Help is on the way

Our bodies respond to our emotions, so (I figure) probably the most important thing we can do for our health is to cultivate a conscious sense of well being. After all, the body will do its best to maintain health; well being is its natural state. Best not to undermine that with a conflicting state of mind.

That bears repeating, perhaps?

Well being is the body's natural state.




The title of today's post is something that we've taken to saying to ourselves (and each other) in this house lately.

Got a weird ache?

"Help is on the way."

A virus picked up on a jaunt into the city?

"Help is on the way."

That help we're referring to is the body's own mysterious, incredible capacity to heal itself.

The key, I think, is to relax. To trust in our body's abilities. Maybe accept that just as our conscious minds are not responsible for keeping our hearts beating, we need not consciously attend to much beyond, say .. moving about when we're restless, eating when we're hungry and resting when we're tired.

We humans tend to pay rather more attention to our twinges and gurgles than maybe we need to, don't we. That's not a question, it's a statement of fact. It must be the case, otherwise the "health care industry" wouldn't be as large and profitable as it is, now would it.

But most of the time our bodies can handle whatever comes their way just fine. When we go to the doc, the pharmacist or the internet (or even the apothecary in our back yards) for every little ailment we not only risk over treatment (like antibiotics for a virus .. sheesh ..or goldenseal for a cold .. oy vey) what if we're also undermining the finely tuned systems we were born with?

That's a real possibility.

"Help is on the way" serves as a reminder to let the body do what it knows how to do.

Another helpful expression? "There is nothing serious going on here".

There's nothing serious going on here. Life is full of joy and mystery and fun and yes, evidence of well being - should we decide to look for it. It's really a matter of social conditioning that goads us into looking for worrying variances from "normal parameters".

One reason I bring this up is that a budding interest in herbal medicine can bring on a mild-to-moderate case of .. well .. not quite hypochondria, but something akin to it. I know, I've been there. Partly because herbal medicine works so well, and partly because any chance to learn is so welcome, any and all twinges and gurgles can end up serving as an excuse to try out this or that remedy we've read about.

As dependable and (usually) safe as herbal medicine is (in the right hands), it is still not supposed to be the first thing we think of when something goes awry in our health. We need to remember that our bodies are just as natural as herbs are, that given adequate food, water, rest and activity, natural light and darkness, they're pretty adept at keeping things running smoothly.

The human body is both resilient and adaptable. It's rather confounding to those searching for the "perfect" human diet to find that there are peoples who have thrived on mostly fruit, others on mostly fish or .. you get the picture. It turns out there's no one right way to eat or exercise, no perfect supplement.

What there is, is a very very (very very!) long history of human beings not only surviving but thriving under what we would now call (very) challenging circumstances. Challenges that spurred us to evolve into ever stronger, smarter creatures. Nature - of which we are a part - rises to all challenges.

What I find really interesting is the way that nature deals with challenge. A little while ago I was musing about what's known as "antibiotic resistance", which to my mind is a misnomer. Bacteria are not resisting antibiotics, they are evolving in such a way that the drugs are just not relevant. They've devised ways to simply do an end-run around them. Several ways, in fact. In some cases, they've even found ways to use the drugs as food! That's kind of hilarious, right? And not only are those adaptations passed on genetically from one generation to the next, they're crossing species. The information is being shared between different species. Wow. And it can all happen within hours.

Evolution is not the slow, accidental process that the reductionist Darwinians would have us believe. It's pretty light on its feet. And it's non-linear. It doesn't resist, head on, it works around the challenge.

The real healers among us know that "resistance is futile". They know that battling against a ongoing process just isn't the way to truly relieve suffering. In any battle there is always collateral damage. Even the victors are left weakened by war.

And since we're talking about bacteria, let's use them as an example of good healing, the kind of healing that doesn't involve going to war.

Bacteria don't invade our bodies with the intent to take over and kill us. They're just looking for food and shelter - literally. Bacteria (and fungi, like the dreaded candida) eat dead and dying tissues. They simply can't find a foothold in healthy tissues. So the real healers among us know that ensuring the health of the tissues in question is the real "cure" for an infection.

That's why herbal medicine, correctly applied, works so well.

You've no doubt read here and there that goldenseal is a "natural antibiotic", right? Well, yes and no. The true value of goldenseal lies in its ability to tone the tissues of the mucous membranes so that bacteria just have no reason to hang out. But the right amount of goldenseal has to be used, and in the right way. Too much will tighten and dry out the tissues, exacerbating the problem. The same is true of all the plant medicines that (like goldenseal) contain berberine (although each has its own niche, or specialty). They can all be used to support the body in its natural inclination toward well being, but when they are used as weapons, they can - and do! - leave the body in a weakened state. So that might be a victory in the battle against one sort of bacteria, but it leaves behind the perfect environment for some other critter to come along, take up residence and create a new sort of havoc. The tissues are still in the compromised state that encouraged the bacterial infection in the first place and now there's a further complication.

That's because we just go in with the aim to "kill! kill! kill!" bacteria (whether with drugs or herbs), we leave some pretty nasty debris behind. Dead bacteria are not good to have hanging around in body. Other bacteria (or fungi) thrive on them (and the compromised tissues) as food - secondary infection anyone? That's why its so damn common for women to end up with yeast infections right after a round of antibiotics to cure a bladder infection. Good old cranberries, eaten or taken as juice regularly, are supportive and nutritive to the body; the bladder remains toned and slippery; bacteria cannot take hold in the first place.

Our "insides" - our organs and muscles and bones and nerves and hormones and all the rest - are far, far more intricate and specialized than we can ever really understand. There is non-linear wisdom there that's beyond the scope of our conscious, linear thinking minds. That's why a top-down, tinkering with this and that approach to health just isn't all that useful. Given adequate food, water, movement, rest, natural light and darkness, we can pretty much sail along in the natural state of well being.

Pretty much.

I find it's helpful to catch myself whenever I'm feeling really well, and bask in it for a few moments. Commit that natural state of well being to conscious memory, so to speak. Doing so is a great way to circumvent the conditioning that says decline is inevitable, that disease is out to get me, that my body is weak and vulnerable.

Then, if/when I start to feel a bit off (because life brings challenges!) I invite that sense of well being back into my conscious awareness. If there's a twinge or a gurgle I'll smile to myself and say "there's nothing serious going on here".

The smile is important. There's no use in scolding or scaring myself ("Oh no! Somethings wrong!! What did I eat or do to cause this?!") that just reinforces the negative state of mind I might be slipping into and as we know, the body responds to our emotional state. Another smile, a few easy breaths, a relaxation into the state of well being, and a heart-felt "help is on the way". Then I do something I enjoy to reinforce that state of well being (or find a way to enjoy something I might be stuck doing).

And if it doesn't work?

Well here's the thing. I'm glad to say that my plant allies and I seem to have become one, so in tune are we that my body very often tells me which remedy kind of support it wants. Usually, in keeping with the "help is on the way" theme, I'll reach for Self Heal flower essence, as it works on the subconscious and conscious minds, reinforcing the understanding that the body can/does indeed have the wherewithall to heal itself. Very often the issue is still one of trust on my part. Other times, my body in its wisdom issues a request .. a picture of the suitable plant will pop into my mind, or the taste of it will fleetingly pass across my tongue. This sort of thing is really difficult to put into words .. I can only say I (often) just know what sort of help the body is asking for.

Most of the time it just wants a nap. Or a walk. Or an extra glass of water.

I suppose you could say it's ironic that it was the plants who taught me that I usually don't need to reach for them to be(come) well. It wasn't their strictly medicinal qualities that I needed from them in the first place. It was/is their wisdom, their sense of well being that rubbed off on me, their teaching that my own body is as natural as they are, that I spring forth from the same Source. We all do. And that's the beauty, the grand, gorgeous beauty, the clarity of understanding that comes with learning from living beings rather than just consuming the processed, dead powders of commercially sourced herbs. It's all about the life force. The commercially produced herbs may "work" just fine, but the living ones .. ah, the living ones still have that Source emanating through them, they give me that boost I need if/when my conscious awareness of my own connection to it weakens.

So the more I have allowed these living creatures "in", the greater their touch on my life, the stronger my own connection to our common Source has become. Rather than trying to wrestle with ("kill! kill! kill!") the conditioning I picked up from family, schooling, societal norms, my connection to Source simply renders that conditioning irrelevant.

It's ongoing. It's evolution. It's non-linear. It's my - and your - evolution into a stronger, smarter being.

That's the help that's on the way, available to us from the natural world (which of course includes our own bodies) .. or at least it is once we learn to adapt our linear-thinking minds to such a non-linear concept. Ironically, it's not something that can be forced, "effort" is the antithesis of the process ... it has to be felt for, this sense of well being.

You'll find it though. It's in that next deep breath of fresh air. It's in the coziness of your bed when you settle down to sleep. It's in the purring of the cat on your lap, the exuberance of your dog greeting you at the door. It's really, literally, everywhere you might seek it because it's the most natural, ordinary thing in the world.

Imagine that.