Chronic stress – the one major factor that contributes to and is one of the leading causes of disease globally. While it’s challenging to directly compare the prevalence of chronic stress to diseases caused by other specific factors, the pervasive nature of stress and its significant impact on health are well-documented. In this article, we’ll explore the science behind how stress affects our health, why our body stays in protection mode, and practical ways to shift into self-healing.
One of the finest and most profound definitions of good health I have found in recent times is this is one by Louise Hay – “Good health means you feel no fatigue, you sleep deeply, awaken easily, enjoy a good appetite, have a good memory, a good sense of humour, precision in thought and action, not being clumsy, being honest, humble, grateful and loving.”
The simplicity and profoundness in these words make them invaluable. Simple parameters to measure your health are right here in her words. Do you sleep as soon as you hit the pillow or does your mind continue to think? Do you wake up feeling tired or refreshed? Each word in this definition opens a doorway to the kind of questions we need to ask ourselves, to check how healthy we are. Take a moment to reflect on what you just read and ask yourself – How healthy am I?
Let’s begin with some reflection time through this exercise.
Divide a sheet of paper into two columns, on the left write a set of health issues you have and on the right mark the year when you had it. Give yourself a rating for the disease or condition now – 0 to 10. 0 being the condition is no longer there, and 10 being it is still in existence and is a major health concern.
We’ll explore this in two parts. Firstly we’ll look at the science of it by referring to the work of Dr. Bruce Lipton, which will tell us how our cells function and then we’ll explore the things we can do to understand the point of creation of our dis-ease and pains through the enlightening work of Louise Hay and my guru Sidra Jafri.
Science – Let’s Go Back A Few Hundred Years
To truly understand why we experience illness, we need to look at how our body functions at a cellular level. Hundreds of years ago, humans faced immediate threats—like being chased by predators. These were the prehistoric times and our species lived amidst all other species in the forests or by the side of water bodies. When faced with danger, the body’s fight-or-flight response would activate, triggering the sympathetic nervous system to prepare for survival.
As Dr. Bruce Lipton explains in his book the Biology of Belief – imagine if a saber-toothed tiger were chasing you, your body would enter a state of extreme stress in an instant. In this state, the body will naturally redirect the flow of blood towards the limbs from the gut and other organs, so we have the strength to run for our lives. Once you are safe however, and no further threat is present, the body returns to a state of relaxation and the blood comes back into uniform flow throughout the body, with more focus towards our gut, in order to support digestion, nutrient absorption, detoxification, growth, and organ repair.
Now, imagine this scenario:
If your body is in the middle of fighting off a bacterial infection and you suddenly encounter a tiger, survival would obviously take priority. Your body’s healing processes will take a break until the immediate danger has passed. Once again, when you are in a safe place, it returns to healing your infection. And this is how our body functions.
Growth and Protection: The Two Modes of the Human Body
According to Dr. Bruce Lipton, the human body operates in one of two primary states: Growth and Protection. This study further revealed that these two states are mutually exclusive – which means you can either be in growth or protection mode. You cannot be in both states at one time.
- Growth Mode – This is the state your cells are in, when you feel safe and relaxed. They focus on healing, repair, and overall well-being of the body.
- Protection Mode – This is the state your cells experience, when you are stressed or fearful. This is where your body prioritizes survival, diverting energy away from healing. (as in the case of the predator chasing you)
This mind blowing fact reveals the real problem. In today’s world, we live in a constant state of stress—24/7, 365 days a year. The body remains in protection mode all the time, even if there is no life threatening situation. This constant state of stress leaves no room for growth and healing. The final result – chronic health issues.
The Good News
When one belongs to a family where BP, cancer or heart diseases are commonplace, you may fear the worst and become overly cautious with your health. Or, it could sometimes let you blame your bad health on your genes. Both situations are not good. The first comes from a place of fear and the latter from a space of victimhood – both equally unhealthy spaces to operate from.
Studies show that less than 1% of all diseases are genetic. Read that again. This is better than good news. Because it instantly sets us free from imagining the worst or blaming our genes for our health conditions. What this also means is our thought patterns, emotions, and environment play a far greater role in determining our overall health than we often realize or acknowledge. Understanding this suddenly gave me a sense of power and choice all at once. The power to control how I feel and get my body out of the stress zone and the choice to make a conscious shift into a state of healing.
Point of Creation of Dis-ease and Pain
Go back to the exercise you did on a sheet of paper, and observe the year you have mentioned against the disease. The timeline can be a door opener to many questions. Ask yourself, what was going on in your life at the time that you got diagnosed with that disease or fell ill. Write down any situations or events that happened around then. These could hold the key to the point of creation of that disease.
In her book, You Can Heal Your Life, Louise Hay examines how our diseases reflect their point of creation. For eg., headaches could come from conflicting thoughts, cancer from unresolved resentments or repressed anger, thyroid from feeling disempowered to speak your truth and so on. Sidra Jafri further explains how pain and dis-ease both are the language of the body. It is the physical body’s way of communicating to us that something is not ok. It is feeling unsafe, unheard or uncared for on some level – mentally and emotionally. She says – “When you don’t listen to your body’s needs – you pay through pain.”
Pain is not just from illness or a physical disease, pain is also what we experience as a result of our response to an event or our environment. It is our mental and emotional bodies that experience some level of stress and discomfort. Uncomfortable feelings alert us to something that needs to change. When we ignore those signals for long periods we become used to the distress and accept the pain as part of life. As you get on with life, these unresolved emotional and mental wounds start to manifest in your physical body in the form of physical aches and pains, fatigue, sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, appetite issues, and so on, serving as a call for help – something inside is not ok.
When we continue to ignore these signs or feel we can’t deal with the situation because we lack the courage to move away or take action, or the situation does not allow us to make a change, then these tend to turn those pains and aches to some disease that will put a necessary halt in your life, by staring you in the face and saying, now deal with this, here and now or there is no going forward. The truth is that it is only when you are feeling deeply uncomfortable, severely unhappy or unfulfilled in your current situation or are faced with a big disease like heart issue, cancer and so on, that you are likely to expand your comfort zone and start searching for a different way to relieve your pain. We think that if we resist unwanted situations long enough they will disappear without our intervention. But by resisting change, our pain does not go anywhere, it just makes us suffer more and threatens to manifest into a disease that will make us stop everything we are doing and address the situation immediately.
Take a good look at the sheet in front of you and do a quick assessment. Where do you think is the point of creation of your disease? Are you ready to accept what you see, are you ready to let it go and heal it? Or are you still unable to place a finger on that somewhat foggy idea of what you think could be the real reason. Is it denial? Is it fear – what if I see it and can’t do anything about it? Or is it the fear – if I see it, I can no longer unsee it – will it further add to my discomfort? Am I courageous to take that step and heal myself? Wherever you are at in these questions, please allow compassion to be your best friend. Compassion for yourself, the situation you are in now and the time where the point of creation lies.
It is our right to live life fully with a light heart. To help you get there, I invite you to use this guided process I have recorded for you – to help you on this journey. Listen to it as often as you feel like and allow it to help you create internal shifts by doing healing at a cellular level. Much like peeling the layers of an onion, enjoy working on yourself and keep reassessing where you are by referring to your exercise sheet and re doing it a few months later. Remember to rate yourself each time, so you can see which way you are moving.
