A few years ago, before being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s I backpacked through Europe for 2 months, and thoroughly indulged myself in European fare.  Mind you, I had been suffering from myriad food intolerances for years at this point, but even so, I decided maybe all of my symptoms were actually just in my head.  I didn’t want to deny myself the experience of eating copious amounts of bread, cheese and pasta and drinking lots of wine and whole milk lattes!  After all, Europeans don’t use nearly as many pesticides and herbicides as the U.S., so I reasoned that the way our food is produced in the States was the reason I was experiencing symptoms in my day to day life, not because my gut was seriously compromised and that I was actually suffering from undiagnosed autoimmunity. 

All of my hopeful, wishful thinking did not pan out so well during my time in Europe.  I’d go to bed at night with searing pains in my stomach, developed a huge cystic pimple under my eye that caused me an enormous amount of embarrassment (when all I wanted was to look cute on my trip), and was sick with a sinus infection for 3 weeks of the 2 months that I was abroad!

I tell this story because dealing with any long term chronic illness is no easy feat.  To be relegated to eating a restricted diet, and often required to live at a slower pace, giving constant attention to how our bodies feel at any moment, with the need to make constant adjustments can weigh heavily on our minds, hearts and bodies.  Sometimes, we want to throw in the towel and pretend that the messages our bodies are conveying are just figments of our imaginations.  In fact, I’m sure many of us have been told that very thing!  Unfortunately, denial doesn’t help us to get to the root of the problem so that we can start taking steps to heal. 

Cultivating a kind relationship with ourselves is key to managing and healing from chronic illness, but often it’s the last place we think to start. I used to think that eating “perfectly” was the answer to healing, but it only perpetuated my tenuous, bewildered relationship to my body, as I was still experiencing symptoms despite my efforts to be “good and to do everything right.”  I vacillated between obsession, control and denial, but at some point, I had to admit that berating myself and being angry at my body, believing that it was betraying me, or pretending nothing was wrong was doing far more harm than good.  

I was increasingly confronted with the truth that our thoughts have the power to create healing or more dis-ease.  Slowly, I began to pay attention to my inner dialogue.  So often, it revealed an immense amount of anger, grief, frustration, hopelessness, guilt and shame.  The more cognizant I became of how much suffering I was inflicting on myself through my habitual thought patterns, that only served to reinforce a belief in my own lack of power and worth, the more I began to wonder what would happen, if I switched the script and began speaking lovingly to my body and my tired heart.  What if I accepted my situation, embracing what I once perceived as a serious limitation, and committed to see it as an opportunity to learn to love myself and to become a woman who is strong and secure in who she is, despite the storms life might throw her way?

Just like anything, being consistently kind to ourselves is a practice.  But, what this practice has revealed to me is that we always have a choice.  We can choose the thoughts we are thinking,  and we can get curious about our harsh inner critic.  We can choose to believe we have the power to change and heal - to believe that we do not have to be victimized by our circumstances.  When we are tempted to fall into despair over a set back in our health, we can instead affirm that our bodies are for us and not against us, and that they are working hard to alert us to imbalances that might be at play. We can thank them and join with them in advocating for our healing through declaring that we are in fact glorious beings, fully equipped to heal and thrive and grow and overcome challenge.  Just like a muscle is strengthened through continuous use, we can build and strengthen neural pathways in our brains by consistently believing the best of ourselves and our bodies and trusting that every step  along this path of healing is not in vain. 

Sending you all the love on your path toward a whole and healed life.