The body...

The body is not a mindless machine; the body and mind are one.― Candace B. Pert

I am starting to write a project about my experience with autoimmune disease and how I got myself back to health.

I don’t want to go through the whole story because that would ruin the project, but I wanted to try to describe the ways in which this experience of illness taught me about myself.

I was hit hard at 17 and no wonder really, I felt lost and depressed. It was like I didn’t fit in my own body and especially not in the life I had appeared to have created for myself.

Again and again over the years, I was hit with all sorts of issues and problems. Repeated trips to the GP and hospital with very little turnaround in my health and wellbeing.

Until I got braver.

At around the age of 24, a cataract from the steroid injections in my eye. A hospital stay in case of increased issues, then a routine x-ray found some lung issues.

Panic.

In a spiral of chaos and commotion. An internal questioning

What the actual F*** is wrong with me?

Why am I not getting any better?

In fact, why am I getting worse?

I was angry with the system. I had expected them to have the answers to my body and how to fix me, it was then I realised how much of my own self I was giving away.

Up until that time I had done little to no research on what was happening to my body.

I started to ask questions of the medical teams, but more of myself.

Was I really living? Or simply existing?

The system sets us up for giving our power over. They seem to have the education, the knowledge and the power to help us. Don’t they?

Slowly and quietly I started to listen, to learn, to understand. Firstly how I was keeping myself stuck in the same cycles, then how my body was reacting to my chaotic physical lifestyle.

But where was that need to live in chaos coming from?

Layer after layer of conditioning began to peel slowly away.

Stress was my pattern. I was used to it and my body loved it, literally addicted. Add to that a diet bereft of any nutritional value, filled with coffee, alcohol, smoking and full of emotional eating habits, no sleep and a need to please everyone but myself, caused burnout on a regular basis.

Not good.

How was a pill, potion or injection ever going to fix that?

At that time health and wellbeing was not on everyone’s radar. Instagram, Facebook and even the internet was not something I could lean on. The world of influencers wasn’t even dreamt of.

But I did learn.

I started to listen when I was hit with a flare or a symptom, I began to explore what was happening underneath the physical.

We must take responsibility for the way we feel. The notion that others can make us feel good or bad is untrue. Consciously, or more frequently, unconsciously, we choose how we feel at every single moment. The external world is in so many ways a mirror of our beliefs and expectations. - Candace Pert

You can read the full story eventually, but even as I write the basics, the emotions rise up. Our emotions, feelings and thoughts are so connected to our physical health.

My body was angry and had been for some time. Inflammation, red, raw, sore and irritated. All of these words were describing not only my body but the emotions underneath.

Even the way medicine describes these group of illnesses - the body is attacking itself.

That was my experience. Internalised and unexpressed emotions, especially anger.

If we witness anger playing out in front of us. It’s volatile, chaotic and unpleasant. It doesn’t want to be seen.

With autoimmune, it’s the same. There is a battle going in inside, but nobody is winning

Anger, or the healthy experience of it, is one of the seven A’s of healing. Each of the seven A’s addresses one of the embedded visceral beliefs that predispose to illness and undermine healing. ― Gabor Maté

We have learned or been programmed to override our feelings, sensations and emotions. To repress and hide, this was definitely true for me.

But the truth is, without having these issues, I would never have experienced my body in the way I do now. With awareness, with deep gratitude, with honesty and appreciation.

She has suffered quite a bit, certainly not as much as some.

I was lucky enough to be shown a different way of living. To change my life for the better.

And all I ever had to do was listen.

Glasgow | Jot Prem Yoga and Therapy | Scotland (jotpremyogatherapy.com)