Accepting your body with love is when you begin your healing journey

Your healing begins when you accept your body as it is right now, just the way it is.

“and i said to my body. softly. ‘i want to be your friend.’ it took a long breath. and replied ‘i have been waiting my whole life for this.”

–Nayyirah Waheed

I first realised the importance of loving our bodies when I was dealing with my daughter’s severe health crisis several years ago.

Her chronic and severe eczema had taken over her entire life at one point. With time, we watched helplessly as her condition got progressively worse with time. She endured one setback after another as we desperately sought out some way to ease her pain and suffering. But all we were offered were drugs to keep her immune system suppressed and her severe symptoms under control.

Eventually, one of the immunosuppressive medications she was on, shut down her entire immune system.

We were fortunate that she survived a life threatening infection that put her in the hospital for a month.

As she recovered, I vowed to do whatever it would take to find another way to heal her. After almost a year of research, I came across Functional Medicine. I realised that I had found a radically different way to heal her from the inside out. This was similar to and based on traditional healing systems like Ayurved and TCM.

I started addressing the root causes of her eczema with the help of a Functional Medicine practitioner. After two years we were able to take her off her immunosuppressive medications and bring her eczema completely under control.

However, this crisis taught me ONE very important thing-

our body is constantly sending us messages in the form of “symptoms” asking for our support, we need to (re)learn how to listen to them

Your symptoms are a “gift”

The sad reality?

We are not taught

–how to listen to what our body is trying to tell us

–how to pay attention

– that our symptoms are a “gift”

Symptoms are our body’s way of sending us messages and letting us know that something is wrong. There is something amiss, some kind of imbalance that needs to be dealt with. It is telling us that we need to take action now so that things don’t become progressively worse.

This is true whether you have an existing health condition or not.

So many health issues could be prevented if we only knew how to pay attention to our bodies.

In my daughter’s case, if I had known how to pay attention to all those symptoms that had cropped up over the years before, it would have saved her from years of pain and suffering. A LOT of what she went through could have been avoided if we could have taken preventive measures of changing her diet and improving her gut health. Her situation deteriorated over several years prior to her hospitalisation while we waited for the well meaning doctors to make her eczema go away.

So the next time you are facing minor symptoms like a headache, indigestion, aches and pain, pay close attention.

Your body is trying to tell you something.

And in some way or the other, it might just save your life.

If you want to know more about how you can take back the power to heal yourself, read this post.

Your body, your friend

Your body is constantly trying its best to protect you and keep you safe.

It is doing its best to adapt to the environment that you are asking it to live in. If its an environment filled with toxins, lack of sleep, chronic stress, it tries its best to manage and keep things under control. Till it can’t anymore.

On the other hand, if we have intentionally created a healing environment filled with restorative practices, nutritious foods, daily self care routine, our body thrives and so do we.

So whether you are dealing with a chronic illness or you are completely healthy, it is important that you realise this.

Becoming aware of this allows you to treat your body differently. Especially when you are struggling. You would treat your body with love and support it just the way you would for a friend in trouble. You would remember to show kindness when you are suffering just as you would for a friend who is suffering.

The rest of the time?

We don’t take out the time to nourish and take care of the only home that we have because we are too “busy”.

Isn’t this sad?

The good news is that you can decide to change this, today.

And it starts by doing TWO things-

One, accepting your body just as it is, right now; with all its warts, flaws and imperfections

Two, show compassion towards your body even if it seems to have let you down and know that it is trying its best to keep you alive

Developing a healthy relationship with your body

It will help you to ease into a more loving and compassionate relationship with your body gently and with patience.

Just as you would not be able to start loving another person as soon as you met them for the first time, you need to give yourself time if have felt disconnected from your body for a long time. For most of us, our most loving relationship with ourselves is usually when we are still very young.

However, all that changes as we start growing up.

Very soon, when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we can only see our flaws.

We see all the things that we don’t like about ourselves. The fact is that if we want to heal ourselves from any chronic illness, we need to consciously and consistently affirm our sense of self worth and lovability.

We need to realise that we have always been and always will be worthy of our own love and compassion. We can develop a healthy relationship with our body only when we learn how to unconditionally love ourselves, embrace our vulnerabilities and accept our imperfections.

Don’t ask…

“Am I fit enough, slim enough, tall enough?”

Remind yourself that….

“I AM ENOUGH”

This is when things start really shifting within us.

“AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE 101”

A carefully curated and comprehensive collection of carefully selected books, podcasts, websites, blogs, and other resources from the field of Functional Medicine with a focus on autoimmune diseases

If have been looking to get ANSWERS to questions like

-Why do I have this disease?
-Will I get any better?
-Can anyone help me? Nothing is working
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-I am still waiting for a diagnosis, which direction do I need to move towards?

 then this GUIDE would a game changer for you!

“Autoimmune Disease 101” is a carefully curated and comprehensive collection of carefully selected books, podcasts, websites, blogs, and other resources from the field of Functional Medicine with a focus on autoimmune diseases.

The Functional Medicine model of care for chronic diseases seeks to answer the question “Why do you have this disease” so that you can get personalised and effective care for your unique condition.