A Secret Health and Healing Strategy

Do you realize that you have within you an amazing and wonderful healing power?  I like to call this power “Regulation.”  Do you recognize that it NEVER makes a mistake?  Every adjustment it makes to your hormones, your circulation, your blood pressure, your digestion…is perfectly designed to give you the best probability of you living another day…week…month…year.  

It never gets “bummed out” because we don’t show it enough appreciation.  It never acts passive-aggressively to hurt us.  It is always with us, lovingly on duty…never sleeping.  

Do you know that it knows far more than we do about health and healing?  And I mean waaaaay more.  Even with the advances in modern medicine, the extent we can look inside the body, measure function, and observe what hormones seem to do…we are less than a child looking at a fine work of art… and seeing scribbles.  

We might learn more if we stopped trying to fight Regulation.  We suppress symptoms and block functions with pharmaceuticals, add hormones where Regulation has decreased those hormones, and cut out pieces that are damaged or diseased.  Regulation could clean and shine each and every organ…vanquish all invasions from immune challenges…and cure any chronic disease (and it has cured all diseases on some occasions).  

The primary way that Regulation communicates with us is our symptoms.  Symptoms are the things we feel…like headaches, tummy aches, or tiredness.  We can also observe “signs.”  Signs are things we can see or hear…like a drippy nose, diarrhea, sneezing, swelling, or redness.  

I think Regulation would really appreciate if we listened closely, noticed and responded in ways that support Regulation…maybe even thanked Regulation for sending the message.  Living in appreciation of regulation is a HUGE secret of health and healing.  

How might that look?  Well, we’d have to completely change our attitudes about symptoms.  We wouldn’t have to like them, but we would appreciate them, much like we appreciate the brake light that forewarns us of disaster.  We might suppress the symptom, like a smoke alarm after we were able to put out the fire on the stove.  If we ever suppressed the symptom, though, we would always be attending to the cause of the symptom.  

We would practice listening.  If we feel tired, we would consider if we are sick (immune challenges), stressed, dehydrated, undernourished, over stimulated or under stimulated.  If we guessed sick, we would eat Echinacea, goldenseal, or other immune herbs (our family uses Congaplex and Elderberry most often) and we would rest.  If we guessed stressed, we would eat ginseng, lemon balm, passion flower, or other “anti-stress” plants or nutrients (our family uses AdrenalCalm and most of what I have mentioned)…and we would rest.  Or we would drink, eat, rest, or exercise.  If we rested and we felt worse, we might exercise…or vice versa.  

If we had a headache, we would consider the same…and maybe add considering injury or muscle tension and rub our neck and take a relaxing herb like chamomile or a nutrient like magnesium.  

If our symptoms became chronic, we would say, “I’m sorry, I love you (me), please forgive me, thank you”…which is a mantra from Hawaiian Kahunas or healers.  We might then visit the local healer to discover the natural medicines your body wants to aid this state of imbalance.  And then we would go home and rest, nourish, drink, and (lightly) exercise (if it felt energizing…and I mean a lasting energy, not “I am on speed and then crash”).  

We would also be patient at this point…perhaps continuing the Kahunas’ mantra.  We would look for little signs of returning health…a little more energy…a little better digestion…elimination…sleep.  That means we would have to take inventory daily…really pay attention to the subtlety of the messages, to see if they are getting louder or quieter.  We would not demand silence; in fact, we might even offer appreciation to Regulation for letting us know that we are not living in balance.  We would only take a symptom suppressing medication if the symptom was sooo loud it prevented sleep. 

     

We would take special care in our nourishment…extra greens which are soothing, as is regular protein, every couple hours.  If the tummy is talking to us, maybe some ginger, cabbage soup, or fermented veggies.  If the joints are complaining, maybe some curry veggies, cherries, or whole chicken soup (meaning soup bones, not feathers).  If your brain is foggy, maybe some walnuts, avocado, or salmon steak (I just take fish oils, personally).  We would not eat endurance foods, like rice, potatoes, grains or other carb rich foods, and instead exchange that “spot” on our plate with other healing foods…cauliflower, asparagus, broccoli, spinach, etc.  If we listened closely, we might discover what our body is desiring in that moment.

We might also scan our lives for defensiveness…what do we feel criticized about…what triggers our anger…what do we argue about (don’t forget that sometimes we argue by disconnecting or avoidance)?  We might scan for our burdens…obligations…have to’s…shoulds.  Often times we can’t see them as in the old analogy of asking a fish about the water (it’s such a part of your environment and experience that it becomes sub-conscious…like air) …so your healer should have an ability to observe these stressors and guide you toward ease.  Keep looking though, with practice we will get better at observing our environment.

What a difference that would be compared to our current attitudes and actions.  In our culture, people see symptoms as a nuisance and pain, rather than a message.  Our medical system practices symptom suppression, and we have a message suppressor for nearly every symptom.  Rarely do we take responsibility for our health, assuming modern medicine will fix what breaks, and assuming that our bodies are less than perfect and will break down.  (If Regulation had a “thinking” brain, it would surely be offended!)

It’s actually amazing that Regulation keeps us alive as long as it does!  

I invite you to join me…brag about your low threshold of pain, suffering, or even discomfort!  Tune in to your messages and learn how to respond.  Embrace your symptoms as signs of imbalance in your life.  Stock your medicine cabinet with herbs and nutritionals for immune, digestive, stress, and inflammation support.  Admit that life is often challenging, and that you do need stress support (I am almost always on stress support, and we routinely rub Adrenalcalm on our kids feet…being a kid is tough too!).  

Live in appreciation of Regulation…that is a powerful, and no longer secret, health and healing strategy!