Your healing is up to you...

Chronic illness is quite widespread these days. This term covers a broad range of illnesses and ailments such as diabetes, heart disease, lupus, Lyme, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, neuropathy, anxiety, depression, endometriosis, and the list goes on and on. Statistically in the United States of America, 6 out of 10 adults have a chronic illness, and 4 out of 10 have more than one.

From my observations, most people go to their doctor and completely submit to the western medical system. It’s like they see this person in the white coat and consider them a god that is all-knowing. They expect their doctor to diagnose and treat them, and if they can’t then they start to go down a rabbit hole of specialists and tests to rule things out. If they can’t find the cause of their issues then they succumb to living with some strange ailments for life just assuming that the doctors they saw know absolutely everything there is to know about healing.

Sometimes the fact that a doctor can’t find any major issues causes stress levels to lower and people will experience a short reprieve from their symptoms. This is generally short-lived because the fact is that the body IS out of balance and there is healing work that needs to be done.

Some people will continue to search for answers and start to turn to functional medicine, eastern medicine, and alternative treatments, while others tend to get frustrated and angry with their body becoming depressed they can’t find answers and often become worse over time.

I was always determined to find a way through my illness and come out on the other side. I had many doubts and questions along the way but I was always persistent about doing everything I possibly could to heal. My biggest mistake was generally trying too many things at once and not knowing what was helping or not! I learned my lesson there too.

I thought I would give you my top five tips for taking control of your healing journey. I have to tell you, doctors know a lot about pathology and disease, and most of them know very little about healing. You can’t just give your healing power over to a stranger when you have the greatest capacity to heal by listening to your own inner wisdom. Whether you are struggling with mental health issues or physical ones, there are always ways that you can accelerate your healing.

1. Research. Knowledge is power! You have way more time to study your specific issues than your doctor does. You never know how up-to-date they are on your specific illness and there are so many alternative treatments that no doctor could be up to date on everything.

Research your disease and truly understand what is happening on a cellular level. This will help you become knowledgeable about what is actually going on in your body. This can also help you meditate and use visual imagery to imagine your body healing on a cellular level.

Then research supplements, diets, and alternative remedies for your specific issues and ailments. I would constantly bring new research to my doctor and ask him to help me form a new plan under his guidance.

There are always changes you can make that can support your healing. You may also want to research stories of people that have healed from your disease to help you believe that it is possible and inspire you to keep searching for answers.

2. Support your body’s basic needs. How can you expect your body to heal if you aren’t taking proper care of its most basic needs? I’m talking about sleeping, drinking, and eating here. You heal when you sleep so your sleep routine should be a priority. Make sure you are not only getting enough sleep but also getting quality sleep. Try using a guided relaxation to help calm down your mind and nervous system before bed and you will sleep much sounder.

Then start drinking more water and you may want to test the quality of your water - if you are hydrating with toxins then you won’t be feeling your best anytime soon. Many physical ailments are exacerbated by dehydration so make sure you are staying hydrated.

3. Food is medicine. Hippocrates taught us this thousands of years ago and most people still don’t get it. Every day you choose to fuel your body with medicine or poison. Educate yourself on different foods that could be healing for your conditions. It can also be helpful to have your food sensitivities and allergies tested to make sure something you commonly eat isn’t aggravating your system. You also may want to look into Ayurveda. The Ayurvedic system is all about using lifestyle routines and food choices to bring your body into balance as a way to prevent and reverse disease.

4. Make self-care a priority. Meditation and guided relaxation can be helpful for every disease. Take the time to make sure you are managing your stress levels, decompressing, and filling your cup in a way that resonates with you.

Most animals are conditioned to be under fight or flight for a 15-minute period which is about enough time to outrun a predator. We are under continued stress all day long and need to take more time to recalibrate and give our nervous system a rest.

You know when you have five minutes and you pick up your phone and start scrolling? What if every time you go to do that, you opened up your meditation app and did five minutes of deep breathing instead? The Balance app is free for the next year, give it a try!

5. Contemplate the spiritual and subconscious side of your healing journey. Your disease is giving you a pretty strong wake-up call to pay attention to something. This is very rarely to actually get you to pay attention to the physical body, that is just the vehicle to slow you down and get you thinking.

Now that your body isn’t moving with such ease, it’s time to pause and reflect. What are you avoiding? What is in your past that you haven’t forgiven? What traumas have you spiritually bypassed over? Look into the subconscious connections to both your symptoms and your illness to see what subconscious beliefs could be blocking your path to healing.

The research mode from step one can continue here by looking into the power of the mind to heal. My top three favorite resources on this are the books “Mind Over Medicine” and “You are the Placebo”, and the docuseries “Rewired” by Dr. Joe Dispenza.

We have a culture of escapism. Most people are eating their feelings, binging on Netflix to avoid their reality, scrolling every spare minute of their lives away, or burying themselves in people-pleasing and solving everyone else’s problems in an effort to escape their own personal issues and healing.

We have so much control over our lives and our healing but we don’t seem to acknowledge this. I’m not sure why I see so many people just submit to a diagnosis. I always thought as humans that we were conditioned to want to be the survivor, not the victim, but I’m learning more and more that most people play the victim role throughout their entire lives. We choose to cling to a story from our past that is only a fraction of the truth. It is a tiny piece of the story that we have let become our identity and ultimately it has made us into a victim rather than a superhero.

I hope this article helps inspire and encourage you to take your healing journey into your own hands. What do you want your life story to be? The victim that submitted to a diagnosis or the warrior that was determined to beat it and did? I know what I chose.