Path to Vibrant Living
Why can’t I seem to stay on it?!!
Do you have that problem? Start, start, and re-start? I sure do.
Living involves change. Every day is different. We encounter different foods, people, emotions, situations, and challenges. Our bodies, minds, and spirits are constantly responding and trying to find homeostasis and then, if we are lucky, to grow and repair.
A little more than 10 years ago I hit some real speed bumps. My friend, a new naturopathic doctor, and a loving and gentle soul, gave me a Ganga discount for her services since she was relatively new and just beginning to grow her practice. She had noticed that my adrenals were “toast” and that my cortisol was in the tank too. Now this happens, evidently, as a result of stress. Not just the intense periodic stress that shoots your body with the adrenaline that allows you to outrun the pack of wild wolves at your heels, but insidious, prolonged stress. The kind that saps your reserves and leaves you with an adrenal stress curve that’s more of a flat line right across the bottom of the graph than the optimal drop from high to low that you get when you have energy to start your day and you drop down into a comfy unstressed state at bedtime. No mine was the profile of adrenal burnout.
I knew I was low energy, gosh darn it. That’s why I was in her office, but well, Ok. So, take some Cortef. What’s that? It’s a substitute for the cortisol that my body wasn’t able to produce, as a result of prolonged stress. OK, What next? Then she told me my thyroid numbers were a little bit low and recommended Armor Thyroid. OK. So, I did all that. She also suggested that I consider removing gluten and dairy from my diet. Fine. I considered that too. Probably for a little longer than a nanosecond, but not much longer. Give me a break?!! No bread, no cake, no pizza no fun? And dairy? No cheese, no yogurt? No ICE CREAM?!!! No way! I’ll take the drugs but don’t take my yum yums. Food is integral to how most of us socialize. I didn’t realize how much stress I was carrying. Having a social life meant psychological survival. Take away the food and … well at least I can drink, right?
I had worked with kids “on the spectrum” in my job as a clinic-based Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP). Probably all the kids who came in for weekly speech therapy sessions were “non-neurotypical”; that’s why they were there. Many were somewhere on the autism spectrum. Let me tell you those kids can be a tough crowd. My heart goes out to their parents, some of whom had more than one kid who needed “services”.
I always tried to look for foundational issues that could be leveraged to help. There was a growing awareness that nutrition could make a big difference in some cases. I diligently read Natasha Campbell-McBride’s The Gut and Psychology Syndrome - aka the GAPS Diet - which advocated a systematic elimination diet and instituting a gluten-free casein-free (GFCF) diet. Did I say my heart went out to these parents? These kids loved their white and beige foods. Chicken nuggets were a blessing and a Godsend in these households. I empathized. I “almost” wished I had the fortitude to give up these goodies just so I could walk a (¼) mile in their Tevas. I imagined that it would make me a better coach for the families, that I would understand firsthand the difficulties and manage the “workarounds” that would be required to function in the world without typical nourishment in our world of fast food, pizza, tater tots and cupcakes at school.
Be careful what you wish for.
Sure enough, a few years later, a struggling financial and home life and bingo! I got to (had to?) adopt the restrictions of the GFCF diet. Yea?
Yeah. Seems that the integrity of our intestinal lining gets compromised by stress. Mine sure did. Solution? Yes, there is one, it’s what I’d (kind of) wished for but didn’t (really) expect to be granted. I got to learn how to live gluten-free and, eventually, dairy-free too. Oh-boy. Lucky me. I get to join the crowd for whom I had previously felt sorry. Remember the moral of this story?
Be careful what you wish for?
My new corollary is a reminder for all of us: “Wish well”.
So, dear readers (if there are any out there): “I wish you well.” Even more importantly, I adjure you to “Wish Well”. Go to your wishing wells and choose worthy wishes. Choose your best, most glorious, and hopeful future. Your words have power.