Stress can really be viewed as a dual entity-that which is created by my physical environment, and that which is created by my emotional state or temperament.
The physical stress includes those toxic aggressors that I encounter in this world: the poor nutrition, the heavy metals, the tobacco smoke or the chemical toxins in my air and food. These are stressors that I have some degree of control over, depending upon how I eat and to what environments I subject myself. For those areas for which I have no control over such as environmental pollution, I can take it upon myself to gain more protection by detoxifying and taking antioxidants. I can work on reducing physical stressors by actively supporting my body to eliminate them or to be protected against them.
What is perhaps more important, however, is the common notion of ‘stress’ as we generally consider it in modern life, the idea that my job, life, family and responsibilities exert an undue amount of pressure upon me and creates a negative reaction in my physical body, wearing me out, slowly, but surely and ultimately contributing to ill health.
Back in my September 2007 newsletter, I touched on this notion of stress as being a communication problem with the Self, as Dr. Gueniot called it. Let me restate that segment here:
‘Stress is a communication problem with the Self’
This quote above is one of my favorites from my mentor, Dr. Gerard Gueniot; it’s quite the statement to ponder. When I take it into the context of my work with individuals, balancing temperaments and aiding relationships with the external environments, it makes complete sense. Stress is not an entity outside of us, but is the result of how we react to external events. Our attitudes, our physical health, even our mineral stores all contribute to how we temper our responses to exciting phenomena. Stress is merely the result of poor communication, a sort of neurosis that we pit against our Selves.
I capitalize the ‘S’ of ‘Self’ because I want to be clear that the word construes the inner Self, or the higher Self. This is that most fundamental part of us that determines most everything. How do we change our relationship to it? It helps to ponder how my own individual way of reacting determines how I manage stress, rather than throwing my hands up because I think the events of my life are so much more intense, trying or full of hardship than another’s life.
So, if you have been repeatedly thinking or saying how ‘stressed’ you are, take a step back, contemplate your relationship with your inner Self and focus on the ways in which you can speak more gently and act more kindly to yourself. It deserves pondering over and may be a good focus for an attempt at meditation.
This relationship-to-self lies at the heart of what I am trying to convey to my patients about each individual’s role in his health or disease. It is a relationship that we naturally all have and one in which we all must cultivate. We have to learn how to manage this relationship-to-self and understand that stress is not something exerted upon us from the outside, but rather that it is a sort of exertion from within, determined by how we relate to the world outside of us.
I ask anyone who truly wants to get well to sincerely take a look at this relationship and try to work at it. When we are anxious we have to do some self-talk to calm ourselves down. When we are enraged we have to work with ourselves so as to not act out in anger. When we are sad we have to work through our feelings in order to free our mental state so that we can get to the task at hand. Sometimes we are unable to overcome these intrapersonal stressors, these tendencies in the self to feel and act in certain ways. Often this implies an imbalance in the overall temperament-which can thus be helped by using a protocol with homeopathy to help the nervous system communicate with the biological organ systems and calm and ‘de-stress’ an individual. Still, no natural therapy overcomes a person’s natural physiology and this relationship with oneself must always be tended and cultivated when we want to attain ideal health.
Please read more about the concept of ‘Temperament’ to understand homeopathy helps to balance a terrain.