What can you do when all else fails?

Winston Churchill once said, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing…after they have tried everything else.”

This reminds me of what we are taught about health, disease, and our bodies in general. From a young age, most of us learn to “take something” if we are not feeling good. Taking something might include some type of herb, supplement, over-the-counter remedy, prescribed medicine, or other type of drug (legal or otherwise).

We are taught that our health depends on something “outside” of us, as if we couldn’t be healthy otherwise.

In medical school, future doctors are trained that prescribed medicine is what the body needs when it is in a state of illness or disease.

In chiropractic school, future doctors are trained that a chiropractic adjustment and good nutrition are what the body needs when it is in a state of illness or disease.

And while all of these things can help us feel better, the benefits are usually temporary at best. We need to keep taking that supplement, drug or treatment in order to keep feeling better. Over time, we might need more of these things as our bodies reach a new plateau.

Most of us were never taught that our good health (and happiness!) are already inside each and every one of us – like factory settings on a piece of equipment. Our natural state is one of health and happiness. I didn’t learn this until just a few years ago.

What happens is that our natural state becomes bombarded with fear-based thoughts coming at us from every direction. Our mother worried about us, our father had a bad day at work, our teacher didn’t like her job, our babysitter didn’t like us…

From an early age, we can easily FEEL the energy of those around us…and this energy can be summed up as some sort of fear. This fear can play out in many different ways – anger, resentment, worry, anxiety, dread, judgment, bullying, lying, depression.

As children, when we experience or come into contact with someone who is expressing some form of fear, we often don’t understand it. We think we did something wrong. We think we were bad. We can then begin to think of ourselves as unworthy, undeserving, unimportant, unlovable, etc.

We then try to protect ourselves and get our basic needs met the only way we know how:

• We might hide or stay away from certain angry people so that we are not the object of their anger. This can lead to an adult life where you “play small.” You might be a people pleaser. You might put everyone else’s needs before your own. You might begin avoiding people and social situations in general. You might become sick on a regular basis, because this is the only way you can say, “No.”
• Maybe your parents (especially a mother-figure) were really busy trying their best to take care of things. You desperately wanted their attention, but they were just too busy and worn out. Maybe you began to notice that if you were sick, they stayed home with you and gave you lots of attention. Without realizing what was going on, over the course of a few years you find yourself sick a lot…and no one can figure out why. But this was merely a pattern that your ego put in place so that you could get some lovin’ from your parents.
• Maybe you were abused as a child. You probably thought you were worthless. You probably decided at some point that you deserved to be treated this way. It became your new normal. As an adult, you attracted partners that also abused you. You didn’t like it, but it was all you knew. If you figure out what the abuser doesn’t like, something that grosses them out enough that they stop paying attention to you, you can easily create some physical “ailments” or symptoms to remain sick enough so that they leave you alone. I’ve actually worked with several women whose “female problems” gave them the break they desperately needed from having sex with their partner.
• Or maybe we noticed that our parents struggled a lot. Struggled with money, struggled with their relationships, struggled with their health, struggled with their jobs or careers. We can begin to believe that everything is difficult. It’s difficult to make money. It’s difficult to be healthy. It’s difficult to recover from illness. People are out to take advantage of me. Our beliefs about how the world works as a young child turn into our limiting beliefs as an adult. We re-create the same or similar scenarios in our adult lives. We can easily create difficult illnesses or disease processes to prove ourselves correct.

There are many other types of examples, but hopefully you get the gist: we can ALL read other people’s energy, and as children we tend to believe that we did something wrong or that there is something wrong with us. We carry these beliefs with us into adulthood. These beliefs are tucked away in our subconscious mind, the area that stores our experiences and learned behaviors. This area is in control of our thoughts 90-95% of the time. This is the area responsible for that constant loop of negative chatter in our head – that voice that just won’t shut up. This voice fights with everyone, even ourselves. It tells us how terrible, ugly, worthless, and disgusting we are. It complains about everyone else. It has fights with other people…even when they aren’t physically near us!

This is the KEY area: your subconscious mind with all of these thoughts and beliefs that are NOT true. These thoughts and beliefs developed mostly when you were a child. And up until now, you probably haven’t even given them a 2^nd thought…but they have been controlling your life.

Science tells us that our thoughts create our biology. Thoughts are energy. Energy creates chemical changes in our body. These chemical changes can either support health or wreak havoc.

Said another way: Crappy thoughts lead to crappy chemistry, which then leads to crappy physical symptoms. Yuck!

What Can You Do When All Else Fails?

Look within.

What has failed us is the concept of looking outside of ourselves to regain our health. This is backwards. You will not find health in a pill or needle. You will not find health by waging war on bugs or cancer.

You need to learn to look within your mind, look at your thoughts. Become aware of the thoughts and beliefs that don’t feel good – these are the ones that need to go.

For me, my journey of trying everything else before doing the only thing that worked involved the following:

1. I became interested in holistic healing in my late twenties.
2. I went to chiropractic school in my mid-thirties. I opened my own practice at age 39 and my health went downhill quickly from the stress (Who am I to do this work? I’m not worthy of making money. I’m not deserving of a good career. Women aren’t good with business. This won’t work for me. My situation is different. The economy just tanked.)
3. I looked for more outside “tools.” I became certified in acupuncture. I thought this would enhance my ability to help myself and others. Nope. Still pretty sick.
4. Still searching, I became an expert in digestion. I tried all of the different elimination diets. I had to take tons of enzymes to help digest my food. I became obsessed with this topic.
5. Still searching outside of myself, I became an expert in balancing hormones. This gave me only temporary relief.
6. My next search led me to became an expert in Lyme Disease and the immune system. I found out I had Lyme, and was told there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t believe it, so I set out to figure it out for myself. What I found was a big cesspool of anger and blame within this community. Yuck. I began to realize that negative emotions both contributed to illness and blocked your ability to heal.
7. Then the skies opened up and I found A Course In Miracles (ACIM). ACIM is a mindset tool. It helped me stop listening to my fear-based ego. It gave me tools to let go of the emotions that were blocking my ability to heal (anger, resentment, judgment). Finally! I had found the only thing that would really work for me.

For me, looking at my thoughts, questioning my beliefs, letting go of old toxic emotions, and making solid decisions about what I really wanted and why were the only things that really helped me long-term.

Doing this work can be thought of as “mindset” work. It is completely backwards from what we are taught to believe about how life works. At first glance, most people dismiss it. I dismissed this work for a long time…to my detriment.

When all else has failed you…isn’t it time to try something completely different?

Ways I can help you

1. If this resonates with you and you are ready to move through all of this, I would love to help you! I'll teach you my best tools in my next online workshop series, Mastering Your Mindset - Introductory Workshop Series.
2. If you need to gather some more information on "the basics" of how you can use your mind to heal your body, your emotional stress & your relationships, click here to check out my selection of Free and Low-Cost Mini-Courses.
3. You can also set up a $30, 30-minute chat with me to discover your #1 Roadblock to Well-Being and options that would be a good fit for you. Click here to schedule. 

Many Blessings,

Dr JoAnn Tully, Mind-Body Doctor & Mindset Coach

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