imbalance in the body
Our physical bodies are incredibly intelligent, and have an internal messenger system in place whose aim is to communicate to us when something is out of balance or alignment.
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Pain is a very common message that we all have received at one time or another. Sometimes the message from pain is quite simple, for instance, touching something that is really hot will burn and make us recoil, that is a real time message that we are quite keen to respond to. The same thing is happening when there is a more chronic pain present…the kind of pain that persists over days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years, waiting for us to heed the message, but often times we don’t make the connection because we are so busy, stressed, or anxious that we don’t make the time or space to really listen.
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Mental health symptoms are messengers also, showing up for us, to bring insight into an aspect of ourselves and our lives that are needing attention. Can we learn to see anxiety and depression as allies that are showing up to bring our awareness to the things that are out of balance in our lives? Can we learn to see life's challenges as happening for us and not to us? To get out of the victim narrative and into the driver's seat…this is where the healing takes place! For example, perhaps anxiety is there asking that we take a closer look at our finances, career path, or dietary choices. Or the shoulder pain is showing up to alert you to the fact that your posture is poor and putting an excessive amount of pressure on the cervical spine, which left unanswered, could lead to more serious conditions.
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Nutritional Psychiatry is a fascinating branch in mental health care that beautifully connects mental health with gut health. I am particularly interested in nutritional psychiatry because I spent 30 years of my life unknowingly operating with an underlying gluten sensitivity and a genetic marker for Celiac disease. This means that I have a genetic predisposition for Celiac that can be turned on epigenetically under certain stressors or circumstances. The Naturopathic Doctor (ND) that helped me make this discovery highly recommended that I go gluten free for the rest of my life! It took me some time to get it right but I am now 100% gluten free and enjoying huge health benefits from this diet/lifestyle change, most notably, I feel far more at ease in my body and far less anxious than I did when I was regularly consuming wheat and drinking beer. This is just one small example of how our nutrition can affect our mental health, but I hope that it can serve as a powerful testament that making small shifts can have a big impact on our overall sense of health and wellbeing.
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We have become a culture where we expect something outside of ourselves to fix the “problem” of the symptoms that we are receiving through our internal message system. We have become heavily dependent on pharmaceuticals, pain relievers, stimulants, and sugary/carby snacks to temporarily relieve our symptoms, but very rarely sit with ourselves for long enough to really be able to get to the root of what the message is trying to communicate. And I am here to tell you, it is not our fault! Those of us in the mainstream west have grown up with the allopathic system that aims to treat symptoms of disease. It is a health care system for sick people, and has given very few options or information on how to live in a health centered way. It is my aim to help bring balance to this system by sharing personal insight and educational information to help you understand the messages from your body/mind and bring more balance to your life.
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I am going to leave you with some questions to reflect on. Consider using a journal to answer the following questions.
When was the last time that you received a message from your body? And what was that message trying to communicate?
Do you have a sense of what dimension of your health is asking for more of your attention?
Are you able to carve out time for self care and to heed the messages from your body?
What would it feel like to be living a life in balance? Who would you need to become and what would you need to change to become that person.
These questions can be great tools to come back to regularly to check in on your progress around your health goals!
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