E30 | How to harness self-love for healing from chronic conditions

Have you ever felt like your body is your biggest adversary in your chronic illness journey?

One of the biggest mistakes people with chronic conditions make is believing that self-love is a luxury they can't afford, when in reality, it's the key to their healing and resilience.

They often believe their bodies have turned against them and that only medications can help. This prevents them from listening to their bodies' messages and supporting the healing process. 

Today, explore why self-love, particularly towards your own body, is crucial, and discover three actionable steps to stop seeing your body as your enemy.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL LEARN:

• Why self-love is not a luxury but a fundamental part of healing.
• How to understand and act on your body's messages rather than seeing them as betrayals.
• Three actionable self-love practices to start incorporating into your routine today.

OTHER LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Episodes Mentioned:

• Episode 24 : Beyond quick fixes: Find true healing with Functional Medicine

Book Recommendations:

The poetic underground by Erin Hanson

If your body could talk by Jacquie Sharples

If you loved this episode, do take a minute to write a 5 star review- it would help me to keep bringing more such content to you!

Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts


“A necessary listen! Anindita is a reassuring guide in navigating one’s way to manage, control and heal chronic health issues.” <– If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode!

Chapters

• 1:56 "Never trust a mirror"
• 3:25 Overcoming sciatic pain by trusting my body to heal
• 7:23 Why it’s easy to start seeing your body as defective
• 9:04 Stop seeing your body as the enemy.
• 10:55 Three ways to get started with doing this
• 13:39 Shifting your perspective from one of conflict to one of understanding and care

Transcript

One of the biggest mistakes people with chronic conditions make is believing that self-love is a luxury they can't afford, when in reality it's the key to their healing and resilience.

They often believe that they have a chronic condition or a diagnosis because their bodies have turned against them. They may also believe that they are at war with their bodies, and only medications and other such treatments will help them to get better.

Unfortunately, this prevents them from listening to their bodies messages and finding ways of supporting its healing process. In today's episode, I explore why self-love, particularly towards your own body, is so important and three things that you can do from today so that you stop seeing your body as your enemy. That's all coming up next right here on Embrace Your Healing Journey.

Welcome to Embrace Your Healing Journey, a podcast for women with autoimmune and other chronic conditions to help them navigate the illness without fear of isolation and uncertainty, and find relief from their symptoms. Your body is your guide and ally in healing. If you're ready to embrace this journey with compassion and awareness, then the. Choice for you. Tune in weekly as I, a Functional Medicine certified health coach, deliver tips and insights that demystify the healing process, guiding you towards the relief you deserve so that you can feel healthy and happy once more.

In each episode, I share pieces of inspiring poems, stories, quotes that help, that may help you to draw strength and, you know, stay motivated on your healing journey. These are all books and that have really inspired me.

And for today, I want to share this beautiful and very impactful poem by Erin Hanson. If you haven't read her poems, I highly recommend them. And she goes by the handle the Poetic Underground on Instagram. And this particular poem is called Never Trust a mirror.

Never trust a mirror for the mirror always likes. It makes you think that all your worth can be seen from the outside. Never trust a mirror. It only shows you skin deep. You can't see how your eyelids flutter while you're drifting off to sleep. It doesn't show you what he sees when you're only being you, or how your eyes just light up. When you are loving what you do. It doesn't capture when you're smiling, when no one else can see. And your reflection cannot tell you everything you mean to me. Never trust a mirror, for it only shows your skin. And if you think that it dictates your worth. It's time you looked within.

You know this. This poem actually talks about how much focus we have on our external world and how much significance. We give only on what the external world is reflecting back to us, whether it's about our appearances, about a health, about our wealth, uh, weight or any other such parameter. And we often start measuring our self-worth against them. So we start comparing, we start measuring. And when we are dealing with any kind of chronic condition,  this can really keep us stuck. This can actually often be harmful, because what happens is that in that case, we are not at peace with our bodies. And in fact, living with a chronic illness often feels like an endless battle against your own body. 

But what if your body is not the enemy? 

Now, I had this revelation a couple of years ago, I mean, I this is something that I teach my clients, but I remember I had a major sciatic pain in my left leg at that time, a back and a lower back and left leg, and I was dealing with constant pain that left me unable to sleep. I was confined to my bedroom as it was extremely painful to even move and walk more than a few steps, and I refused to take painkillers. I had taken some muscle relaxant, but that was barely doing its job. And what had happened is, six months prior to that, I had been traveling constantly with my daughter for her riding. She was busy preparing for her Junior Nationals equestrian championship later that year, which I actually could not attend because of this pain, because initially I had ignored, you know, I had ignored it and I was doing something on my own. And by the time I met up with the first doctor in Mumbai, some time had passed. And after the MRI, he proclaimed that, you know, the only way out was surgery. And I took a second opinion and he also recommended surgery, even though I hadn't actually tried to figure it out and what the root cause was and I, you know, address it. I hadn't even tried anything. I hadn't tried physiotherapy or anything of that sort. 

But I wasn't convinced that this was the only way forward. I knew that we had to figure out what was going on and why. So finally I met with an excellent physiotherapist who finally understood what the problem was. It was my posture, my flat feet, and we started very slow with very painful therapy because everything was painful. Lying down was painful, walking was painful. And after three intense months of rehab, the pain started receding. And you know that it's working or treatment is working. When the pain starts receding on its own, the symptoms start going away on its own without the help of any medications. 

You see, it was not my body that was the problem. It had been trying to get attention months before when it had all started and I had ignored. I was traveling, but that's not really an excuse and that is what had led it to escalating. It became a much bigger problem, and it was only by trusting my body to heal with the right kind of support, which I finally got, I was able to bring it back into health. And this only happened by focusing on addressing the root causes. And it's the same thing. Living with any kind of chronic illness is extremely challenging on many levels. I was fortunate that this was a short lived. I mean, it took me over six months to finally be completely fine and back on track, but I know that you might be dealing with something, you know, some a condition or a disease for many, many years, if not decades. 

And any kind of chronic illness is extremely challenging on so many levels, and even on good days it is difficult, but on bad days it can be downright terrible, painful, and it can make life feel like an endless cycle of suffering. So this can look for you, that you may not be getting better for more than a few days at a time, or that you're not able to live without pain even after taking pain medications. Or you may simply be just trying to function and do what you need to get through each day. That's all you can do right now. So your chores may be, you know, all that you can sort of manage somehow. So this is, you know, uh, I call this a disease Merry-Go-Round, where people get stuck on this. They're unable to make progress despite getting medications and treatments. Right. So for me, because I got the right kind of, you know, treatment, and it was not actually medication, it was actually focusing on my posture on relaxing my muscles. That's the reason I started seeing improvement. That's the reason I saw results. But if those are underlying imbalances, deficiencies, etc. not addressed it, it's very easy to start seeing your body as defective, being believing that it has betrayed you. So I could have actually, you know, felt that my body had sort of betrayed me, you know, why was it, you know, sort of why did I have this sciatic nerve pain, etc.? Or maybe I would have just ignored it. But neither of these things really help us. 

Because here's the thing. This belief that our body has betrayed us in some way comes from being conditioned to ignore minor symptoms or medicate them, medicating them away, resulting in a feeling of disconnect from our body's innate wisdom. It's these negative beliefs about our bodies that stops us from supporting its healing capabilities and from seeing the results that we want. And and of course, from getting better. And the whole reason that I got better in 3 to 6 months time and completely got back on my feet was because I could support my body's innate healing capabilities. And here are a few other reasons why you may believe that you have been betrayed by your body.  it can be persistent symptoms of chronic fatigue, ongoing pain, muscle weakness, digestive issues, brain fog, and any other symptoms can make your daily life incredibly challenging. The other thing that often happens is slow progress. So lack of significant improvement despite medications and treatments can be frustrating and disheartening. And of course, you may now realize that this happens because the root causes are not being addressed. 

The other thing that often happens are, you know, that poor diet or malabsorption can actually worsen symptoms, leading to further frustration. And this is where the nutritional deficiencies come in. They play a big role. And finally, persistent stress and unresolved trauma can also deeply affect your physical and emotional health, making it harder to trust your body. This is where you need to figure out a way to address, you know, take a holistic approach. 

And it starts by changing, you know, by changing this narrative that your body has betrayed you actually begins with a fundamental shift in how you look at it, which means that stop seeing your body as the enemy, because by treating your body as your adversary or your disease as your enemy to be eliminated, you are actually encouraging destruction and violence over nurturing and peace and peace and nurturing is what you need in order to heal, to heal not only your symptoms, that means your physical health, but also your emotional and mental well-being. 

In fact, if you think about it, your symptoms are actually messages that your body is trying to send you to get your attention to do something about it. So my body was giving me these messages through pain that, you know, there was something going on which I as I said, I initially wrote and that was what created a problem. And it's only when I started paying attention and, you know, I took the guidance of somebody who knew what she was doing, that when the slowly the pain receded. Pain is, in fact, one of the most effective messages that your body sends you to take action, not take action in the form of taking painkillers or pain relieving medications. But taking root cause action to remove the triggers and address the underlying imbalances and deficiencies. A lot of my, you know, the clients that I work with in my coaching practice, a lot of their symptoms actually often go away. But by just doing this without the help of painkillers, it depends right. In in sometimes we need medications. And in some cases we may do, you know, do very well without them. 

I have in fact talked about this kind of an approach in episode 24. It's called Beyond Quick Fixes: Find True Healing with Functional Medicine, and I'll share the link in the show notes below. So how do you actually go about, you know. Stop seeing your body as your enemy. Here are three ways to get started.

 Number one, appreciate your body. So despite whatever, enlist that you may have maybe even other, uh, similar health issues that you may have. Your body works hard to keep you alive and allows you to experience life in all its glory. Whether the beauty, the joy, the wonders of life every single day. So rather than taking it for granted, write a love letter to your body. Actually, I make my clients do this often, so writing a letter of appreciation of love to your body. You can also read the book. It's a brilliant book by Jackie Sharples, and I've talked about some of the letters. It's about a book where the body is writing a letter in each chapter to a particular woman, and it's called If Your Body Could Talk. It's a beautiful book and gives you a very different perspective of what your body would say to you if it could talk to you. And you can also keep a gratitude journal for the same thing. So appreciative. Your body is where you can get started. 

Number two is understand the symptoms. Your body's symptoms are messages, not betrayals. They indicate underlying issues that need your attention and care. So if you can keep a journal, if you can keep a tracker. So keeping a track of your symptoms, your diet, your lifestyle, you may be able to spot patterns and triggers. And you can take the help of someone like a health coach who can, you know, help you with this. This is what I do with my clients, actually. 

And finally, number three, develop a personalized self-care routine that includes skincare, relaxation techniques, other nourishing activities. So taking out time for yourself and nurturing your body with love and support, it actually helps your physical as well as emotional healing. So these self-love practices, if you can incorporate into your routine, you can actually create a more compassionate and supportive relationship with your body. It's like any other relationship, right? If you're trying to nurture a relationship, you're trying to improve a relationship. Even if it's with another person. It's the same thing. You start by paying attention. You try and understand what they're trying to tell you, what they're trying to communicate with you.  It starts there. And then it's of course, doing things that makes them feel understood by you. 

So it's about fostering both emotional and physical healing with the help of this supportive relationship with your body. And each small step that you take towards this kind of self-love and self-care is a powerful addition to your healing journey. Do not underestimate the impact of these small steps, because they can actually build up to have have a huge impact. Because embracing self-love and compassion towards your body is crucial, because it shifts your perspective from one of conflict to one of understanding and care. And when you start valuing nurturing over destruction, you can open yourself up to deeper healing and greater resilience. 

That means this means in. Simple terms that you can do these three things. 

Number one is address the emotional weight of chronic illness, which is often neglected. The emotional turbulence that goes hand in hand with chronic illness can can be listened to a large extent, if only we pay attention in this manner. 

Number two is identifying the root causes by embracing your bodies, you know, or developing a good relationship with your body, you can start understanding what these symptoms actually mean. And you can start looking at this as messages so that you can actually see real sustainable improvements, because you will know what needs to be done right, and you will know when you're off track and you will correct your, uh, you know, your direction of your healing journey. 

And number three is practice sustainable self-care into, you know, uh, getting well and then staying well means that you need to continuously support your body's needs over the long run. So a personalized self-care routine ensures this or this kind of ongoing support. And again, we are talking about both physical and mental health. Right. So these steps are more than just actions. They are actually a transformative shift in how you interact with and care for your body. 

In simple terms, I call it I call this the power of transformative healing. They lay the foundation for long term transformative healing and a more harmonious relationship with yourself that goes much beyond your diagnosis, your disease, and your chronic condition. It doesn't really matter. You know this will work in any kind of situation, any kind of diagnosis, no matter what you are going through. And if you are ready to take these steps and truly embrace your healing journey, you can listen to some of the other episodes and you can explore more in-depth strategies and support. 

If you have any questions or want to learn more about function meditation health coaching, you can connect with me on Instagram at the rate and in the room. To thank you so much for joining me today for this episode of Embrace Your Healing Journey. If you like this episode, pay it forward and share it with a friend. Make sure that this message reaches to more and more people who need to hear this year, this today, need, uh, you know, they can get better.

 And if you love the show, write a five star review. Because even one sentence helps me bring. Keep bringing you the content that you want to hear. Your body knows how to heal. Are you ready to support it?