When Thyself Heals

I’ve talked to several folks in the last many days who spent their recent holiday time in bed or on the sofa, feeling terrible, with ailments ranging from the flu to sciatica.  Invariably, the causes of these mysterious holiday illnesses are attributed to all manner of things beyond control – allergies, the weather, exposure, or just over-doing it in the rush of the season.

If we take a close look at how the body and mind heal, however, holiday illness loses its mysterious air, and is a predictable, perfectly normal response to the stress of the busy year end drama in which we often participate.

It’s easy to see how weeks or months of pushing ourselves beyond our physical limits to meet deadlines and make quotas, moving into old, draining social patterns and emotional triggers around family and money, and being plugged into the collective vibe of amorphous fear and separation can have profound effects.  If we carry stress around long enough, it depletes our energy and causes equal measures of imbalance.  In natural healing, this is called a “stress conflict” and turns into a “healing crisis” when the conflict is resolved – whether consciously by letting go, or through sheer exhaustion and collapse.

To understand why this is so, it’s important to get past the body-as-victim model.  The body is innately geared toward health, and everything it does is designed to bring us back into balance.  The body doesn’t weakly succumb to vicious attacks from malicious unseen bugs, nor does it randomly develop pain and inflammation.  Fever, inflammation, mucous proliferation, pain, and perhaps even viruses and bacteria, are used by the body in very focused, specific ways and, though uncomfortable, are signs that a stress conflict has been resolved and the body is on its way to repairing the damage.  This is also the body’s way of slowing us down, asking for attention, and pointing out the places where we tend to carry stress in the form of fear, anger, self-devaluation, or other negative emotions.

We can ease the body’s need to create healing crises by being mindful of our personal triggers, and managing our environment to reduce the impact of physical and emotional stress. Find a method, practice, therapeutic helper, or activity that appeals to your sense of calm, brings you joy, helps you feel balanced and on-purpose, and makes a little space in your life for just you.

Cultivating awareness about our stress patterns is the first step in taking responsibility for our own well-being.  When we honor the body’s wisdom and make daily conscious choices that support emotional and physical health, the holiday or vacation healing crisis is avoided, and we can actually enjoy our recreational time to do just that -- re-create.

-Debbie Littrell Ventura, Jan. 2014

Debbie is a NES Health Certified Practitioner. Read more about her services or schedule an appointment.