Hey everyone, so I just spoke on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and added and layered it over what can sometimes happen when you've been sick and when you're in survival mode – you're in the base of that triangle. So now I actually want to talk about what happens when you get better.
The Challenge of Getting Better
And this is a phenomenon that I've come across in some of my clients. Some of them sail through this, but it's this concept that if you've been sick, especially for a long time, if you've had a chronic illness, or if you've still got the illness but it's been knocking you around, and then we've got you to a point where you're feeling heaps better, we might have to do some mental work around getting better.
And you think, "What do you mean, Elizabeth? People that have been sick, all they want to do is get better."
You'd be surprised how we cope and how we might have to actually learn to let go mentally of our illness and acknowledge our new normal.
A Case Study
So I actually saw this recently in a client. She came to me with chronic headaches that were debilitating. And we actually turned it around really quickly. So from my perspective, there are underlying TCM imbalances, but a big part of what she needed was just someone to go in and move the qi in her neck and her head and the back of her head.
And then she was so great. We then said, "Listen, off to my remedial massage therapist. I think you need some physical work to back up the qi that I've moved, because otherwise this will just keep getting jammed and stuck." And so she did that as well.
So I saw her, and then two weeks later I saw her again. But she did report to me after our first session, she actually didn't experience any more headaches.
And so she said it was so strange. And at first I was like, when we were first talking about it, I couldn't figure out if what had changed was that the headaches had got worse, because her language around it was so disbelief. So she was like, "Oh, it's changed. It feels odd."
So she didn't have a headache at all. And this is someone who would regularly pop the Nurofen and the Panadol just to be able to get through her day. And had no energy and just had no kind of desire to do the things that she knew were good for her. She'd go for convenience meals and stuff. She was doing her absolute best she could. And really, this is when I – the first part of this, talking about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs – she really was in that base survival mode. And we're talking for months. We're not talking, you know... yeah. So anyway, maybe I'll go into the case a bit more because it's kind of an interesting one.
So she came to me and she'd actually just been to her neurologist. And the neurologist was like, "Well, okay, the previous meds we've given you for this headache aren't working. I'm going to give you something much stronger." And she was going to start this new medication at the time she saw me. But then, because the headaches haven't occurred any more since I first saw her and first worked on her body and first did balancing for her, she hasn't even started this new medication.
The Disbelief of Wellness
So this is the piece that I want to really hone in on around this case. She said, "I was kind of not sure what was going on. It felt so weird to have energy and not have my headaches." She said, "I was almost walking around in disbelief and almost waiting for the shoe to drop."
And so I was like, "Oh, this is brilliant. Okay, we've turned a corner." And I always say to my clients, sometimes we can take two steps forward and there might be a situation where we take one step back, but part of that is mapping. What is it that came in that caused that change to go back again? And that's okay, because then we're moving the needle in the right direction. We're slowly heading off in the right direction, or in her case pretty quickly. But if it does go back, that's fine, because we want to map these reasons so she can watch out for them next time.
It's this phenomenon. She didn't trust that – what it was like, this new normal. No headache felt a bit odd. Couldn't remember what it was like to not experience headaches and had to adjust her reality to being well, or being better than what she'd been experiencing.
So some people do this really well. She actually was an example of someone who kind of acknowledged how she felt in terms of "Well, what's going on here?" and then kind of laughed about it and then adjusted to this new normal of not having to pop Panadol and Nurofen very regularly. And she was really good about that, and then she's actually running with it. And she's gone, "Okay, well, now I'm ready to tackle the fact that I'm eating chocolate a lot and I am not committed to that any more. Okay, so let's look at why I might be going for the chocolate. I think I'm bored."
Like, she is – that's an example of the type of thinking you can start to have when you step out of this baseline survival mode on the Hierarchy of Needs pyramid and start to think a bit further than just getting through your day.
Secondary Gains from Illness
So yeah, but I'm telling you all this because there are times where people's journey to health bounces back and forward. And I've – we've had to have a discussion where we've had to talk about, "Well, is there any benefits to you being sick?"
And it's often subconscious. But if you're – or it often is associated with identity. "I am the person with this chronic disease. That's part of who I am. That's my label. That's what everyone knows, and I hate it. And it interrupts my joy in life, and it has these factors that I have to manage." But that's part of who they are. Who are they without it? It's sort of almost a scary thought or something that they haven't contended with, because they don't know themselves without this.
So I mean, in my practice, you do sometimes see clients that come to you. You offer them solutions, they start to feel better, and then they freak out and don't want to come back, because they actually are more attached to being sick subconsciously. I'd never say to someone, "Oh, you like being sick." But it's more, there's something psychological and emotional around the status quo as it is that they want, that they keep. They keep themselves in the state that they are in.
And sometimes it's actually a little bit more – it's a little bit more obvious than that, or not obvious, but it's a bit more conscious. But there is a definite pay-off to them having that label as part of their identity, having that chronic illness or having that condition. Because that is their way of being able to either say no to people – "I can't, I'm not feeling well" – or that is part of them getting attention or getting the love that they feel they need, because people feel sorry for them, or people pander to them, or people will work their way around these people and keep the illness.
And these persons that are sick will kind of be – people will be kind of to them in a way they wouldn't normally experience if they were fully, if they were completely well.
So now that one's more starting to look at people's relationship to other people in life as a whole. Sometimes you can see this in couples or partnerships, and it's not usually conscious. But it's something that you have to dive into and go, "What is it? If I was not sick, if I did not have this chronic illness, or I didn't have it affecting me, or I had the illness but all of a sudden the pieces that really are debilitating – like headaches or whatever – if they weren't around, how would my life change and how would other people treat me?" And they might not like that alternative.
So it's kind of a sticky one and it's not always obvious. But there's definitely something that we might have to transform on this level to have you be free and have you be able to create a new reality where you are not sick. And not just on the physical – let's balance everything TCM-wise, or let's get you eating healthier, let's get your energy up – but actually, mentally, who are you without this condition? Who are you where you don't have this crop up in your life that other people have to sort of work around and you have to work around?
Not Victim-Blaming
So yeah, this is – I'm not victim-blaming, I am not blaming people who have illnesses and going, "This is your fault." I want to take that out and I want to say that explicitly, because that's not what we're on about. And I bring this to the table to empower you.
And this is what's actually nice about this conversation, or what can be great if we can get to the bottom of this. This is actually part of why people's health journeys do not progress the way they should, how they theoretically should in my world anyway, when I'm looking at them as a health professional going, "This is – there's something stuck in here. They're not moving the way that they should. We've taken into account everything else, and yes, there are setbacks. But this is beyond just regular two steps forward, one step back. There is something keeping this person sick."
We will have this discussion. But then, if we can get to the bottom of it, it's an opportunity to create your life.
Creating Your Life Anew
And listen, if you're not sick, this is actually a really great exercise. If you paired back everything in your world to just you – like, put everything that you have to do or feel like you have to do off to the side, and then had a blank canvas to create your life from – what would it look like? What would you like to do now?
This is also one of those conversations you would not be having if you're in survival mode, if you are in the base of the triangle of the Hierarchy of Needs or right in the chronic illness. This is something that we start to have when you are feeling better. Because you probably will not be able to imagine anything outside of just surviving, unless you're really able to step out of your reality and into a new reality – not just a pipe dream, but an actual new reality and manifest. Like, if you can do that kind of visualisation, you might be able to do this when you're in the depths of being chronically ill or affected by your illness. But yeah, it's one of these things.
And you know what, it's actually one of those things where even the things you have to do, the structures that are already in your life that you know you won't be able to – you have to parent your children or whatever – you still put them back into your canvas, but you might put them back in in a different way. You might be – I don't know, there's like, "I have to parent my children and I love my children, but we have a lot more laughter and fun and play and less friction or something." That's how you would create something that's already there that you have to do still. You would be transforming that in a way that layers into your new canvas of your new life that excites you, that inspires you.
So anyway, listen, I'm going off on a tangent now, as always. You know, tell me stories and have my information. But yeah, just wanted to put that out there. Sometimes the psyche around getting better is more work, or scarier work, or more resistant to change than the actual physical work of balancing your health and feeling better.
So hope that helps someone. Let me know if you have experienced this or seen this, experienced this with people around you. You might be the person who's had to resist, who's had to really change their mind and work through being your new normal. Or you might have people in your world that are attached to their illnesses or really struggling to get better because there's this label that all they know is this, and the new normal is actually harder to comprehend. Being healthier is harder to comprehend.
Okay, take care. Bye!