Your Symptoms Will Guide You

We live in a society obsessed with symptom suppression. Yet, our symptoms give us insights into subsequent actions we need to take. Suppressing symptoms, whether physical or psychological, is a temporary fix. Bound to lessen the quality of your life over time. Learn how your symptoms can be your greatest ally and teacher and how they can guide your priorities and your choices. Address the cause of your symptoms and become empowered. Transform your life.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply,

A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hi,

Everybody.

Welcome to today's Facebook Live and we're going to talk about your symptoms and why it's so important to listen to them and not suppress them.

We will see how paying attention to our symptoms really matter.

When we go through the world since caveman days,

We take in all the information through our bodies first,

Right?

So when we meet someone new,

When we walk on the street,

We input the information from a sensory perspective through our bodies.

And after that,

What happens is a whole bunch of symptoms.

I want to call them symptoms.

They are reactions.

We tend to put a negative connotation on the word symptoms,

But you'll see symptoms are really good.

So on a day to day basis,

As we interact with people,

Our environment,

With ourselves,

We experience emotions,

Feelings and sensations,

And we are meant to pay attention to them.

Our symptoms allow us basically to make decisions,

Whether consciously or unconsciously.

Symptoms can become our greatest allies to living a life of passion and owning our own power.

So it's very,

Very important to pay attention to how our bodies and our minds react to various stimuli.

And we think we have free will,

But do we really?

A lot of us are sleepwalking through life.

We're on autopilot and we're led by our personality,

Underlying traits,

Habits,

Beliefs,

And believe it or not,

Our level of self-esteem.

From the time we are born,

We're programmed by society,

By our families,

Teachers,

Our culture,

Our religion.

And without realizing it,

We've lost our free will because we've had to suppress our true self and who we really are.

So we become programmed individuals.

And as a result of that,

A lot of our traits,

Especially those that are deemed undesirable by others or even ourselves,

End up going in the subconscious.

And that's what we call the shadow.

Unfortunately,

Even if these traits become unconscious,

Most of the time they've taken over and they lead the show.

And that's when we've really lost our free will.

And that's why self-awareness is very,

Very important.

And we can gain self-awareness when we are mindful,

When we are present to the day to day as opposed to being caught up in our minds,

Time traveling in the past or the future.

When we're self-aware,

Mindful and present,

We're more likely to have free will and make decisions authentically and purposefully.

People who are self-aware pay attention to the message that comes from their bodies and they respond accordingly.

Here are a few brief examples.

If you're walking on ice,

So I live in Canada,

In winter it can get pretty cold and icy.

It's slippery,

So we get the input of information through our feet.

And what happens as a result of the ground being slippery is because we lose a bit of traction.

So what do we do?

We adjust our pace,

We slow down,

We pay attention to where we're walking and suddenly we're not lost in our minds.

We're really watching where we're walking to make sure we're not falling.

And especially if we were an elderly person,

More at risk of breaking bones,

We're even more aware of how we're walking on ice.

If someone you love dies,

You experience sadness,

You experience grief.

And why?

Because this person mattered to us.

When we catch a virus,

We develop a fever.

So it's the body's way to kill off the virus by raising its temperature.

If we encounter poisonous snake,

What do we experience?

Fear.

What do we do?

We run away or we kill the snake if we're brave.

After inputting the information from the environment,

We analyze it very quickly and it guides our behaviors.

For the obvious symptoms,

We really attend to them.

If your hand's on the stove and it's burning,

You don't leave it there.

You don't wish,

Oh,

I wish I had a pill so I could leave my hand there so I could not feel the burn.

If that pill would exist,

You would still have third degree burns.

So the pain is necessary to guide you into action.

Same with a cut.

You don't want to bleed to death or you need to attend to the wounds so you put disinfectant so you don't get infected.

When you have the flu,

You have to adjust your behavior so you don't make other people sick so that you recuperate.

So you need to slow down.

When you have an infection,

Same thing,

Et cetera.

We have symptoms and most of us,

We pay attention to these symptoms.

Some people are sick,

They push through,

They don't care,

They don't adjust to the symptoms because it's a weakness or whatever belief they have and then secondary problems arise.

But in other cases and from a psychological perspective,

We tend to ignore or want to suppress other kinds of symptoms by any means possible so we don't have to feel the difficult feelings or sensation,

Right?

So we have heartburn,

We keep drinking Pepto-Bismol or whatever those pills are that people take when they have heartburn or you're stressed and you have wine to calm down.

So for example,

People who experience anxiety and depression don't want to feel that way.

So these are symptoms of something else bubbling under the surface.

So we want to avoid these feelings.

We medicate,

We numb,

We get addicted to whatever,

Shopping,

Facebook,

Instagram,

Alcohol,

You name it.

And then you'll have people are burned out and tired and they're combating it.

I shouldn't be tired so they take uppers or stimulants,

Coffee all day instead of attending to the symptoms.

People struggle from insomnia.

So again,

Instead of looking at what is the cause of insomnia,

They'll take sleeping pills and I could go on and on and on.

So we live in a culture where we want to suppress symptom and suffering at all cost.

We even see this in our parenting practices.

We don't want our kids to be disappointed so we don't say no.

We hover over them,

We overprotect them and then we impede their resilience and they themselves become anxious,

Low self-esteem,

Etc.

Here's the thing,

When there's a chronic neglect or suppression of symptoms,

It leads to further suffering whether it be physiological or psychological.

How it will show up depends on you.

For some people,

It will show up in the body as physical symptoms whether it's back pain,

IBS,

Cancer,

Gut issues,

Reckless injuries,

Right?

Migraines,

Ulcers,

You name it.

And for psychological symptoms,

You'll see all kinds like anxiety,

Depression,

Burnout,

Developing tics,

Anger issues,

Hopelessness,

Low self-esteem,

Addiction and the list goes on and on.

So what are your symptoms saying?

I'm not going to do an exhaustive list of symptoms but just popular ones that I've seen in the office.

So depression,

You know there's three kinds of depression.

There's really a chemical depression that really needs medication,

Reactive depression so if someone dies,

Normally if you really care about that person,

You will get sad,

Depressed and we call it grief.

And then there's existential depression and that's an important one to pay attention to because this one cannot be fixed with medication.

Your depressive symptoms are a signal that something's not aligning with your values,

Your truth,

Who you are.

So it's begging you to pay attention,

Not to be suppressed,

Right?

It's like a little child pulling on your skirt,

Mommy,

Mommy,

Mommy.

They want you to listen and pay attention.

Depression is summoning you to pay attention.

Are you in an unhappy marriage?

Are you unhappy at work?

I see a lot of women climbing up the ladder because that's what you're supposed to do but really they don't really care to go up the ladder.

They've reached a point in their career where they're happy,

They don't have too much stress but people you know are pushing them.

You should apply for that promotion,

You'd be so good at it and there's a disconnect there.

They can do it,

They'd be great at it which is possibly true but deep down that's not what they want but they do it anyway because of the pressures of the outer world.

Depression could also be a signal of unresolved trauma and then there's a repetition compulsion.

So for example,

If you find yourself constantly in toxic relationships with narcissistic partners,

Bosses,

Etc.

,

We are bound to repeat these patterns until we heal them.

And depression could also be anger turned towards yourself.

So repressed anger.

So internalized anger versus externalized anger.

And then there's adrenal fatigue.

What is that?

Well,

It's a sign that you're not caring for yourself.

You have a lot of anxiety and stress that you're doing too much.

You're not asking for help.

You might have poor boundaries.

It's not about just taking a pill to remove the symptoms of adrenal fatigue.

You need to address what led you to adrenal fatigue.

The symptoms of adrenal fatigue need to be paid attention to and these often also include symptoms of anxiety and depression,

Short fuse,

Etc.

,

Because your body is depleted of cortisol and you can no longer handle stress.

So it's very important and it's requiring you to change the status quo.

And then for example,

Gut issues,

IBS.

The gut is the area if you look at the chakras of your personal power and your self-esteem,

The third chakra.

Are you ignoring your gut feelings,

Dismissing them,

Requiring validation from the outside and not trusting your inner intuition?

Are you people pleasers?

So you look outside of you instead of inside of you.

Are you frozen with fears?

Then there's addiction.

It doesn't matter if it's alcohol,

Drugs,

Prescription drugs,

Shopping,

The internet,

You name it.

We're all addicted to something.

Even if that something is desirable,

Whether it's work,

Reading,

Helping people,

We need to pay attention to our addictions because it's a form of running away from the self.

It's a form of numbing pain,

Of not looking what needs to be looked at and not wanting to see reality.

It's a form of escapism.

What are your symptoms saying?

So anxiety,

Not trusting the flow and the process of life,

Having an uncontrolled mind,

Right?

You're constantly thinking,

Thinking,

Thinking at night and the day.

You lack presence,

Back problems.

You lack support.

You have guilt.

You don't have financial support.

Breast problems,

Refusal to nourish the self,

Putting others first,

Over mothering,

Over protection,

Overbearing attitudes,

Migraines,

For example,

Invalidating the self,

Self-perthesism,

Fear,

Repressing,

That pressure builds up and you develop migraines.

When we ignore the cause of the suffering is that we only focus on the symptoms and how we can get relief from the symptoms.

But symptoms here are not the enemy.

They are our greatest allies.

Will you keep ignoring your symptoms?

Will you keep pushing through till you break down and you're forced to stop because your body will force you to stop with an extreme diagnosis,

Whether it's mental breakdown,

Cancer,

Heart attack,

Et cetera,

Or will you listen and pay attention before it's too late?

Our organs from the skin to the inner organs are the echo of our emotions.

Our behaviors are the echo of our organs.

Often the symptoms will be lodged in our weakest link.

When we have symptoms or syndromes,

They are messages from our body.

They're expressions of the unconscious and what we're attempting to suppress.

It's what we call the shadow.

They're unclaimed parts that we judge as undesirable to ourselves or others.

They're things we've learned to repress,

Especially as kids.

And they are part of our devolution as opposed to evolution.

They're the result of denial and suppression of parts that we're refusing to integrate,

Whether they're quality traits or our needs.

Our bodies keep the score.

And if we don't pay attention,

We will implode or explode.

So instead of suppressing,

You want to be grateful for your psychosomatic reactions.

Our bodies and our minds are connected and our body speaks and we need to listen.

Our brain is constantly processing information from the outer and the inner world.

And our brain is in charge of our psychosomatic reactions.

And on a day to day basis,

There's so much information that is received that the brain cannot store it all without there being a price to pay.

We get information from our five senses.

And in addition to that,

We have 10 billion pieces of information per second from our organs,

From the outer world,

Etc.

And when we're in danger,

It increases even more.

As I said,

Our body and our minds are connected.

When we treat the mind,

We can influence the body.

When there's an overflow of emotional residue that pours into our organs,

We experience psychosomatic symptoms.

It helps maintain our mental health.

It just has to go somewhere.

As long as this process remains within acceptable boundaries,

It doesn't put our lives in danger.

But outside of acceptable boundaries,

We will experience pain and discomfort.

If we treat the body,

We then influence the mind.

When we improve the state of our body,

We will automatically improve the state of our mind.

We have more energy,

We're more rested,

Our digestion improves.

It impacts our mood and affect in a positive way.

We're more patient and we're less overwhelmed.

Depression is the body's way of expressing the tensions we harbor.

Illness,

Whether physical or psychological,

Will evolve over time,

Right?

That's what I was talking about,

Chronic suppression of symptoms.

So while the disease takes its time to form,

It can appear suddenly.

Japia Bahal says,

We are strangers in our own bodies.

We've grown estranged from our bodies and from the intimate comprehension of its language.

When everything is fine,

The body exudes health and balance to a physical vivacity and beaming personality.

But this harmony is fragile.

When your body speaks,

You really need to pay attention.

And I leave you on this other quote.

We should learn to live with our body and emotions without fear,

Without repression and without negligence,

Giving our health capital its rightful value.

Our body is our property and it is our duty to take care of it.

We are not here to judge.

We are here to understand and to adapt.

So have a wonderful day,

Everybody.

Bye bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Reviews

Really useful and thought provoking talk. Thank you Dr Gina. Love and blessings to you 💖x