MInd Body Connection

Unleashing the Healer Within

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Earlier this week, I received an email from a kind soul who had been struggling with chronic infections and had taken my advice and ran with it. As I read his email, the scripted words transformed into tears in my eyes, and in that moment my purpose was clarified. He wrote,

“I can’t thank you enough for sending me down this rabbit hole of a journey. It’s brought me comfort, energy, and confidence to take on my healing journey by myself rather than relying on practitioners who know bits and pieces of beneficial information but also could be doing harm as well. I have a renewed hope for good health, and a much better timeline for achieving that than I could have dreamed of. This all started with discovering your blog, which prompted me to try something new and different and now has led me to a ton of additional research on root/underlying causes and answers I was not finding anywhere else.”

My goal is to give others the tools, resources, and confidence to be their own healer. I am here to inspire and to teach. I want to be an inspiration, a guiding light, and a giver of hope. If you are suffering from a chronic illness not caused by acute trauma, then you can heal yourself. It is going to take time, effort, resources, and persistence, but it is possible. You are given one body, one vessel to house your soul. Only you intimately know your feelings, sensations, thoughts, memories, consciousness, and sub consciousness.

If you wish to hire a healthcare practitioners, I urge you to remember that they are consultants you are paying. Legally, all medical decisions require your informed consent. For this reason, it is your responsibility to own all health related decisions. This is a concept I did not grasp for many years.

When I was working with a functional medicine practitioner, I thought he was solely responsible for my health and wellbeing. I thought this was a puzzle I could not figure out or fix on my own. And while I did learn a lot from him, such as muscle testing, I didn’t really start to heal until I was no longer directly under his care. My health deterioration led to a serious relationship ending, an inability to work, and forced me to move back home. My trust in doctors was already extremely low due to personal experiences, and the one doctor I trusted was hundreds of miles away and I could no longer afford his services. This was terrifying. The situation I found myself in forced me to realize that nobody cared about my body or my health and wellbeing as much as I did. I made a vow to rid myself of the victim mentality and dedicated all my coherent time and energy into being my own doctor, my own science researcher, and my own healer. I stopped looking for love and validation on the outside and began to love myself unconditionally. Within weeks my health improved, my seizures decreased, my energy increased, and I felt a new sense of calm within the storm. Two years and a half years later, and I have yet to walk into a doctor’s office. They no longer offer a service I desire.

As many on health and spiritual journey will attest, it is just as important to unlearn what we have been taught as it is to learn new information. The healthcare practitioners are not the experts on your body. They are experts in literature taught in school. This literature is very limited, and if it is of the western philosophy, very lacking in knowledge and understanding of health and wellbeing due to its foundation built on the germ theory and intimate relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. One of the most important myths to unlearn is that you must suppress all symptoms of discomfort. Often times, the healing process involves discomfort. For long term health, it is important to quiet the desire to suppress symptoms and instead support the body during healing crisis with nutrition, rest, hydration, and a few tools to support elimination organs.

Resist the psychological warfare of our western culture and remind yourself that you alone are good enough. You are powerful. Your body is amazing. You can heal. Whole foods, water, sunshine, physical movement, and rest are the foundation of health and the healing process. You are capable of unleashing the healer within. If you are struggling with this, then take time to meditate. Ask yourself what it is that you need. What nourishment do you need in this moment? What is your body trying to communicate to you? Open up a daily dialogue between your mind and body. Take the first step on the journey to health with confidence and hope.

The Cancer Shame Connection: Church and Societal Influence.

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I grew up in the church. My father was a pastor, and I spent more time in the classrooms and gymnasiums of religious affiliated schools, the church office, and in the sanctuary than I did at home. I am very proud of my upbringing. It gave me a wonderful foundation full of strong morals, love for community, humility, and compassion.

However, this experience also opened my eyes to church politics and the shortcomings of the human element of religion. I’ve encountered a large number of self-proclaimed Christians who feel compelled to judge and shame others. They profess a need to control the actions and thoughts of others and do so in the name of God. Although this is an unfortunate method practiced by Christians, it has absolutely no biblical basis. We are to “love thy neighbor as thou lovest thyself” and leave the final judgement to God.

As I sit in church, I listen to the pastor as he prays for the members. I observe the increasing list of members afflicted with cancer. I observe the coffee and sugar laden food and beverages that are served at most church functions. As a pre-teen, I fondly remember looking forward to eating a donut or two and drinking a cup of coffee during Bible class.

I also remember being told that only whores wear eyeliner and nail polish, unmarried couples who live together deserve the silent treatment until they change their sinful ways, a girl’s worth is determine by her sexual purity, and people who associate with other Christian denominations are going to hell. I won’t mention other twisted philosophies regarding homosexuality, divorce, recreational drugs, and other religions. It is very important to separate the biblical teachings from the flawed human interpretation.

In this moment, I am sitting at a coffee shop sporting eye liner and a crop top that exposes my midriff to the glorious warmth of the sunshine. I have learned to love and appreciate my body, including my sexuality. Last night, I befriended a man who used to strip and struggled with a drug addiction. A few weeks ago, I befriended a man who had just gone through a divorce, and his partner who used to be a powerful drug dealer in Boston. Through self-acceptance and love, I have discovered a universal love: one love that applies to all of humanity, the earth, and its inhabitants. I no longer feel bound by peer pressure and have no desire to conform to society for the sake of feeling accepted.

I feel compelled to write on the topic of shame, guilt, and controlling behaviors, because I have received a large amount of hatred, personal attacks, and emotional abuse from people I used to consider friends and family. The more I love and accept, the more hatred and ridicule I receive. This has been very difficult for me to understand and process as I am a sensitive soul with no room for hatred in my heart. I have been told that I am a rare form, one that is appreciated by those who embrace humility and threatening to those with an inflated ego. I’ve been reminded that the people of this earth crucified Jesus, shot Martin Luther King Junior, and poisoned Socrates. Why do people feel the need to silence those who preach peace, love, and acceptance?

Furthermore, what effect does this have on the health of individuals? What happens when someone succumbs to the fear tactics of church or society? They reject who they are and sacrifice their own needs and desires to conform. They do so in search of love and acceptance. Unfortunately, the church and society only offer conditional love and acceptance. As long as you abide by their man-made rules, then they will acknowledge you as a valuable member. If you stray from the common census, then they may subject you to isolation, condemnation, or dehumanization. The fear of suffering the consequences of living a life true to oneself may overwhelm an individual. If left unresolved overtime, these fears will physically manifest in the body as an illness.

If they (cancer patients) sacrifice and neglect their own wellbeing to avoid facing any shame, guilt, or unworthiness within themselves, they are actually cutting off the very limb they are hanging on to. They are “selflessly” devoted to please other so that, in return, they may be loved and appreciated for their contributions. This, however, serves as an unconscious acknowledgement of not loving oneself. This may lock up unresolved issues, fears, and feelings of unworthiness in cellular memory of the organs and tissues of the body.

—Dr. Andreas Moritz, Cancer is Not a Disease It’s a Survival Mechanism

Throughout his 30 years of treating cancer patients, Dr. Moritz found that all cancer patients had one thing in common: they all experienced feelings of unworthiness, lacking in self-love and self-acceptance. The mere act of a cancer patient verbally acknowledging self-love has turned off the fight-or-flight response and incited a healing response that has led to spontaneous remission of cancer. Often times, healing cancer is much more complicated, but the power of the mind should not be underestimated.

What can we do as church members and individuals contributing to society to decrease the suffering associated with cancer and other chronic illnesses? We can start by choosing to love and accept ourselves in the midst of our imperfection. This will allow us to freely love and accept others, eliminate judgment and shame, and provide a positive support system where others are encouraged to do the same. Eliminating sugar-laden processed foods and animal products at social gatherings would also help, but let’s take one step at a time.