What Is Meta-health & Why Should You Care?
Have you heard of ‘meta-health’? Meta-health is the science, practice and art of Body-Mind-Social Health with a focus on how specific stress triggers, emotions and beliefs affect specific organ symptoms.
When working with a client, I always look to see what was going on in their life before their health issue started. Your health issues didn’t just pop out of nowhere, it’s not random either or bad luck, it’s a symptom of what is going on with you on a deeper level.
Sometimes the issue may be quite recent such as a bereavement & your health issue may be an obvious response. Sometimes it can be a build up of behaviours, reactions and past emotional knocks and bruises which we call trauma whether that’s big trauma such as accidents or abuse or whether it’s small trauma such as challenging relationships, difficult childhood or awful employer relationships. Don’t underestimate the impact of a series of small traumas!
Understanding The Connection Between Mind & Body
There’s more & more scientific evidence that our health is our body manifesting externally what is going on internally, for years we’ve talked about how health starts in the mind (psychosomatic), but sadly this has become a negative phrase when in fact it is true, everything starts in the subconscious brain, growing until we need to address it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Somatic is Greek for body so psycho-somatic means mind-body!
Case Study #1 – Dani
Let me give you an example of someone who had a health issue, together we worked to discover & clear the roots.
Dani came to me with severe anxiety around her business, whenever some work came her way she wanted to turn it down. If she couldn’t find a good reason to get out of taking the work, she’d start to become anxious, nauseous and even have a panic attack.
Once we worked together, it transpired that her mother had multiple jobs as a single mother of three children which is a full time job in itself! Dani would sit in the kitchen whilst mum got dinner ready and do her homework & her mother would talk about work & how hard it was not to mention stressful.
I took Dani back to the original memory and Dani recalled thinking that mum was really successful having multiple jobs, but that she never had any time for herself & that she was stressed & miserable. Dani’s brain added 2 + 2 = 5 even though she was unaware of the thoughts or the story they created.
Fast forward to the current day & Dani equated being successful with being miserable in her job, hence her subconscious kicked in making her miserable with panic attacks, and feeling sick whenever a job came her way. She was so successful, right? Then why did she feel sick & miserable & why wasn’t she in love with her work?
Once Dani realised that everything in life is about perspective & that her mother may have been stressed & unhappy but that Dani didn’t need to have that experience, she was able to let it go, enjoy her job & be successful & of course she no longer has the panic attacks when a job comes in. So now she really is successful because she’s happy & loves what she does.
Your Subconscious Lies To You
You have over 60,000 thoughts per day & the brain is always creating stories – which are not necessarily true – about whatever you experience, you are mostly unaware of these stories, the language that you use & the behaviours they create. Once you’re aware of these you can break the beliefs, change the language you use with yourself & create new, empowering behaviours, healing your health issues too, which is where I come in.
Mindset Can Help You, or Hinder You
Henry Ford who founded the Ford Motor Company in the USA always said: ‘If you think you can’t you won’t, if you think you can, you will.’
Roger Bannister is famous for running the first sub-four minute mile in 1954, everyone said it couldn’t be done, he believed it could be done & he proved it. These days the 1 mile record sits at 3:43.13.
Kipchoge went for the sub-2-hour marathon, he shaved it down to 1:59.40, again nobody believed it could be done, but he did it. Now other runners want to aim to beat it!
Your mindset is not just a key part of your health, it’s also a key part of your healing! There are many people who’ve beaten their prognosis to get well, the renowned hypnotherapist Marisa Peer has had cancer twice & recovered twice, even though she was told the prognosis wasn’t good. She chose to think positive, to live a long & healthy life.
When she was hit by a car and needed surgery for her leg, she again sent healing vibes to her shattered leg & hip, she spoke to it lovingly & asked it to heal, by the time they took her into surgery, the surgeon was astounded that her leg was in a much better condition that he’d been led to believe. Marisa went on to recover fully.
Anita Moorjani the author of ‘Dying to Be Me’ was in a coma with stage 4 cancer & had an out of body experience where she realised her beliefs around her cultural & religious backgrounds all conflicted with each other and were making her ill. She promptly woke up and went to work on those areas and she’s still here, cancer free after over 10 years. Doctor’s decided they must have got her diagnosis wrong!
Health & Self-Talk
Whenever you are ill, always think positive & talk lovingly to yourself and the health issue. When I can feel a cold brewing, I always give it some love and thank it for letting me know I need to give myself attention. In the past I would say things like ‘oh no, I can feel a cold coming, I’m going to be ill tomorrow’ guess what would happen? Yep, I’d get ill.
Prevention Is Better Than Cure
What if you could prevent yourself from being ill in the first place? There are various things you can do to prevent health issues, they do however need to be performed consistently & constantly, there’s no ‘one-and-done’ here.
- Reregulation process; cold showering, Vitamin D, Vagus nerve activation
- Meditation and/or Mindfulness
- Self-development to release old beliefs & behaviours
- Life Coaching; often it’s easier to work with someone than doing it alone
- A well balanced diet; fresh fruit & veg, minimal/no processed food
- Regular movement/exercise
- Journaling
- Healthy sleep pattern
- Healthy Environment; you can do all the above but if you live/work in a toxic environment you may still get ill.
Success Stories
You may know that I ran a free beta-test of my 8 Week Heal Yourself Programme recently, when we covered the above section, all of the attendees commented on the fact they knew they’d had stress in their lives but had not realised how this had affected them on a daily basis. We looked at how they could re-regulate themselves and they all agreed they needed it. Later on in the programme, they were feeling the positive effects of encompassing this into their lives, their health issues were less impactful when they made time for the re-regulation process, for those who got too busy to stick to it, their health issues increased in terms of how they felt and in the way it impacted their daily life.
Having seen how much better they were when they made time for the routine, they soon went back to making sure they made the time, every day, by week 4 it was a non-negotiable part of their daily life.
Traditional Medicine
I’m a big fan of traditional medicine, believe you me, if I get hit by a car and need A&E, I’ll be dialling 999! However, for all other health issues, I prefer to look to myself, my lifestyle & surroundings before I accept drugs or invasive procedures. Pretty much all medication has side effects, some mild, some more extreme and the more drugs you’re on the more conflicts between drugs and the more potential side effects you may experience.
The medical system can be harsh emotionally too and many health professionals ‘bed-side manner’ could do with an overhaul! There are many fantastic healthcare professionals too though, so don’t think I’m being unfair.
I’ve also found that our Western medical system tends to mostly deal with conditions in an isolated way rather than a holistic way where they look at the body as a whole entity.
How To Ensure You’re In Tip-Top Health
Your mental state will very much affect your health. By having regular sessions of life coaching or conversational therapy such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), you will be able to transform any thoughts, feelings and beliefs that don’t serve you, transforming them into empowering ones.
Those who see the benefit of self-development & regular growth book a coaching session once every 6-12 months, in the same way they do their dentist, it means they are on top of any remedial work rather than waiting until their life is going off track.
Case Study #2
I had a client who could barely get out of bed each day due to an underactive thyroid, her quality of life was almost (if not) zero. Now she rarely needs to go back to bed during the day and has much more energy and feels almost human! We’ve got a bit more work to do but we’ve cracked the underactive thyroid issue which was wiping her out, blood tests show it’s normal now.
All of the beliefs that were creating this health condition were centred around self-expression, communication and not feeling heard. The thyroid which is in the throat is governed by the throat chakra so when that chakras is out of balance it affects the ears, nose & throat and any other organs or body parts in that area.
It doesn’t matter whether your beliefs are from childhood or adulthood, they’ll still impact. With this particular client, their beliefs were from their upbringing which was never a problem, until adulthood when these beliefs conflicted with other beliefs around their role as a parent. We can’t hold two opposing thoughts at once without an issue, the depth of the issue will depend on the conflict. Think of someone who wants to give up smoking but still believes themselves to be a smoker, that conflict may just stop them giving up smoking even though they want to, so it may never get any worse, however, a deeply rooted belief in conflict with another deeply rooted belief is going to bring bigger problems, such as with Anita Moorjani that I mentioned earlier.
Coping Mechanisms
It’s ok for life to be stressful as long as you have the antidote! Whether you’ve children with health issues or disabilities, ageing parents or you are Prime Minister of the UK, stress is stress, so we have to offset that so the body isn’t always in flight-fight-freeze, all those hormones such as adrenaline rushing round your body isn’t good for it. Imagine thrashing a high performance sports car, pushing it to the maximum engine revs, all whilst in first gear, what do you think will happen?
It’s easy to say we don’t have time to meditate, cook properly, exercise etc, but if you knew you were going to have a chronic illness at some point in your life and could prevent it by taking 5 minutes to breathe, you’d most likely do the breathing!
Conclusion
It is better to have the balance that will prevent you getting ill, however, if you get ill, it’s not too late to reverse it. I’ve worked with people who’ve had chronic migraines for over 30 years. I’ve helped people who’ve gotten ill more recently. I’ve helped the young & the old, with all of them, their health issues are a reflection of their internal state.
Ask me your questions, I’d love to hear from you, or if you feel like it, share your stories with me.
If this article resonates with you & you think you need my help to change your health, book a call and we can discuss how I can help you. Book now using my online calendar.
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