"Your body is designed to heal itself"

There are many people out there who's bodies are relaying messages to tell them that something is off balance.  These messages manifest as physical symptoms which many people either choose to ignore or shockingly just acclimatise to them accepting that it is their "normal". Some go to seek medical advice where the symptom is highlighted and treated instead of looking for the root cause.

 

Well that is what happened to me which is why now I am such a huge advocate for functional holistic healing systems- looking at the person as a individual and supporting the normal healing mechanisms of body through lifestyles changes and body treatments (such as Acupuncture and massage) rather then attacking the disease directly. In the book "Between Heaven and Earth - a guide to Chinese Medicine" Harriet Beinfield talks about how at some point the West we stopped seeing ourselves as a whole and that we are a part of nature and that we sacrificed a unified reality for domination over it. When it comes to treating the body medically she describes doctors as "Mechanics" and that they were trained to view the body as a machine. She writes:

 

"For the mechanic, it is best if the parts of the machine are standardised and uniform.  That way the parts are interchangable, easily replaced and the ways in which they break down become predictable from one body to the next. Standardised diseases develop from established causes  and protocols of treatment are fixed. Uniform parts sit on the shelf. This view is based entirely on the ways in which people are alike and tends to overlook the ways people are unique and dissimilar. When a group of people receive the same diagnosis, they receive the same treatment. Science and industry have enabled medicine to be practiced on a mass basis"

 

Now I am not here to poop all over modern medicine, that is not my game, and I definitely do not believe that all doctors treat patients in this way. The purpose of this blog post is to bring some awareness to the fact that your body is designed to heal itself, its designed by nature to balance itself and we can support that. Yes there are some incredible life saving medicines, but to promote health, vitality and a optimum quality of life; the reality is that most Medicines and Surgery offered are more in favor of controlling the symptom to cure the disease and tend to have big after side effects.

 

I struggled for 16 years with acne and unfortunately every doctor or dermatologist I went to see only saw the symptom and put me on doses after doses of crude antibiotics which never worked because the problem was the whole time in my gut. I was suffering with a chronic case of Candida, an over growth of yeast in my digestive track, it was causing so much inflammation in the walls of my intestines causing a condition called leaky gut syndrome. That translates to; all the toxins which should have been making its way out of my body through my digestive tract were leaking back into my system and then out through the skin in the form of very sore ance.

 

With every new dose of antibiotics my gut was being annihilated wiping my microbiome. The good bacteria was dying whilst the Candida was thriving! It was a vicious cycle. I was consuming the prescriptive drugs and all the things Candida needed to keep flourishing: Sugar, Alcohol, Gluten, Caffeine, Dairy Products and Processed foods.  I wasn't aware how these foods were effecting the unbalances in my body, it was never questioned.

I got my diagnosis in Thailand during a spontaneous meeting with a Wonder Woman named “Joy” She was a holistic therapist working with nutrition and that day introduced me to a type of analysis called ‘Iridology’. Joy shone a light in my eyes with a magnifying glass and by examining my iris could see all my conditions. She told me by a very strict diet my skin would clear, my fatigue would diminish and my depression would lift…

 

WHAT?! Are you kidding me? All 16 years of painful suffering could be healed by food?!

 

After the few sentences of advice that Joy told me, she vanished as she had to be somewhere else and then it was down to me to take this information and do something. I knew deeply what she told me in this brief meeting was true. She ended up being the angel that assisted me in changing my life

If you go and see a holistic doctor when you have a problem, one of the first protocols is enquiring into your lifestyle and diet (they are interested in your stress levels, personality, habits and emotions) For them everything is a interconnected network. They believe that lifestyle is the primary cause and prevention of disease. Where as the typical western medicine view it is not looked at as an essential focus point when you can more easily take a medicine instead of changing your ways of being! For example getting rid of the heartburn you suffer with regularly with a proton-pump inhibitor can hide serious gastrointestinal issues so then you continue to eat the foods that are harmful that your body constitution doesn’t receive well. It seems medicines are successful at curing symptoms but do not necessarily improve the all over health or wellbing of the person.

 

Traditionally in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, food is medicine. They look at the energetically qualities of the food of how it will affect the energy of the body, considering the flavor, colour, and thermal nature.  TCM believes that an unbalanced life is what renders a body vulnerable to germs, cancers and decay. A balanced lifestyle considered things like regularity of eating meals, sleeping, work hours, sufficient amounts of work, play and rest. When you are conscious about these things you become more responsible for your life and how you are in the world. For me every time I took another dose of antibiotics I lost the opportunity to take more care of myself, I handed my power over.

 

“In the past, people practiced the Tao, the way of life. They understood the principle of balance, of yin and yang, as represented by the transformation of the energies of the universe, Thus they formulated practices such as the Dao-in an exercises combining stretching massaging and breathing to promote energy flow, and meditation to help maintain and harmonise themselves with the universe. They ate a balanced diet at regular times arose and retired at regular hours avoided over stressing their bodies and minds, and reframe from overindulgence. They maintained wellbeing of body and mind thus its not surprising they lived well over 100”

- The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine

 

Through a long and arduous journey, many times nearly loosing faith in my own body I discovered that digestion is not merely just breaking down foods; it is a SOURCE of physical, emotional and mental health. A strong digestion system boosts the immune system and helps lower levels of inflammation in the body, on a mental level helps us to be more clear and focused, not only able to digest food properly but also the ability to better digest internal and external experiences. 

 

I am not alone am I? You have probably had times in your life where your body felt like the enemy, leaving you feeling disconnected, confused, angry at it or even disgusted by it? But we can move away from those questions of "Why is my body failing me" to an empowered state of making choices to optimise the experience you have within within our bodies. We can be more of an active participant in our health. We can take responsibility to care for our own health and choose health care providers which share their knowledge and power by teaching us how to better serve ourselves and work together for healing.

 

Taking a look at what you consume and if your body can digest it well is another layer of self-exploration and making little steps can make a BIG impact. I know many people whom experimented just giving up gluten or sugar for 6 weeks to see if it made a difference, some had miraculous results and continued with the changes. Right now for instance I am living in a very humid country, the external environment started to effect me internally creating an excess of dampness. I started having symptoms like heavy limbs, dull headaches, a mild yeast infection and constipation and so I limited sweet things and I cut out my big morning fruit bowl and waiting until after 3pm to eat fruit (fruit is cold, wet and raw and increases dampness) and replaced it with carbohydrates, my funny house mates are calling it "The great potato experiment of 2020" But the symptoms have already cleared after 5 days! 

 

Our food has a direct impact to the potential and quality of our daily experience within our own unique home - Our beautiful body. 

 

"Our health is determined by what we eat and how we eat it. As our only renewable resource besides air and water, food is the fabric out of which we create ourselves everyday" 

- Gail Reichstein

 

I want to finish with a gentle reminder to you lovely people that often our body is showing us signs that there is something off in the digestive system but we acclimatise to them, the symptoms we have became our ‘normal’ and so somehow they are dismissed. BUT... Things like having a bloated stomach after every time you eat, excessive burping, fatigue, brain fog, loose stools, constipation, yeast infection, excess phlegm, mental spaciness, bad gas, acne, skin rashes are all signs that something is off balance. Your body is talking to you, pay attention and take action. Getting a full nutritional evaluation by a practitioner of TCM, Ayurveda  or nutritionist can be a good place to start when considering dietary changes, an insightful book is Gail Reichsteins book "Wood becomes water" for a TCM point of view. For Ayurveda David Frawley has many insightful books.

 

As you take responsibility and observe yourself heal, feel stronger and more connected to yourself, it won’t be long until you find the process inspiring and even joyous. I once read that maintaining health is easier then regaining health, this I can relate; it was hard work at the beginning and a lot of effort to get better but now I take much joy in sustaining a healthy life and experimenting with different things when things are out of balance within. It is not to say that the food we eat is the only thing which contributes to the over all health and wellbeing of us, there can be mutiple factors in any health issues, this is just one of the pieces of the puzzle when it comes to wellness but its an important one and worth exploring.

 

I hope you enjoyed reading, I am so passionate about this topic and loved writing about it. Your body has the power and ability to heal itself through exploration, intergration and awareness. Please reach out to me for questions!

So much Love 

Victoria 

Jai Ma