Symptoms mean our bodies are working

How symptoms mean our bodies are working.

Symptoms, like alarms, are signals that something is wrong.  But symptoms also mean that our body is communicating.  They are tools, messages, gifts from our bodies to help us protect ourselves.  Just as we feel heat when we touch something that burns, we feel discomfort and/or experience dysfunction when our bodies meet with something injurious.

In the United States and most industrialized countries, we have come to believe that having constant symptoms is normal.  Many modern Americans have simply adapted to poor health – to constant illness – or are still trying.  We have come to think that constant headaches, indigestion, memory problems, irritability, sexual/reproductive dysfunction, fatigue and overall malaise are just “how we are.”  We may not even tell anyone how we really feel, let alone be aware of it ourselves. 

We may be a bit peeved at our bodies for having problems … at ourselves for being “weak” or somehow causing those problems … for not being strong enough.  We might think that if we’d just do more, try more, have a better attitude, wrench up a little more will power, “buck up” or just “get with the program,” that we’d be fine.

Something, and often someone, tells us that we’re neurotic, we’re too sensitive, we’re depressed, it’s “psychosomatic” or “all in our head,” we’re exaggerating to get attention, we’re traumatized from childhood (that may be in some cases, but it’s rarely the whole story), we’re lazy … and on and on it goes.  Basically, we feel like crap and it’s our fault (and/or everyone feels like crap, so get used to it).

We think we’re not doing enough, we’re not keeping up, if only we’d give up doing X, if only we’d start doing Y, if only we’d just pull ourselves together, etc.  The distrustful, demeaning, negative, dishonoring messages we send ourselves and each other (however well-intentioned on occasion) just never seem to end!

Whoa.  Do we really think we’re supposed to just “suck it up?”  Whatever happened to the pursuit of happiness?

Well, I’m here to show that there’s something wrong and it’s not us, but we better start paying attention and making some changes or we’ll start paying heavier and heavier prices and having unimaginable change forced upon us.

It’s time to make a choice.  It’s time to love ourselves and our bodies.  Perhaps we fear we’re too deep in the hole, it’s too late, we’ve fallen too far?  No … it’s never too late, and if we simply make a decision, we will be surprised what a little listening and some small changes can do.

We don’t have to keep suffering quite so much.  No matter what medical professionals, loved ones or the misguided part of own self tells us.  We’re not wimps for wanting the pain to stop, for wanting relief, a better life, to be happier in our bodies.  We’re not bad for wanting better.  Our birthright is to feel as good as possible.  Do we?  If not, let’s get to working on it.  Let’s start by looking down at our own bodies and saying, “I hear you.  I’m here and I’m listening.”

It’s time for a new message, a new life and a new chance.  Let’s start today.