The "Ladder of Cause"

“I feel tired all the time…I’m so constipated…my hair is falling out…and I can’t lose this belly!!”

The understanding of why these symptoms exist is often… “I have a thyroid problem.”  I challenge you to wonder why you have a thyroid problem.  Why is the problem there?  This is the “one more question” concept I have written about for years that has allowed me to help people recover from having the problem. 

Let’s take it even further and keep asking why, like the little child who just won’t quit.  You know the one… “why is the sky blue…why does water reflect blue…why do our eyes see blue…why does the retina read it that way…why…why???” 

Rung one:  Why do I have these symptoms?  A: Your thyroid is broken.  They don’t say it quite this way, but that’s the just of it.  Call it hypothyroidism, a thyroid problem…whatever…it means your thyroid is broken.  

Rung two: Why is my thyroid broken?  A: Your body is in stress overload, and when the internal environment detects stress that is overwhelming and not being addressed, it slows down.  You are experiencing the slow down of thyroid function as a survival mechanism to deal with your stress.

Rung three: Why am I in stress overload?   We all have an individual stress threshold, which I call our “stress bucket.”  When this bucket is full, the body slows you down and gives you a smaller bucket…to protect your heart and brain.  (Most people know exactly what I mean…decreasing stress capacity… declining ability to handle life…that’s the overflowing and shrinking bucket)  What fills the bucket of course, are life’s little (and big) stressors, but oh, so much more.  This bucket is also filled by inflammation, blood sugar ups and downs, circulation and oxygen delivery problems, infections, food allergens, chemical sensitivities, and toxicity.  Plus, when you are stressed, your body gets more effective at producing stress hormones, so eventually, a little stress results in a BIG effect.  AND…stress causes inflammation… and… inflammation causes stress.  So, eventually, the negative process going on inside your body is “feeding” itself!  Sounds hopeless, but with a little understanding of how it works, we can step in and pull the “right” domino and stop the whole process! 

Rung four:  Why am I inflamed, oxygen deprived, or up and down with my blood sugar (or all three)?  There is always a first domino…sometimes it is life challenges, sometimes it is immune challenges, and sometimes it is lifestyle.  Life shows up inside us as cortisol and adrenaline, our “stress” hormones.  Immune challenges show up as a vast array of inflammation chemicals that I won’t even begin to bore you with specific names (although I do in other articles).  Lifestyle shows up as blood sugar and insulin problems, from eating the “wrong” foods too often, too much, and for too long.  (We all know “enough” about right and wrong foods to know if this is our first domino…sugar, white flour, processed fats, chemical laden foods…not natural foods.)

Rung five:  Why did I get stuck in such a harmful stress, inflammation, or insulin pattern?  We are all symptom suppressors.  It is taught to us as kids.  Our mainstream health care system practices symptom suppression medicine.  Our culture teaches us to work through the pain, and that suffering is virtuous.  Not absolutely…not in every family…but generally.  And if you have the above symptoms, or others, you most likely (in fact, I’ll take a big fat bet on it) approached your life and health this way.  You are probably much more aware now, probably eating healthy foods most or all of the time.  You did listen, and you did learn…but you have this stress/inflammation/insulin process feeding off itself inside you, and more than likely (another big fat bet), you have one or more organs that are completely exhausted and need reviving.  The kind of reviving that only targeted natural medicines can achieve.  

Rung six…seven…eight.  We could go further…Why is our culture and environment like that?  Why don’t we listen to our symptoms and try to nurture them?  What life patterns drain my reserves?  Why…Why?  

We have gone far enough (down the rabbit hole as they say in quantum physics) to attend to your specific needs.  AND…right now is NOT the time to concern yourself with culture issues or any issues outside yourself.  It is time to focus entirely (or much more so) on you…so that one day you can give that energy to your favorite and most passionate cause.  (Exciting thought isn’t it!)

How far do you want to go down the rabbit hole?!?  Your future depends on your willingness to dig and learn…and respond!