Maximizing Your Healing Potential

Unblocking The Flow

Fatigue and lower back pain. Chronic neck pain with tingling into the hands. Eczema. Uterine fibroids. Frozen shoulder. Joint pain from pregnancy. Anxiety, depression. Migraines. Brain fog. Stomach pain. Knee pain. Hot flashes. Plantar fasciitis. Fibromyalgia. A broken heart. Many of my patients have a combination of these symptoms!

A medical or even alternative doctor may start by treating the symptoms. You may leave the office with a painkiller or cortisone shot, a prescription for physical therapy, or a handful of supplements for each ailment and the recommendation to avoid gluten. You may feel better temporarily, but have you addressed root causes, such as accumulated toxic stress (chemical and/or emotional), spinal misalignment, nutrient deficiency, scars/fascial restrictions, hormonal imbalance, and/or a sense of which inflammatory mental, dietary, or lifestyle habits that no longer serve you?

What's blocking your healing potential?

One of the first questions I ask my patients is, if the body knows how to heal itself, why isn’t it resolving your current symptoms? What is blocking your healing potential? 

Blockages imply that there are flows in the body. Besides blood circulation, there is nerve flow, energetic flow through the meridians, electrical and circulatory flow through our fascia/connective tissue, and lymph flow. Chiropractors, acupuncturists, bodyworkers are intimately familiar with these processes. There are also vital energy flows which connect the spinal cord, autonomic nervous system, and endocrine system to our subtle body of vibration energy called the bioelectric magnetic field or aura. Reiki practitioners and other energy healers work on this level of healing.

 

How do flows get “blocked?” Normally, stressors elicit helpful temporary healing responses from the body. Scar tissue is created to repair injury. The liver ramps up histamine and enzyme function to address toxin exposure. Immune cells are activated and body temperature increased to combat infections. Hormones are released to keep the body primed to fight or flee. Mental and emotional stress may trigger body-mind coping mechanisms such as hyper-awareness to avoid future insult and bring attention to areas that require healing, or fatigue to aid in energy and emotional recovery. Indigestion signals which foods continue to imbalance your gut flora. 

Any of these healthful reactions also invoke a subsequent inflammatory pain/stress reaction, sometimes with involuntary muscle contractions and fascial adhesions to isolate the area and to focus the body’s healing attention to the area. Subtle shifts in organ meridian flows occur to provide energy where it is needed. The central nervous system, which coordinates this healing process, creates an adaptive neurological response increasing muscle tension in the spine around involved nerve roots. Just as the immune system retains memories of past immune insults to quickly pull up immune fighting and neutralizing responses, the brain retains stories of past perceived harms to trigger somatic protective responses, such as fighting, fleeing, stiffening, bracing, collapsing, freezing and fawning.

All of these healing mechanisms require increased energy or chi to function, get your attention, force you to rest, and signal that you need to make changes in order to decrease your exposure to toxic stressors. Ideally, this situation is temporary. 

Ideally, when toxic stressors are neutralized and future insults are avoided, health and homeostasis is restored.  

However, when we don't have the luxury of time and resources to fully recover, a safe space to recover in, the nutrients and increased energy our body needs to recover, the emotional support to recover, the spiritual inspiration and purpose to recover, our body does its best with what resources it has at the moment, and stores the experience for a future time of deeper recovery, integration and resolution.

These stored experiences which keep areas of the body in various stages of chronic fight-or-flight adaptive inflammatory responses may be what energy workers refer to as an energy "block." Chronic health issues that are not resolved through physical/pharmaceutical interventions may have these multi-factoral energy blocks at their root.

Read next: Vagal Tone: at the Intersection of Chiropractic, Nutrition and Emotions and the Higher Purpose of Healing.

Remember: this post is for informational purposes only and may not be the best fit for you and your personal situation. It shall not be construed as medical advice. The information and education provided here is not intended or implied to supplement or replace professional medical treatment, advice, and/or diagnosis. Always check with your own physician or medical professional before trying or implementing any information read here.

 

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