Your Trigger is Your Illness

Today I sat and talked with someone on social media, trying to explain my thoughts on healing their illness. I couldn't really find the right wording to help them. Then it came to me. As I thought of myself so many years ago, I realized what I had to create with my own mindset.

When I was a kid, my father had colitis, and we kids- there were ten of us started to notice that when my father was frustrated, stressed, or mad, he would spend most of the time in the bathroom. So, if it was a beautiful day out and we wanted to play instead of digging a ditch, weeding the garden, or cutting wood. Tools would get lost, things wouldn't go right, my father would end up in the bathroom, and we would head out to play, in earshot, waiting for him to come back.

When I faced the possibility of surgery, I realized I needed to develop my own recovery plan, emphasizing the power of taking control of your health journey.

I believe some people I have talked to over the years believe I had an epiphany; just like that, I had a plan. Trying to explain this is forty years of thought, broken down piece by piece. I'm writing to make it clear for people like you reading this. Even if I wrote my book today, it would be different. I don't think what I wrote in my book is wrong; I could have written it differently so readers could better absorb what I was trying to pass on.

So, many years ago, when I was in the heat of my illness, I asked myself this question. Why is my body making this illness? I was trying everything, but still I was getting worse every day. Why was my mind telling my body to make ulcers throughout my intestines?

I couldn't understand why my body was screaming at me, using my intestines as its voice. Then the story of my father came back, and how stress was put into the equation; all of a sudden, the cramps would start, the bathroom visits accelerated, the weight would drop, and the flare-up became real.

When I focused on the trigger, which was stress, I focused first on trying to remove myself from having stress and then learning about stress, learning that stress was a choice in thinking—finding ways to release stress before it entered my intestine. To finally value my health over stressing about what might happen or might not, or worrying about what already happened, and living in the past.

So, yes, your trigger is your illness, and your sickness is the symptom.