What Is the Source Of Your Autoimmune Disease?
Modern medicine is helpless against autoimmune diseases. You're not! How to heal yourself?
VOICEOVER is available. If you prefer to listen, click the link.
I have suffered from an autoimmune disease for most of my life. It took an absolute breakdown of my body and mind to look into the matter and heal myself. While my burnout, caused by a combination of stress and my disease, was challenging and unpleasant, it was also life-changing in a good way.
Long story short, I was sick from my early teen years, perhaps even before, and up until I was 28 years old. Unfortunately, the healing wasn’t a quick, painless, or pleasant process for me. After hitting rock bottom, I was finally open to dealing with the source of my problem, not just suppressing the symptoms of the disease.
You see, it’s not easy to realize or admit that we are the cause of our discomfort, disease, or other problems. It’s much easier to look for the reasons in the outside world. Climate, economy, medical institutions, food, jobs, whatever that may be. But the truth is that those have very little to do with your problems, especially when we’re talking about autoimmune diseases.
It’s in the name, isn’t it? Auto-immune disease.
We think that when doctors examine us, they are looking for the underlying causes of our problems. But they aren’t! They are stuck on the outside looking in. They check the symptoms, but they rarely find the underlying causes of our medical problems.
Consequently, they make an educated guess and prescribe some sort of treatment, usually in the form of medicine that deals with symptoms and symptoms alone. No, not always, but in the case of autoimmune disease, we might just use that word.
We feel better as our symptoms subside for a while, but we haven’t solved the real cause of our problems. What happens when we stop using their medicine? The symptoms return.
Why do you think this is?
Because the sources of all autoimmune diseases lie in the mind, deep within. The doctors can’t see in there, nor do they care to look for the most part. What happens after you visit the doctor and they come to the conclusion that you have an autoimmune disease?
They give you something for the worst of the symptoms and send you packing. “We can’t help you. We don’t know what causes these problems. Find a way to live with the disease. It is incurable. Avoid stress, figure out a diet that works for you, and when you get to an acute state, inflammation, etc., come see me, and we’ll patch you up.”
Sounds familiar? If you’re suffering from an autoimmune disease, I’m betting you’ve heard a version of this talk. I have. Everyone I know who has an autoimmune disease has. With these issues, medicine is more or less useless. They will save us from the worst of our symptoms, but they are helpless and disinterested in healing and disposing of the underlying causes.
Have you ever gone to an alternative medicine practitioner? What is their response when you tell them your problems? Do they tell you it’s a hopeless case, an incurable disease?
I was shocked at how different their conviction in their efficacy is. All of the doctors have told me I will never heal. It’s just not possible, and I will simply have to adapt my life, diet, and mind to the fact that I am damaged goods. That will never change. While the first alternative doctor I met just waived his hand and said, “No problem. I’ve had many patients with your disease. They all got better. You’ll be just fine.”
Going through his “guest book,” I found a few people with my exact incurable disease who have written their testimony of healing entirely.
Were they lying?
How is this possible?
How can this “alternative healer” heal an incurable disease that the whole of modern science can’t?
Good question. I don’t think he heals anything. He just helps us heal ourselves. The honest alternative doctors will explain this to you unless they fear the truth will hinder your healing process.
The mind is king, and we must do anything to make it believe that:
We can heal despite what we’ve been told by our doctors.
We are already healthy, perfect in body and mind.
This post is not an advertisement for alternative medicine. I have no horse in that race. I suggest you go to the formal doctors and specialists and try to heal that way first. If they send you packing or fill you up with pills you then have to take forever, you might want to think about alternatives. And I’m not talking about alternative doctors.
They are only the middlemen. People who, in their unique ways, show you the path to healing yourself. Some of you will find this path with direct introspection. Others will need a little help. Only you know who you are and what you need.
As within so without
You’ve probably heard this statement and are sick of it, right? Well, tough luck. It just happens to be true, especially when talking about autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune! It’s self-explanatory, really.
Your body is hurting itself. The disease is caused by you and you alone. I know you don’t do it on purpose. No one does. You don’t know why or how you are causing harm to yourself. You would stop immediately if you did.
Furthermore, it’s not easy to find the actual cause of your particular problem. It will take a lot of reading, talking to people, and honest introspection. The kind that isn’t pleasant or easy, and you will fight it with everything you’ve got.
No one wants to be the cause of their own problems. We don’t like to take this responsibility for anything. Everyone prefers to play the victim and blame it on everybody else. But it’s all bullshit! If you want to heal, this is the first thing to go!
You must take 100% responsibility for your mind, body, and life situation
No “buts, ifs, or pointing fingers!” Step in front of the mirror, look into your eyes and admit to yourself: “I caused this problem. I am the source of my disease. And since I caused the problem, I made myself sick, I am also the only one who can solve the problem at its core. I am the only one who can heal me!”
Now, the true work begins.
I can’t tell you what it is within you that is causing your particular problem or disease. I don’t know you, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know you deeply enough. You will have to do the work yourself. Read all you can on the topic of mind-body connection. Study the testimonies of people who have healed. Listen to their stories. Look for clues.
Then, when you are beginning to understand how our relationships, emotions, fears, and desires influence our health, study the people you know best. Do you see any connections?
Did somebody get cancer? Cancer eats you from within. Is something eating them from within? A resentment, a horrible relationship, inability to forgive, perhaps?
Has someone’s vision gotten horribly bad all of a sudden? Is there something they don’t want to see but are exposed to? It usually starts in the family setting.
Does someone have a weak immune system and catches every possible disease, virus, and bacteria? Are they riddled with fears? Do they spend time researching diseases online? Is there some joy or benefit deep within when they are the poor little helpless victims, constantly sick?
Is someone having severe back issues without sustaining physical damage, like having an accident or a fall? Is something weighing them down? Are they haunted by fears regarding their job, business, or money? Are they afraid of the future? Do they carry a secret so heavy it broke their spine?
The real reasons for autoimmune disease will not be apparent, nor will it be easy to accept. You will have to go through layers of false answers before getting to the core of the problem. Some of these, like resentment, jealousy, or fear, will be difficult to admit. Even to yourself!
Furthermore, once you believe you have found the actual cause or will suspect something, that belief or emotion is so deeply entrenched within that you have made it a part of your identity. You are it. It is you. In short - you won’t want to give it up and, with it, your disease.
One of the worst things you can ever feel is resentment. Resenting someone will kill you, quite literally, unless you learn to forgive and move on. What happens when you suggest to someone that they should forgive the one they feel wronged them?
Are they willing to do so? No, right? They believe they are vindicated in hating them and that resenting them is somehow the other person’s punishment. Unfortunately, it only hurts the person resenting!
Think of it this way. If something within your mind and heart is causing your own body to hurt itself with a disease, what does that tell you?
Is the unresolved situation, emotion, or belief a good thing?
Is it worth holding on to it?
Is there perhaps a better way?
Even if the other person would have been punished by it, is it worth paying the price of disease and possibly premature death?
Only you can answer those questions for yourself. You will also bear the consequences.
The process
Here’s how I go about the process of identifying and healing the underlying causes of my problems:
I learn all I can, read, listen, talk to, and try to understand the possible connections between causes in the mind and their effects on people’s bodies, relationships, and lives.
I think and write a lot about what I think could be the problems in my case. I try to sense how I feel about what I think and write. The more I process them, the clearer things become. What am I afraid of? Who am I resenting? What do I desire and can’t have? What am I resisting? Where do I feel a negative emotional reaction?
If my problems have been long-standing, I dig into my past. Most of the problems that stem from your early days will have to do with your relationships with your parents, siblings, and first social circles. Go back and dig deep.
When I find anything I don’t like, such as resentment, fear, resistance, or inability to accept something, I work on resolving it. By myself, with myself. I forgive everyone and everything. I accept what happened. I let go of controlling the future. I heal the relationships in my mind. I try to figure out what I misunderstood as a kid and look at it from an adult's perspective, rewriting the past in my mind.
I clear all negative emotions by first allowing them to surface, recognizing them, accepting them, and then letting them pass. Whatever is bothering you and you feel a strong emotional reaction, clean it out of your system.
I work on the belief that I don’t have to stay sick. If others can heal themselves, so can you. If you caused the problem, you can trigger the solution. If your mind is the root cause, it is also the salvation. You can, and you will get better. In fact, it is done! Done, done! You are perfect. You are healthy. You are enough. You deserve to heal. You are worthy of a good life. You are perfect in your mind, and it is reflected in your body.
I define the problem and then create a counterbelief, which I try to engrave into my mind. For me, it was: “I can’t eat or drink anything without getting really sick.” So I had to counter that belief (based on decades of my reality) with, “I can eat and drink anything I want, and I always feel good.” You will internally fight this affirmation, so if you feel a strong push, form it in one of these ways:
“I allow myself to…”
“I give myself permission to…”
“I am open to…”
“Why am I so healthy…”
“How do I feel this good…”
“How does it feel to be healthy and free from…”
“I release/let go of this… and I am now free…”
“Anything is possible, even I could…”
Keep these three thing in mind:
Accept your current position, and stop fighting it emotionally. That doesn’t mean you stop trying to heal. It means that even if the worst-case scenario happens, if this is the “cross you must bear,” so be it. Other people have it worse. Much worse. You are lucky if this is the sum of your health issues. In essence, try to forget it and stop thinking about your disease.
Stop identifying with being sick and a diseased or disabled person. The more you think about your disease, the more it will manifest itself in your body! The more you identify with some “label” (I hate these labels like “I am depressed, I have PTSD, I have Chrone’s, I am disabled, I have ADHD…”), the more you will become the essence of that label. You are not your disease!
The key is to find the faulty code in your subconsciousness, causing you to be sick. You won’t be able to access that directly, but you can rewrite certain things and clear out blocks, resentments, anger, fear, etc. You can, through repetition, install new programs into your subconscious mind. Not in a day, but with time.
If there was ever a win-win, it is this
Even if you do not heal by freeing up your mind and releasing your hurtful emotions, you will benefit from the process immensely. Even if you don’t believe that you can heal and that your mind has anything to do with your disease, you have nothing to lose.
You don’t have to be sick for the rest of your life just because the doctors don’t know how to heal you. You don’t have to take pills every day. That is not normal, nor is it healthy.
You are not your disease. You don’t have to let it define you.
If there are people out there, and there are millions, who have healed themselves from similar diseases, there is hope for you!
The source of my autoimmune disease
I can tell you what I found out in my introspection regarding my autoimmune disease. My immune system killed all the good bacteria and caused all sorts of havoc in the process—the Chrone’s disease.
I traced the origin to when I was about ten years old. My parents were very religious and involved in something more akin to a cult than a regular religion. I, as a kid, had no choice but to participate. I hated it. Everything about it. Hate is a mild word for what I was feeling! It made me one angry kid, I can tell you that.
Three times a week, I was forced to participate in religious ceremonies, which I felt were absolute torture for me. They weren’t literally. Don’t call the cops. For me, though, I would rather die than have to spend time with those people, pretend to be someone I’m not, and listen to their absolute bullshit. It was hell!
Every time we had one of those obligations, I got sick. We didn’t know what was wrong, and no one could figure it out. It only made sense in retrospect. I was forced to do things I absolutely hated, and the only way out was if I was seriously sick. Then, I was allowed to stay at home. So, I subconsciously made myself sick over and over again. I didn’t do it on purpose. No one does. But I wanted out!
It took a few years until I was finally able to say “fuck off - you can’t make me go!” and be free of that particular nonsense. But the damage was done. I have suffered daily pain and have been severely limited in my everyday life. To hell with it. It was worth it. As a consequence of my rebellion, my parents realized the insanity that was that cultish religion and have changed their ways.
While I had to suffer a lot more before reversing the condition, the burnout and nearly dying have also freed me from a senseless life of material pursuits and stress and have changed me as a man completely. I am eternally grateful for it. Sometimes, what we believe is a tragedy is the best thing that could have ever happened to us. Life is funny that way.
Good luck on your path of discovery
Dig deep. Stay open, and face those demons of yours head-on. The best way to defeat a demon is to look it straight in the eyes and burn it to a crisp with fearless awareness. Light will extinguish the dark, and love will trump hate.
Once you have healed your mind, the body will heal itself—no need to worry about that part. You just take care of the source!
I leave you with some wise words from a lady by the name of Florence Scovel Shinn (The Game of Life and How to Play It) when it comes to disease: “Instead of asking WHAT is a matter with you, we might as well ask WHO is a matter with you?”
Related posts:
How I Healed my Crohn's Disease
Don't Identify With LABELS - You Are Not Your Condition!
Self-Analysis: What Am I Getting From Being Stuck Where I Am?
How Playing Video Games Helped Me Get Through Tough Times
Every Day, in Every Way, I am Getting Better and Better - Daily Rant #12
How to Face Your Fears, Calm Your Mind, and Overcome Anxiety
Thanks for reading. I like you. Subscribe, and I’ll deliver new stories to your mailbox. You can choose topics you’re interested in and will receive only those.
If you enjoyed the story, help spread the word and remember to like, share, comment, cross-post, and restack this post. Follow this LINK if you want to do more. You are appreciated.
That was great! I am a counsellor and work with the mind making the body sick alot. Thought is boss.
Also work in functional medicine where we help people just as you said, everyday.
So great to hear about your healing journey.
And even better that your getting these ideas out there!
Something can always be done about it.