what are diseases, really?
Diseases are simply states of dysregulation in the body, or mind. In allopathic medicine disease states are heavily pathologized and medicated at the level of the most aggravating symptom of the condition. In this model, the cause of the dysregulation is rarely addressed, symptoms are merely masked, and therefore the condition persists. 95% or more of all diseases are diet + lifestyle related, or caused. It follows that if your diet and lifestyle are what caused your disease then your diet and lifestyle will need to change in order to heal the disease.
What are diagnoses?
Diagnoses are how industrialized medicine chooses to label disease, but simply put, diagnoses are merely clusters of symptoms that are commonly seen together. Diagnoses are scientifically meaningless, and many of them overlap or contain redundant symptomology with other existing diagnoses. The main reason people “need” a diagnosis is for insurance purposes. Health insurance will only cover the cost of a condition that is officially diagnosed. I believe we are drawn to diagnoses because as humans we are drawn to categorization. It’s how our brain work. We remember things better when we are able to categorize many small items under a larger label. This is where I find diagnosis to be helpful. However, for many people diagnoses quickly become more harmful than helpful because of our human draw to identify with our labels; all a diagnosis is, is a label for categorization’s sake. You are not your label any more than you are your environment, or your thoughts.
What are Symptoms?
Symptoms are your body’s way of communicating needs + disregulation. Symptoms typically begin gently, and gradually build over time when the root cause is ignored. Industrialized medicine does not teach us to search for a root cause, only to medicate [cover up] the symptoms with prescription drugs that may “help” in the short term by reducing uncomfortability or temporarily prolonging life. Not all prescription drugs are “bad,” but the vast majority are unnecessary, merely serving to distract us from our body’s cries for help. Symptoms are not random, and they are not your body attacking you. Symptoms always have a root cause, and are your body’s way of expressing a need for change.
The “cure”
The way that diagnoses are presented in industrialized medicine is pathological— as in, once you are given this label you are defined by it until you die. Industrialized medicine doesn’t believe in healing, and the idea of a “cure” is a farce created by the medical industrial complex in order to keep people in a cycle of holding onto false hope without ever doing any real work to change their circumstances. Under this system we are infantilized and stripped of our sovereignty and our connection to our humanness. The truth is that your body is your only hope at healing, and it WANTS to heal. There is no magic pill that can undo years of physical, environmental, nutritional, or emotional abuses. It would be funny if it weren’t such a popularized falsity, but I can’t think of anything more fantastical than a belief in the ability of an artificial, lab-created substance that has to be tightly controlled because of its potentiality for overt toxicity that is dosed out by a stranger who you see for an average of 5-10 minutes per appointment. It’s ironic to me that diet + lifestyle changes are seen as quackery when this system is literally based on the idea that magic exists in a pharmaceutical. I guess we’re not as far past our belief in the fountain of youth as we thought.
Western Medicine has always been preoccupied with the ideal of a “cure,” when in reality cures don’t exist. What I mean by that is that the body is not a machine, you cannot simply purchase an “ad-blocker” [in the form of pharmaceuticals] and eternally rid yourself of any nuisance of symptoms. The state of your body and your mind is a direct reflection of how well or how poorly you are taking care of, nourishing, and defending yourself. If you don’t take good care of yourself your body will not have the tools to stay healthy, and will therefore fall into dysregulation. Medication might make that dysregulation more tolerable in some respects, but it does nothing to remedy the core issue, nor indeed, to “cure” the condition.
Learning how to nourish your body well is the closest we will ever be to a cure in this lifetime.
Beliefs Breakdown:
I invite you to answer each question below in any order that suits you. For optimal benefit please give yourself a minimum of 2-4 hours to sit with + answer each question in as much detail as possible. Handwriting your answers will offer the most therapeutic benefits.
section one, disease + diagnoses:
In your lifetime have you ever been given a diagnoses by a medical professional in any sect?
If so, how did that diagnoses alter your view of yourself for better or worse?
Do you view yourself as being diseased, or having a disease? Or do you view yourself as a healthy, capable human who is currently in a state of disregulation?
Did your diagnosis help you to care for yourself better than you were before? If so, how?
Did your diagnosis give you more or less hope for the future? Please elaborate on specific feelings.
Are you waiting for a professional diagnosis in some area but feel it is out of reach for you at this time?
What part of you wants to have a diagnosis? Or what do you hope to gain by receiving a diagnosis that you don’t already have?
Do you feel that having a diagnosis validates your suffering or your experience in some way? If so, how?
Have you ever felt identified with a diagnosis, but invalidated by the lack of official backing? If so, how do you think this experience affected your trust in yourself?
Have you been told that your condition is “chronic,” “idiopathic,” “genetic,” or “incurable”?
If so, how did you believe it? How do you think that belief affected your hope for the future?
When you are labelled with the terms in Q.10, do you begin to believe that you will never heal from this place? Do you seek another opinion? Or do you decide it is time to take matter into your own hands?
section two, your relationship to your symptoms:
I invite you to approach your symptoms with the thought, “what is this here to teach me?”
Rather than, “why is this happening to me?”
When you experience symptoms of disregulation, how do you respond to these uncomfortable or painful experiences?
How do you support or abandon yourself in this experience?
As you are experiencing symptoms do you feel yourself craving for, or desiring anything in particular?
[Could be food cravings, comfort cravings, or companionship cravings.]If so, what do you do with those feelings?
Do you embrace them, give in to them gladly?
Do you fear them?
Do you get upset at yourself or feel like a failure for not falling in line with your beliefs about “healthy” eating, living or craving?
Do you see your symptoms as teachers? Or as enemies?
If you believed your specific symptoms were here to teach you something, rather than to attack you, what would they be here to teach you?
Do you need more rest? Are you working too hard?
How are you dealing with the stress of life? Are you supporting yourself through it, or ignoring yourself?
Have you been making time for self-care rituals, time alone, rest, and meditation or journaling practices?
When your symptoms get really loud, do you pay more attention or less attention to yourself? What do you think drives you to direct your attention in the way that you do?