Like renovating or remodeling an old house, your relationship with your health and wellbeing never ends—one thing gets fixed, and then another area of the house needs attention. When you first embark on the Zenshin journey of restoring your health, cultivating deeper awareness, and becoming the expert of you, you will inevitably realize that the process is like peeling an onion. Layer after layer, the journey never ends.
In the world we live in, especially in the U.S., we highly value speed—the faster the better. From speed-reading, to speed eating and speed dating, we often believe that we will simply be left behind if we are not fast enough. We are so impatient in our need for speed, that we want everything even sooner than “this instant”, whether it is the Internet connection, movie streaming, delivery service, or a prompt text reply. So, intolerance for long stretches of time between expected results is a learned behavior from our growing culture of instant gratification, instant reduction in symptoms, and immediate answers to our questions.
This notion is pervasive.
This is why it doesn’t surprise us when we are asked the following questions:
How long do I have to eat this way?
How long does it take to lose the excess weight?
How much time will it take for my symptoms to go away?
We all have been conditioned to think this way, and so there is no difference when it comes to our health and healing. In part this is due to the ubiquitous use of pharmaceuticals, where a pill will numb or ease the symptoms within a very short period of time after popping it into your mouth. In fact, if you have a headache, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) will generally start to suppress symptoms within just a few hours, sometimes sooner. So many people, kids and adults, can no longer even imagine enduring 2-3 days of letting our bodies naturally fight a common cold.
We all seek a speedy transformation, a fast recovery, and an immediate shift of our uncomfortable symptoms and conditions. But, we have to remember: these symptoms and conditions took many years to develop and manifest!
Zenshin Method is not about weekend detox purges or 21-day “diet” plans. In fact, we look at Zenshin work as a way to build long-term relational skills for navigating our lives through the layers of learning and challenge. As you move through your life, your needs, goals, and focus change as you change. And this means that your initial symptoms and conditions will most likely morph into something different.
For you, feeling relief from long-standing discomfort or disease can stimulate a desire to explore different areas of your life more deeply, such as developing a heightened spiritual connection, or even learning more about how your physical body works. But sometimes, the relief of these original symptoms and conditions doesn’t immediately lead to lasting health. Sometimes it can feel like walking on a sand dune--one step forward and two steps back. In fact, it can lead to experiencing deeper layers of imbalance, deeper signs of disconnect between body, mind, and spirit, and it can shed light on other hidden and chronic illnesses—as if you are unearthing the very layers of your history and being.
When you begin to implement changes to your diet, add appropriate nutritional support and necessary supplements, and modify your lifestyles appropriately, you are likely to experience possible physical reactions, and they are not always “comfortable” or perceived as “positive”, especially in a world that encourages us to avoid discomfort at any cost. In other words, change can be messy at times, and it can be stressful to your body as well as your psyche. However, you need not judge this messy, and at times arduous, process as good or bad, or win or lose.
Remember the image of peeling an onion. When your body has rested enough and is given the appropriate nutrients, it is able to show its sub-layers and hidden chronic issues. This is because when your incredibly intelligent body is able to digest and eliminate effectively, repair and heal tissues, and have its basic physiological needs met, it starts to work on other key components of your health. It will work on lowering inflammation, combat chronic infections, regulate energy, produce and balance hormones, and so on.
For example, in the beginning of your journey with Zenshin Method, you may experience an increase in digestive reactions like constipation, gas, cramps, diarrhea, nausea, headache, heartburn, etc., much like what you originally contacted us to work on. These reactions often happen, because the body isn’t properly digesting fats, proteins, and the liver bile is sluggish or overly viscous. Although many of these reactions will improve with simple interventions, it takes time for the organs and the digestive system to heal and restore balanced function.
Although your body can sometimes shift quickly at first, for most of us it is a process, especially if you are looking for lasting healing and optimal health. Optimal health is not merely an absence of disease, injury or adverse symptoms. It is also about maintaining zest for life, where you can keep moving, keep learning, keep expanding, and keep experiencing boundless possibilities.
It requires patience and perseverance. It requires mental and physical endurance, determination, and tenacity that stand the test of time. Just as dividends are distributed later in the life of your investment, make the investment right now in your health so you can reap the benefits later in your life. And this means that you must establish healthy habits that you can repeat on a daily basis to the extent possible.
If you have never been guided or given tools to work through various stages of healing and change, your symptoms would most likely make you question and/or abandon the process. This is why many of you will benefit from working with knowledgeable health and nutritional practitioners and/or Functional Medicine doctors who understand what you are experiencing, who are willing to work with you and stay curious long enough to find out the causes, and who can support you for the long haul.
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