FROM CHAOS TO SYNTHESIS: CROSSING THE ABYSS
Struggling with a complex chronic health issue can feel like chaos.
Chronic Fatigue
Lyme
Mold
SIBO
Autoimmunity
Post-viral Syndromes
Post-vaccine Syndromes
Mystery Pain Syndromes
Digestive Awefulness
Cancer
Blood sugar roller-costers
Nervous system craziness
Behind these labels are things we have to say no to. I don’t trust my system to cope with food at a restaurant, so I have to say no to spending time with my friends. I don’t trust my energy levels so I have to say no to taking on more work. I don’t trust my resilience so I have to say no to that trip, that wedding, that adventure.
There’s a popular story in our culture, it goes something like this.
People are sick because they don’t pay attention to what goes into their body and they just want a pill to solve their problems. People are passive players rather than active contributors to their own health, blindly following along with whatever the mainstream has to offer.
There is some truth to this story and if we’re honest, our culture conditions us to behave this way. So if you’re now starting to wake up to all of the things around you that may be keeping you stuck, including the mainstream medical paradigm itself, then welcome. These are exciting times.
But there are other stories I see much more commonly with the people I work with. People who have seemingly tried everything. People who change their diet, follow health advice, invest in new approaches, are highly motivated and pro-active, relentlessly researching and trying new things and are still stuck in the chaos of complex chronic health issues.
If this is you, you’re not alone and it’s not your fault.
Many of us have already found the ends and limits of what Industrial Medicine can offer us for our chronic health issues and have been using natural, alternative and holistic approaches. Maybe you’ve tried acupuncture, functional medicine, supplements, herbs, meditation, and so on. Maybe some of this helps, keeps symptoms manageable.
Other things seem to work for a little while but then life happens and you’re back to square one.
I know too well how confusing healing can be. Both from navigating my own health and working with people for over 10 years, nothing in my training properly prepared me for the complexity I see and for how people can navigate their journey to health in the real-world.
Today, we have access to unlimited information about our health. We used to think that it was lack of information that blocked us from knowing the answers and getting better. Now we know this isn’t true.
We need to think differently about how we approach health. Not just differently from Industrial medicine’s symptom suppression but also from most integrative, functional and Chinese medicine approaches, which have some amazing tools but frameworks in need of updating for modern times.
We don’t need more information. We need the right information organized in the right way. We need a process to follow to reclaim our health.
