Maybe the symptoms are not what it is about

Maybe the symptoms are not what it is about. Could headaches be about your trying to live a life that is not in keeping with the values that you own? Could indigestion be the result of trying to “swallow” a truth with which you do not agree? Could not being able to balance the checkbook by an indication of financial issues that you do not want to address? A friend recently told me she has ceased going to a particular Church because she came home sick to her stomach every Sunday. She also said, “I can’t swallow what that Church believes.” When she said this, she stopped talking, eyes wide open and asked, “Did you hear what I just said?” It wasn’t as important that I heard her, she heard herself. She has made some Church changes, and her indigestion has significantly minimized. She laughs as she reports she still needs to pay attention to her diet. Sometimes our symptoms are trying to tell us something very important about our lives and we need to listen to them. It might be as we listen to the symptoms and make appropriate adjustments, the symptoms would go away because they have been heard.

Befriending Anxiety

Anxiety can be a friend. God created humanity and called it “very good.” Humans, as also with other animals, are warned of a potentially threatening or distressing situation by means of the amygdala. This small gland sits atop our spinal cord at the base of the brain, and it was divinely created as a warning system. I’ve a friend who called it the “check engine light.” It warns us of potentially threatening situations, and our prefrontal cortex or rational thinking part of our brain takes notice and decides whether the situation is really threatening or just inconvenient. If it is threatening, our brain and nervous system gets ourselves prepared to fight, flight/run or freeze. Our task is to learn from our anxiety but not let it overwhelm us. We can learn to befriend anxiety. Unfortunately, there are those among us who seem to worry all the time. If they are not worried about something, they are worried because they aren’t worried. We can befriend our anxiety, learn from it and be grateful that we have been created with such a warning system.