healing

photo from here

Our bodies are such complicated machines. The way they're affected by everything, you know? It's like raising a kid. Everything you do (or don't do) to them, for them, with them...it affects them somehow. And they remember it forever. Maybe not in their conscious minds, but it's stored deep down in there. In the place where our beliefs are shaped. We have such power to influence. And not only us as parents, but friends, relatives, people who we're surrounded by. We're such dynamic creatures. The scope of which we don't even completely understand yet. Yet.


Yet brings me to my next observation, which is that some people don't seem to care a bit that they don't understand themselves, the way their bodies work, the things they're affected by. Or maybe it's just that they don't know it's possible. Or useful. I find this so interesting. We've become so accustomed to looking outward for answers, solutions, medicines to provide quick fixes, advice from people who have been through years of schooling but who can't possibly know us. Our unique circumstances. What's going on in our lives. What's happened to us in the past. I believe that all of these things dictate our health, or un-health.


Fear, stress, worry, anger...these are some of my predators. Sometimes they shoot at me from down below as I'm traversing this tight-rope balancing act of optimal health. Sometimes they miss, sometimes they don't. I have the propensity to nurse a grudge, as if it is the dearest thing to my heart. I always realize weeks, months, years (sadly) later that it was nothing but a hungry parasite sucking me dry of peace. 


I'm going through this thing right now. It's disheartening at best, scary at worst. I'm resisting the temptation to high-tail it to the doctors office to get some chemicals to "fix" it. Instead I'm waking up an hour early every day, devouring every good book that's been written on the topic, following that with some sincere, honest prayer, and topping it off with some time to sit in quiet. To listen and observe. To ask myself probing questions and then carefully watch how my body responds. I've been eliminating the junk from my life - processed food, toxic emotions, negative people. I wish I could say miracles are happening. Someday I'll be able to say that. But I know this kind of healing takes time, and I'm okay with that. Better than okay. Because at the end of the day it is so empowering to realize that healing is a completely personal endeavor. It's made possible through faith. Faith in myself, in my own competence and in my body's ability to restore balance once the junk is removed. Faith in Christ, that He will lead me to answers, be there as the one and only person who can completely understand, and that He will bridge the gap between what I'm bringing to the table and what is required for healing to take place. It is a beautiful process.


If our bodies are like kids that we're raising, I want mine to grow up to know that it has marvelous intrinsic healing capabilities. Not just believe it, but to have been given the chance to prove itself, first-hand. I want it to know that it has all of the answers, it's just a matter of decoding them. I want it to know that I have time for it. I am all ears. I'm thankful that it has served me all of these years without so much as a peep of complaint.


Life is so fast-paced and I'm thankful for the "quick-fixes" in times when I don't have the energy or motivation to heal myself otherwise. But in reality, this is the kind of education that I came here to get, which is how I'm able to truly count these periods of un-health as a happy blessing. An opportunity to learn, understand, grow more confident and self-respecting is always a happy blessing.