Why Am I Sick But No One Else Is?

[00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to Heal with Grace. I'm your host Grace Secker and I'm a holistic
[00:00:05] licensed therapist and nervous system coach who believes that the chronic and often unseen
[00:00:10] symptoms you're living with are a sign of something deeper going on. A sign that your
[00:00:15] nervous system needs attention. In each episode I'll share the science behind the most
[00:00:19] common chronic health disorders plus holistic health tips using mental, physical and spiritual
[00:00:24] practices. You'll hear what I've learned in my journey and the true stories from
[00:00:29] our trusted guests so you can feel less alone in your experience and give yourself grace
[00:00:34] no matter what you're going through. So without further ado, settle in and get cozy, it's
[00:00:38] time to heal with Grace. Hello, welcome back. I am here today to talk to you about why
[00:00:49] you get sick but it doesn't seem like many other people around you do. I get this
[00:00:54] question a lot from my clients, from the people in our Mind Body Healing Method
[00:00:58] program because often times we might learn about the stress response, nervous system, how
[00:01:07] we can get stuck from trauma. A lot of things we've talked about here on the podcast but
[00:01:11] we still wonder, well, but what is it about me? I didn't go through something crazy
[00:01:17] or stressful in my life or hugely traumatic. I don't understand, you know, why my
[00:01:22] body is sick? Why am I always having issues? And the person next to me who actually
[00:01:27] might have gone through something even bigger in life or, you know, you can
[00:01:32] objectively see that they went through these huge X, Y, and Z traumas. They're not
[00:01:37] sick like I am. So what's the deal here? And I want to answer that question today.
[00:01:43] But first, I'm sitting here talking to you actually on a Friday night after
[00:01:50] having a very stressful week. There's a lot of good that's going on in my life but
[00:01:55] it's a lot. And I know myself now. I know my nervous system. I know my triggers. I
[00:02:00] know that when I get really busy and I don't have much time for myself, that can
[00:02:06] lead to me dismissing myself and I can end up burning out and I can crash. And so
[00:02:12] I've learned that I really need to wash out for these times of, that I have a
[00:02:17] lot going on. And so I'm saying this because I want to give an example of
[00:02:22] what it means to really understand and learn about your nervous system and
[00:02:25] learn what triggers and stresses you. I know now that a week like I had is not
[00:02:31] the best kind of week for me. It's not like just not going to set me up for
[00:02:36] success. And so I really took a couple hours today that I didn't even think I
[00:02:41] had. Truthfully, I mean, I have a million other things to do but I knew if I
[00:02:46] did not take this time, I would end up crashing this weekend and I actually
[00:02:49] want to enjoy my weekend and not just sleep and feel like crap. So now that I
[00:02:56] know this, I actually just took a couple hours to rest. I did a yoga, knee-jab
[00:03:01] practice and then I went and did something fun. For me right now, fun means
[00:03:05] going rock climbing with a friend. And it filled me up so much just because I
[00:03:11] enjoy it and I enjoy the connection that I now came back and sat down and
[00:03:16] decided to record this. I didn't plan it. I was thinking, oh, I need the whole night
[00:03:20] off. I need to just binge TV or just sleep or do nothing. And I actually
[00:03:27] had the energy to come back and record this right now. So I say this because I
[00:03:31] hope this gives you hope that you can get to that place and your health as
[00:03:36] well. You might feel like you're pretty far from that wherever you
[00:03:40] are on your journey but I finally feel like I can manage the stress and
[00:03:45] learn how to handle that that works best for my body. So I know I skipped a
[00:03:51] little ahead on how when we're talking about why we get sick. I'm talking
[00:03:56] about how to recover but it all goes together, right? So why are you getting
[00:04:01] sick versus someone else? So we've talked a lot before on how the nervous
[00:04:07] system gets stuck, right? And I'll just briefly explain that here. When we
[00:04:14] go through stressful situations in life, whether something psychological such as
[00:04:19] a persistent work relationship or just relationship in general environment such
[00:04:24] as overexposure to toxins or a virus or difficult traumas, emotional, mental or
[00:04:30] physical traumas in our life, those can all trigger a cascade of stress
[00:04:35] hormones that produce physiological changes. So from a physiological standpoint,
[00:04:40] these external situations in our life can truly impact our physiological
[00:04:45] state. This is the stress response. This is the fight or flight. And so
[00:04:50] unfortunately, the body can also re overreact to stressors that may not
[00:04:55] feel life threatening, such as traffic jams, work pressure, family
[00:04:59] difficulties. When then these things go on for long periods of time and our
[00:05:04] nervous system doesn't know how to handle it, it can get chronically
[00:05:08] stressed. And we know, we definitely know a little bit in the medical world
[00:05:13] that stress impacts our body, right? There's a lot of talk about stress
[00:05:16] impacting the heart, stress just impacting our health. But not a lot of
[00:05:21] people talk about why and how and what that actually looks like. Aside from
[00:05:25] having big traumas, which we know can impact how we get sick. And I'll
[00:05:30] just say that really quick right now. If you want to learn more, I'd
[00:05:33] suggest going back into a couple different podcasts that I'll link here that
[00:05:38] we'll explain a little bit more about trauma. But basically, when we go
[00:05:42] through traumatic events, and again, it could be anything from something
[00:05:46] like overexposure to toxins or difficult relationships, feeling
[00:05:51] dismissed in our authentic self and our family of origin, or it could be
[00:05:56] things like abuse or natural disasters or, you know, big things that
[00:06:01] people think of as traumas can be any of that. And when this becomes and
[00:06:06] when this happens to us, our bodies go into a state of freeze, fight or
[00:06:12] flight. And we get stuck, we can become stuck in that, which then
[00:06:18] creates a cascade, like I said, of stress hormones that produce
[00:06:22] physiological changes. Those hormone increases and changes can impact
[00:06:27] things like blood pressure, inflammation, anxiety, organ failure,
[00:06:32] chronic pain and disease, all types of different health issues. The second
[00:06:37] part of this is actually the brain. So when the brain gets stuck in the
[00:06:42] stress response by keeping the sympathetic nervous system on, example,
[00:06:47] when the gas pedal, I like to call it the gas pedal, the sympathetic
[00:06:50] nervous system gets pressed down and is not alleviated, it increases things
[00:06:54] like cortisol and decreases emotional regulation. So when we're stuck in our
[00:07:00] sympathetic nervous system, which is the stress response, we actually don't
[00:07:04] have availability to our critical thinking mind, which makes us human. We
[00:07:08] don't have access to learn how to manage our emotions while, which
[00:07:12] might make us feel like we're overly emotional, or maybe that we're
[00:07:16] just so numb, we don't really feel emotions. And this also increases
[00:07:21] things like cortisol, which if you don't know about cortisol impacts our
[00:07:26] hormones, impacts our health, impacts all kinds of things anywhere from our
[00:07:31] brain all the way down to our organs in our physical body. That's why we have
[00:07:35] to work with the mind and the body because they're both impacted. We have
[00:07:40] to work with the brain and we have to understand how our body is
[00:07:43] holding that stress. Sometimes your body can hold that stress by like
[00:07:48] literally holding in a certain position. So your shoulders might be
[00:07:51] hunched over, you might always feel a little bit antsy in your chest or
[00:07:55] maybe you're always kind of clenching your pelvic region. And when you
[00:08:00] start to recognize those signs, we can then work to soothe them and open
[00:08:06] them and alleviate those physical pressures in our bodies. We also
[00:08:10] have to learn how to talk to our brains and basically retrain it so
[00:08:15] that it's not so stuck in this primal place of stress response in our
[00:08:20] nervous system. We don't want it to act from that primal place. We want it to
[00:08:25] act from our conscious human place that we are right now in society and in
[00:08:30] our lives. Overall, just because you can't identify a huge trauma in
[00:08:35] your life, it doesn't mean your brain and your body have not been
[00:08:39] under constant stress, low or high levels of stress for a period of
[00:08:43] time leading to pain or illness. Just by being in a society that you
[00:08:48] may not fit into or having difficult experiences through life big or
[00:08:53] small creates a stressed out brain and body connection. So healing
[00:08:59] requires you to be in your body and teach it new ways of feeling
[00:09:04] safe. So it doesn't have to be constantly stressed. Then this
[00:09:09] calms chronic symptoms like pain, fatigue, high sensitivity to
[00:09:13] toxins and food. So in order to calm the brain and body by putting
[00:09:18] on the brakes, we have to evoke the relaxation response. And
[00:09:24] that's where we talked about nervous system regulation, brain
[00:09:27] training. Also, we have to tend to the parts of us that went
[00:09:32] through these difficult experiences or traumas. And those are the
[00:09:36] emotional parts of us. Those are the core beliefs that lead us to
[00:09:40] feel like we're not good enough, that we have to do everything
[00:09:44] perfect to be accepted or validated, that we always have
[00:09:47] to please people so that we feel accepted and we feel okay
[00:09:51] about ourselves. The parts of us that get really anxious in
[00:09:54] social situations or the parts of us that get really angry
[00:09:58] when our partner or someone does something that after the
[00:10:03] fact may not be that big of a deal, right? All these parts of
[00:10:07] us that have come out to protect us, we have to work with as
[00:10:11] well. And so that's the emotional part. That's the core
[00:10:13] belief part. I like to call it the soul part of healing.
[00:10:17] It's really helping our soul come more alive and being our
[00:10:21] true authentic self instead of all of these other parts that
[00:10:25] have been protecting us and they're not necessarily bad.
[00:10:28] They're doing a job for a reason. So we don't want to
[00:10:31] shame them or criticize them or judge them. We just want to
[00:10:34] learn how to be with them and allow for true authentic self to
[00:10:38] come through. So let's get back to my example. Previously, when
[00:10:43] I was really stuck in a lot of pain, a lot of fatigue, a lot
[00:10:49] of just random symptoms, gut issues, histamine reactions,
[00:10:54] migraines, all the things you can find out what I went
[00:10:57] through on previous episodes. Previously, a week like this,
[00:11:01] well, actually, I wouldn't have been able to do, first of all,
[00:11:03] at different stages of my journey I would have here and
[00:11:08] there kind of, but I had 1000% would have crashed, I would
[00:11:12] have felt sick, I would have felt like I was getting the
[00:11:15] flu probably after a week that I've had this week and would
[00:11:19] have just sent me into a whole spiral of hopelessness and
[00:11:23] feeling like there's no way out and I'm always going to
[00:11:26] be sick and when am I ever going to get better? Nothing's ever
[00:11:29] working. Yeah, you could see me, I could go on and on about this
[00:11:33] and if you've been here, you know what I mean. But because
[00:11:37] I've learned so much about myself on a mental level,
[00:11:42] physical level, core beliefs level, a true spiritual level
[00:11:47] since I've learned so much, I know how to take care of
[00:11:49] myself and I know what my nervous system and my body
[00:11:53] needs in order to support my life in order to do the things
[00:11:58] that I want to be doing to get through stressful times. Right?
[00:12:01] Not everything's perfect. That's not like we're going to have
[00:12:05] ups and downs. I have ups and downs. But I learn how to work
[00:12:09] with myself so that I set myself up to get through these
[00:12:14] difficult times. And I know what to do when I get really
[00:12:20] stressed. And I go through a really hard week. I know how to
[00:12:24] work with myself so that I'm not sent back into crazy symptoms.
[00:12:28] Now, sure, here and there, I'll have a pain here and there
[00:12:31] pop up. But again, I know how to work with it and I noticed how
[00:12:34] to move through it. And so I just I really want this to give
[00:12:38] you hope and it's honestly, it's not just me this
[00:12:40] podcast isn't just about me. This is what I see time and
[00:12:44] time again, people learn how to help themselves, learn how
[00:12:48] to soothe their nervous system, retrain their brain and really
[00:12:51] tend to those deeper parts of themselves that have been stuffed
[00:12:54] and hurt. And when you can do this, then you know how to help
[00:12:59] yourself. So I say this after talking about how trauma and
[00:13:04] life experiences can make you sick, essentially, because I
[00:13:08] don't want to leave you with that just being like, well,
[00:13:11] can't control it, you know, your life has made you sick.
[00:13:14] I don't want you to be left with Oh crap, maybe have I
[00:13:17] done this to myself or now I have control over it, but now I
[00:13:21] can't help myself. So then it's all my fault, right? That's not
[00:13:24] what I want you to hear. I want you to hear that actually
[00:13:27] this can be empowering when we can really be the activists
[00:13:31] for ourselves and take our health and our own hands with
[00:13:34] support. We all need support. I still definitely need
[00:13:39] support. But you can actually help yourself, you can
[00:13:42] become your own self healer, if you will, because you can
[00:13:46] learn ways you can learn more about yourself. We're not really
[00:13:50] taught that very much. Most people I talked to myself
[00:13:54] included were never really taught how to pay attention to
[00:13:56] ourselves and give ourselves what we need or seek out what we
[00:14:00] need from others right in a safe way. And so this is what I
[00:14:05] want you to understand that you can do if you're sitting
[00:14:08] here and you're in a lot of pain and gone through, you
[00:14:11] know, lots of different treatments that maybe haven't
[00:14:14] really helped you very much and you're hopeless. There is a
[00:14:17] way out and I know that you can get there if you start to
[00:14:22] learn more about yourself. And so if you're listening to
[00:14:25] this and you feel like you want to start your journey, I'm
[00:14:31] actually opening up a new space and my mind, body
[00:14:36] healing method program where I help people really learn
[00:14:40] how to be their self healers, specifically learn tools to
[00:14:44] help their specific symptoms, whether that's chronic fatigue,
[00:14:47] chronic pain, food sensitivities, anxieties so that you can learn
[00:14:52] to regulate your nervous system, soothe your body and your
[00:14:55] brain and really tend to those parts of yourself that may
[00:14:58] have gone through trauma and learned how to heal and then
[00:15:02] you can take all this with you and I mean you have it
[00:15:05] forever. So if you're interested in the mind
[00:15:08] body healing method, I highly suggest you taking a look at
[00:15:12] the link provided in the show notes and see if it's right
[00:15:16] for you. DM me on Instagram. Let me know if you have any
[00:15:19] questions. I'm always here and I'm really looking forward to
[00:15:23] this next round of the mind body healing method because we
[00:15:28] have implemented so many new videos, new practices, restructuring
[00:15:33] and it's so powerful. I created this because I wish I
[00:15:38] had something like this when I was sick and I didn't. I
[00:15:41] just kind of piecemeal things together and work somewhat but
[00:15:46] this is really what I wish I had. It's created from a very
[00:15:51] heart-centered loving place to help you if you're going
[00:15:55] through difficult time in your health. Thank you for
[00:15:59] listening. I hope this was helpful and I will talk to you
[00:16:03] later. If this podcast means something to you, it would
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[00:16:29] well as others. Thanks for listening and I hope this
[00:16:32] brings you hope on your journey.