How your body tries to keep you alive 

Many people have a negative connotation to the word and experience of disease.  Disease  is typically viewed as wrong, bad and a sign of ill health.

Disease is actually your body’s attempt to try and keep you alive in suboptimal conditions.  This means that disease is really an intelligent  and healthy response that your body has when it isn’t getting what it needs.  It tries to adapt to keep the organism (your body) going and that adaptation is what gets the label of disease.

We’ve spent a lot of time, energy and resources trying to get rid of our body’s adaptations instead of looking further to discover why the body needs to adapt in the first place.  Instead of seeing disease as an intelligent response we have learned to perceive it as “unintelligent or stupid” and therefore we must do something to stop our body from misbehaving.

Deciphering the language of disease

Learning to pay attention

Disease means that our body is talking to us and trying to get our attention.  Largely people are not paying attention to their body unless it hurts, its hungry or they need to go to the bathroom.  So when disease presents itself we have little clue what its telling us because we have not learned the  skills of listening.

The good news is you can learn!  Just like your mind uses words to communicate your body has a language of its own.  The body speaks through sensations and movement.  For example you may feel a burning sensation in your arm.  That is your body’s way of saying “hey pay attention to me here”.  What we have been taught to do is find a label for that sensation.  We may call it “carpal tunnel, arthritis or tendinitis” depending on what other signs may be present.  We may feel success at defining our sensation, thinking it gives us options for how to treat our problem, but instead it actually limits whats possible by making our experience a static, fixed concept.

For a moment simply experiencing a sensation in your body without labelling it.  Now describe how it feels.  Words like sharp, stabbing, light, heavy, pressure, contained or flowing are some words you might use.  Allow the sensations to inform you.  This will help you access the feeling of the sensations.  From here insights will flow in from the intelligence of your body as you are paying attention to it. You now can begin to make connections from the sensations in your body to your life.  This will give you greater ability to make necessary changes that will help you heal and support what your body really needs instead of trying to find something to fix your label.

This is the beginning of mastering your body and being empowered in your health!

Dr. Amanda Hessel, DC