Beyond Fibromyalgia – Balance the Body
The Beyond Fibromyalgia program is a comprehensive system of healing and balancing all aspects of who we are, including our body, emotions, mind, expression, spirit, and energy. The body is the foundation and connects with all other dimensions.
In this article, we are going to introduce 12 steps to support your body in rebuilding wellness.
Steps 1-8 talk about the basics to becoming and staying healthy. Steps 9-12, give us an opportunity to go to a deeper level of healing and well-being.
- Listen to your body
- Eat Real Food
- Drink Water
- Move your body
- Breathe
- Get adequate sleep
- Honor your bio-individuality
- Manage Stress
- Uncover and eliminate food sensitivities
- Detox Your Home
- Detox your body.
- Identifying imbalances and malfunctions and rebalance and restore the body and its systems.
1. Listen to your body
Your body communicates to you all the time. It tells you what foods support health and healing and what foods don’t. It tells you when you need to rest and when you need to move your body. It tells you when you have too much stress in your life. Your body tells you when something in your body or life is out of balance. Your body is your friend and if you learn to listen to and interpret its signals, it will become a trusted guide in your healing process.
We have cut ourselves off from the communication from our body. We ignore the body’s signals, we take pills and potions to silence the signals, and we do not know how to interpret the messages that our body is trying to send to us. Step one of the healing process is to reestablish communication with the body.
2. Eat Whole Food
The fuel for your body is whole foods, including vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy, meat, and fats. Just as nature created your body, nature created the perfect food for your body. Each food that we eat provides our body with unique and irreplaceable nutrients in the proper balance for our bodies. Our bodies know how to use the foods created by Mother Nature to keep our bodies healthy and in balance and the systems in our body functioning at maximum efficiency.
In the world today, our food supply is being tainted with highly process, modified and even manufactured “food.” Eating processed, modified and manufactured foods does not give our bodies the proper nutrition in the proper balance so in essence we become malnourished. As our bodies are not getting the proper fuel, our systems begin suffer and malfunction. Our body does not have the right fuel to heal and support itself. Plus the body cannot keep up with eliminating the on slot of chemicals that it needs to dispose of. The result includes faster aging, aches and pains, poor sleep, fatigue. Our body also sends us signals to let us know what nutrients we are missing from our diet in the form of food cravings.
Step two of the healing process is to return to eating whole foods as close to its natural source as possible.
3. Drink Pure Water
Your body is somewhere around 50-75% water. Water performs many vital functions in the body. Your brain needs water to function, your body needs water to flush out toxins and cellular wastes from the body, and your blood is primarily water and works to bring oxygen throughout the body. These are just a few examples of the importance of water. The quality of water is also important. Filtered or spring water are the best options.
We often replace water in our diet with coffee, teas, sports drinks and sodas. These types of beverages often contribute to dehydration rather than to hydration and are filled with unhealthy chemicals or stimulants. Sometimes we simply don’t drink enough liquids of any kind. By the time you feel thirsty, your body is already dehydrated.
Step three of the healing process is to drink adequate high quality water.
4. Move Your Body
The human body was designed to move. Movement of the body keeps the body healthy and strong. Moving the body keeps the muscles toned and strong, the heart healthy, the joints lubricated and healthy, and assists the organs in fulfilling their functions. Movement assists the body in detoxifying cellular wastes and helps to transport nutrients and oxygen throughout the body. Movement also gets you where you want to go in life. A variety of movement is needed to include strengthening, cardiovascular, flexibility, and ease.
For many of us our lives are more sedentary than they have been in the past. We have compensated with gyms and numerous forms of exercise. Some of us exercise too little, some too much. Yes, you can over exercise as well as under exercise. Some focus too much on one category such as strengthening or cardiovascular rather than a balanced routing including all categories. Exercise can be fun activities such as dancing or playing a sport.
Step four of the healing process is to include a balanced exercise routine in your regular schedule.
5. Breathe
The most important nutrient that we take in every minute of every day is air. Breath is life. Your life begins with the first breath in and ends with your last breath out. Without breath/air/oxygen, you would cease to be alive in 3-4 minutes. You can live for up to 3-4 months without food and up to a week without water, but you cannot even live 5 minutes without air. The breath brings the important nutrient of oxygen into your body and rids the body of metabolic and cellular wastes. The breath also fosters self-awareness, assists you in listening to your body, and can help to manage stress.
For many of us, our breaths are shallow, we do not use the full capacity of our lungs and we do not exhale fully to empty our lungs before taking in the next breath. The busier we get, the less breath we take in. It is a simple yet very valuable process to take a few minutes each day to simply watch the breath and then slow down and deepen the breath. In addition to this simple process, there are breathing techniques that we can learn and use to support health and balance in the body, emotions, mind and spirit.
Step 5 is learning to breathe more fully and completely.
6. Get adequate sleep
Sleep time is the part of our day where we allow the body, mind, emotions and spirit to rest and rejuvenate. The body needs this time to repair and replenish itself so that it can continue day after day. Likewise, the mind needs down time. We need time where we can sink into the deepest recesses of our being and reconnect with our source. This rhythm aligns us with the rhythm of the earth and keeps the cycle of life strong. The number of hours that we sleep, the quality of our sleep and the rhythm of our sleep cycles are all important factors in getting adequate sleep.
In our busy lifestyles, we lose this natural rhythm. We compromise our sleep by cutting down the hours available for sleep, by staying awake late into the night (or early morning hours) and by compromising the quality of our sleep. Good dietary and exercise routines are important in insuring a good night sleep. A balanced schedule with adequate time for sleep that is in harmony with nature is important as well as managing the level of stress in our lives.
Step 6 is getting adequate good quality sleep.
7. Honor your bio-individuality
Each person on this planet is as unique as each individual snowflake. This individuality extends beyond the color of our hair and eyes. It impacts our personality, our water needs, our exercise choices and our food choices. Just as some plants like more sun or more water or different types of soil, the needs of our bodies differ from person to person. Have you ever wondered why some people never gain weight no matter what they eat or some people can lose weight on a high protein diet when another person would gain weight on that same diet? Why do different people like different foods?
This is all about bio-individuality. If you are eating foods that suits your unique bio-chemical needs, you can eat all you want with no issues around weight gain or loss. You will have a stable and abundant supply of energy from morning until night fall. You will have less aches and pains. Your mind will be clear and focused. Your hormones and emotions will be more stable. Your food cravings will diminish.
In our world today, we get an abundance of conflicting information on diet and exercise. How do we know what is right for us? We are taught to not listen to our bodies, but to follow someone else’s idea of what our bodies need.
By learning about your unique bio-individuality and adjusting your diet and exercise to align with that, you will be supporting your body in moving towards health and balance.
8. Manage Stress
Stress is a part of our lives and always will be. Stress is that which moves us forward into creating new solutions to the challenges that we face in our lives. Stress helps us to evolve beyond limiting beliefs and who we think we are into the next grander vision of ourselves.
Stress in the body also helps us to become aware when something is out of balance and gives us notice that we need to pay attention and take action to bring ourselves back into balance. Stress can be found on the physical, emotional, mental and expression levels of our existence. And stress in one area impacts stress in the other areas, so it is important to become aware of and address the stress in a timely manner. If stress is unaddressed, it leaves a negative imprint in the body and can cascade into numerous challenges on all levels.
The steps included in this article are ways to reduce stress on the physical level. Each phase of the Beyond Fibromyalgia program is intended to bring balance to a different dimension of ourselves and thereby reduce stress on the physical body. Watch for upcoming blogs . . .
9. Uncover and eliminate food sensitivities
A healthy food for your body is a food that your body can digest and utilize to provide your body with proper nourishment. Along with our bio-individuality, there are some foods that agree with your body and some foods that may not agree with your body.
Maybe you love a food, but after eating it, you don’t feel so good. You may even say, “I like that food, but my body doesn’t.” You might feel sluggish or get a stomach ache or heart burn or diarrhea or fuzzy minded or overly emotional. If so, these are foods that are contributing to ill health rather than good health.
Some of these foods are easy to identify because the results are immediate and noticeable. Sometimes the effects of these foods are more subtle and take time to impact the body. These are the foods that need some detective work to uncover. Identifying and eliminating foods that your body reacts negatively to is an important step in creating a strong and healthy body. Watch future blogs for ways to identify and eliminate food sensitivities.
10. Detox your home.
Keeping your home clean and uncluttered is another way to support your health. Cleanliness provides a safe, healthy and comfortable place to live and thrive. A place to rest, work and play. A physically clean environment contributes to improved health.
Just as our food supply has been inundated with unhealthy foods, the cleaning products and personal care products you use can provide a constant source of toxicity that the body has to deal with. This creates additional stress on the body and forces the body to use its resources to deal with the onslaught of toxins. Using cleaning products and personal care products that are made using natural and bio-degradable ingredients will go a long way to improve your health.
11. Detoxify your body
The body is designed to naturally eliminate toxins from our external environment and those created by our internal metabolic processes in order to keep the body clean and healthy. Sort of like an internal bath. Eating unhealthy foods and living an unhealthy lifestyle over time results in toxicity in the body above and beyond what our body can naturally eliminate. These toxins create stress on the body, interfere with the normal functioning of the body, stress the immune system and contribute to pain and other illnesses. As you upgrade your food and lifestyle, doing a targeted cleanses can assist your body in more quickly eliminating the toxicity. It is also a good idea to integrate some detoxification protocols in your lifestyle on an ongoing basis. In this way, your body will achieve and maintain maximum health. Watch for future blogs on how to detoxify your body.
12. Re-balance and repair the body and its systems
The body is designed to maintain balance and health with all systems working at maximum efficiency. This would include the immune, digestive, detoxification, elimination and hormonal systems among others. In order to maintain excellent health all of these systems need to be functioning and in balance with each other. Eating a poor diet and living an unhealthy lifestyle can push the body beyond its ability to stay in balance.
As you change your diet and upgrade your lifestyle, it is important to identify imbalances and compromised functioning within the body. Once these are identified, targeted protocols can be implemented that will assist the body in returning to full balance and optimal functioning resulting in improved health. See future blogs on how to re-balance and repair the body.
In Closing
As you can see, rebuilding your health is a process, not an event. It does take intention and commitment. Taking baby steps, choosing one thing at a time, implementing it and sticking with that until it feels natural. Then take another baby step. With this focus, over the course of time, you will be adopting a healthy lifestyle and improving your health.
Help is available. I work one on with with clients who want support in making and sticking with lifestyle and dietary changes. If you are interested in this, you can schedule a Complimentary Discovery session with me. By next year, I will be offering group programs so that more people can receive coaching at an affordable price.
If this isn’t in your budget, keep reading my blogs. I will be offering ongoing information on how to take the baby steps. Also, join the online Kaleidoscope Healing Circle. This is a place for us to come together as a community to support healing, compassion and empowerment.
Above all, be kind and compassionate with yourself. An action done with love, love for yourself, is more powerful than anything else. You are a beautiful, amazing woman. You deserve to be healthy and have a fulfilling life filled with love. Allow that to be your motivation.
Much love to you,
Bindu
