What is the opposite of love? Fear.
In countless medical articles researchers have found correlations between stress and dis-eases. Stress, in my opinion comes from fear. When we feel afraid our body goes into fight or flight mode and begins the process of getting back to homeostasis by activating entire systems of recovery. A body in a constant state of stress is a body that runs out of resources to get back in balance and becomes vulnerable to viruses and illnesses.
Can we return to health with just love? Sounds too simple to be true, right?
Western medicine is excellent in treating symptoms of illnesses, fixing problems and attending emergencies; it looks at a set of symptoms and finds the medication or treatment to treat that cluster of symptoms. Unfortunately, people are unique and have their own individual reactions, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually that make the treatment too general and sometimes ineffective.
Chinese medicine believes in treating each person as a unique world of energy (chi), structures, hormones, cells and neurotransmitters and so on, that react in a very individual manner to the environment. Chinese medicine focuses on preventing diseases by activating the body self-healing mechanism and finding homeostasis. Chinese medicine helps find the root of the disease rather than only treating the illness and symptoms. They see illness as the expression of something deeper to be investigated and treated naturally.
I am not advocating to stop using the help of western medicine. I am advocating to look at the root cause of the illness, understand how it started and empower ourselves to prevent and heal diseases.
What is the role of love and fear in all of this? In my opinion, when we operate from love, we feel at ease, we trust and we go about life in a state of appreciation. When we operate from fear, we engage in stress, distrust, anger or sadness, anxiety or depression, or we simply compensate from stress with behaviors or habits that are less than healthy. When we live in fear we create dis-ease, when we live in love we live in ease.
To live in love is to forgive, to let go, to surrender, to trust, to appreciate, to give, to be of service and to act from inspiration. To get to this level of experience one must accept suffering without judgment or resistance. One must honor all of the emotions and give them a proper voice. One must learn to love oneself with all the faults and mistakes as well as the gifts and successes.
In short, love is the best medicine, especially loving oneself.
There is so much more I can say about this. If you want help on how to love yourself, I can help you. Send me an email to schedule a session with me.
In love,
Always
Perfection is a lie.
Even when trying to write this I’m aware of my fear of misspellings and imperfections (thank goodness for auto-correct).
Perfection is an illusion.
Something we all strive for but nobody gets.
It is trying to have the perfect relationship but missing the lessons in it. It is trying to have the perfect family, the perfect job, the perfect career, the perfect hair, the perfect body, the perfect everything and failing. Every. Single. Time.
And with every fail we judge ourselves, with every fall we think of ourselves as less than perfect, and because we are less than perfect we must be non-deserving. We must be doing something wrong and we need to find a way to fix it. With every fall we blame ourselves and we start to think that there is no hope, that it’ll never get better or that is not possible. It becomes an unattainable dream.
Everywhere we see ads that sell us perfection and how to achieve it, how to have the perfect hair, the perfect body, do the perfect diet, date the perfect person and so on. None of it is about accepting ourselves, accepting what is. Accepting that maybe we won’t get married and have the picket fence with the kids and dog, maybe it is not our path; accepting that our body is less than perfect and being ok with that, not judging it, good or bad. It is just being with it, loving what is.
It is painful this search for perfection because we can never get there. We fight with other people instead of accepting them, we punish ourselves for not achieving the expected, perfect results. We don’t accept ourselves and we don’t accept others as result, and we crash against it all and give up. We keep trying and we keep disappointing ourselves and losing hope.
The search for perfection is a ruthless, never ending path of torture.
When we learn to accept what is, what we have, our attention starts to gravitate towards what we do have, what we are grateful for and what we appreciate. We can find perfection in nature, in our connection with our inner self, in serendipitious events in our connection to the Divine, in our surrender. Not everything is going to go according to our plans and we need to accept that. Surrendering doesn’t mean to stop believing in wellness, it means you don’t fight it anymore and go with the flow, trusting that perfection is not what others define for you, it is what brings you closer to the Divine.
Sharon was at a job where she felt unappreciated and overworked. Not only was she not making enough money to survive, she also had no time or energy left to look for a new job. Her sense of loyalty and responsibility, along with the paralyzing fears she faced at work kept her from leaving that unfulfilling job.
She loved what she did, and the people she worked with, but hated the feeling of anxiety she experienced every time she thought about going to work, every time her supervisor came to talk to her, and every time more demands were put on her plate.
When the energy flow is disrupted or depleted, the body experiences physiological and psychological changes causing disease and imbalance. A stressful environment, life problems, losses, or traumatic events can create blockages in the flow of energy and translate into psychological symptoms such as anxiety and worry. Balancing your chakras can help you restore the energy flow in your system and let your anxiety melt away.
La Jolla Holistic Center, Inc. 