like? What does it require?
These have been the questions at the focal point of my career since before I even discovered naturopathic school.
Consider that you are more than just a well orchestrated pile of molecules, that there is something more to you. Whether you call it a soul, a spirit, You, your Consciousness, Your Personality, Your Ego… there is something. From there, it is not a far leap to see that healing requires addressing both the physicalness of you (your body, molecules, and biochemistry) as well as the YOU that you experience yourself to be every day - the Self.
FLOW, MOVEMENT & LETTING IT OUT
One of the foundational principles of Naturopathic Medicine and Biotherapeutic Drainage (the system of homeopathics, herbs, and mineral remedies I use to restore my clients’ physiology), is that natural healthy systems have flow or movement. Things are constantly and always going from one place to another: from high concentration to low concentration, from breathing oxygen in to letting carbon dioxide out. When this flow stops or becomes stagnant, waste products pile up, toxins accumulate, and cells or tissue can die or break down. This is one of the fundamental origins of disease.
In the process of healing, it is critical to reestablish flow and movement. The way our physiology works, this can be uncomfortable and can express itself in many different ways including:
Vomiting
Sweating
Diarrhea
Skin rashes
Breakouts
Wandering pains
Crying
Long, run-on sentences or thought patterns
Loquaciousness and racing mind
Bursts of anger or upset
While no one really wants to be upset, angry, or yelling, if you’re a quiet person who is now finally saying things you usually never say - it can be productive as a form of movement - a discharge of energy. From a healing context, this can lead to health and restoring the functionality of the body. Now, the key would be to allow yourself to have an opening to let things out, let things move, and express on an on-going basis so it doesn’t build up and burst, impacting others.
WHAT WE TAKE IN
Another principle of healing is nutrition, or nourishment. If the damaged or disabled cells don’t have the proper building blocks to restore itself back to full function there will always be weakness. So, while discharge, detox, and letting go is critical, what is equally critical is what we take in. This may seem fairly obvious when considering food and nutrition, but less obvious is considering breathing, kindness and love.
One of the conversations I have frequently with my clients is how they truly take care of themselves. Not just what they do, such as eat protein and vegetables, floce their teeth, and go to the gym. But how they CARE for themselves, how they speak to themselves, and how they think about themselves. I often ask my clients to imagine yourself, in your illness, as a small, sick child in your care. If that were the case what would you do for this child? How would you be with them? What would you say? When would you make them go to bed? What would you be sure they ate?
Often they respond with things like, “I would kiss them on the forehead and tell them to go to bed and get rest.” They would be firm and kind. They wouldn’t let them stay up to 1am every night responding to emails, finishing reports for work or binging television.
We are living in a culture where all the focus is on action and doing to produce results. We interact with our bodies like they are machines to be fixed or optomized. We live like simply pushing the right buttons will produce new products. There is a level of truth to this, but at the deepest recesses of healing it takes much more.
LEVELS OF HEALING
There is a hierarchy, i.e. levels of healing. As my clients move through their journey, I watch them walk this path down into the layers. What once worked before is no longer as effective. At first that can seem like a failure, but it’s not - it’s actually an evolution.
When we embark on your process to restore health, it is critical to address the basic physical needs of your body, and it makes a huge difference. Changes in diet, eating fresh whole foods, cutting out processed foods, taking out inflammatory or reactive foods, and eating simple meals can do drastic things to your physiology.
Next, I move on to your sleep, addressing routine, quality, and quantity. After that, water consumption and hydration. This can take 2-3 months depending on the extent of change and the aspects of your life that need to be re-orchestrated to achieve about 80% reliability of healthy habits for each of these areas of your life.
Sometimes, people who come to me have already been doing this work. (Sometimes for years!) They have been on all the diets, they have tried all the supplements, they have often been to many other practitioners.
What then? How can I help them now? What is next in their journey? What’s missing? What has been overlooked?
This is often where I see the next phase of healing is critical - not just what they are doing but how they are doing it. Its not so much about how reliable are they for eating a clean diet (often beating themselves up in the process) but how flexible they are with themselves, how forgiving, how willing to explore new ideas and expand beyond the way things are, developing resilience, adaptability, and compassion.
They often come in saying things like, “I know what to do I just can’t make myself do it.” “I am doing all the things and I still have X or Y symptom after all these years.” “I just can’t lose the weight, or it just comes right back.”
They often have read more books on their condition than I have, have been on all the forums, and researched extensively on the internet. They are filled with fear and frustration.
So, then what? What do you do now? Throw your arms up and say, “I am screwed!”?
Maybe.
Or maybe this is where it is critical to open ourselves to a new model of care. One that gives us a glimpse of a path into unknown worlds, uncharted territory. One that helps us see patterns in the darkness. Gives us long standing truths and laws we can rely on. A path that is governed by nature’s laws. One could say, a Natural Path.
This is where things start to get interesting, and where I love being on the journey with my clients.