By Ali Elsberry
This is a bit of a detour from my usual “Time Together” articles, but I’ll loop back around to that in the end.
I have a slightly different approach to healing than the average person. I believe that our health is our full responsibility and ours alone. I don’t believe that you “catch” anything, or that anyone “gets you sick.” I don’t believe that health comes at the advice of a politician, in the form of a pharmaceutical, at the end of a needle, or from anywhere other than deep within our core.
But I do believe that all physical symptoms, from the common runny nose to the largest cancerous tumor, stem from our traumas, thoughts, and beliefs, and how we have dealt with those over the years, or more importantly, how we have NOT dealt with them. (I would also like to add that a healthy diet and lifestyle are of utmost importance and they go hand-in-hand with our emotional health.)
Once in my early 20s, I found a lump in my breast. I was referred for a mammogram, and upon going in for the appointment, was absolutely horrified to discover that the standard medical approach to “find harm” in this case was to painfully smash my breast between two cold, metal plates. I actually asked the technician how this process wasn’t damaging and she told me that it’s just what they do, and breasts are only made of fat so it doesn’t matter anyway.
After that, I was sent to the University of Washington Medical Center for further scans, and then on to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. At the end of all this, I was told it didn’t look good and that they wanted to do a biopsy. At that very moment, young, conventionally minded me thought “Nope!” Something within me that I had not yet come to embrace knew that I hadn’t just randomly ended up with this growth, and that if I grew it, I could get rid of it. I walked out of that office and never went back. Three months later, the lump was completely gone.
Fast forward two decades and a multitude of experiences, and I am currently writing this article from my bed. This past February, right before a trip to California, I had a session with my psychologist and I brought up the fact that, at times, I don’t feel safe or protected. We talked about my childhood and how, despite being a kind and well-behaved little girl, I was constantly being punished for things – at times in extreme and abusive ways, with other punishments seemingly small.
We addressed how these feelings that I carry with me in adulthood of not being safe and protected are directly related to that; I was always in fear of getting in trouble for something, not feeling safe or protected from the punishment. I instantly felt a rush of heat through my whole body; we talked a little more and then ended the call, and I went about getting ready for our trip. Then, the day before we left California to come home, it hit. Hard. It started with whole-body shaking, a lot of swelling, and soreness in places.
Before I go any further, I will say that I have a complete, unshakable faith in why my body is experiencing something and my ability to heal. I wear my body every day, I know it better than anyone else. I didn’t always feel this way. It took many years and countless difficult situations to reach this point of trust in myself. But when I did, the feeling was absolutely profound and resonated deeply in my soul in a way that is hard to put into words.
At any rate, I got us home from California that next day and began my healing. I won’t go into all the details of the things that I have dealt with in the past month, but right now I am moving through a new and intense physical pain in the exact spots in my body where I have experienced a physically and psychologically traumatizing injury in my past, injuries that had me feeling unsafe and unprotected.
When I was young, I experienced 10 years of seizures. All the experts agreed that these were just “normal” childhood seizures; I was put on medication, and it was a long time before anyone started to ask questions. One of the things that would trigger a seizure was a quick and sudden “change of gears” where I did not have adequate time to adjust. For example, one time in my teens I was taking a nap, woke up suddenly, and realized I was supposed to be down at the neighbor’s house five minutes prior; I jumped up, threw on my shoes, and ran out the door.
I made it halfway down the road before I had a seizure. I fell straight onto my knees and, as a result, ended up with a very deep wound below my left kneecap. I instantly got up and kept going because I felt like I would be in a lot of trouble for not being there on time. When I got to their house, I used the hose to spray all the blood off my knee. Much to my relief, the woman whose children I was watching was in such a hurry to go that she didn’t even notice anything was out of the ordinary.
Five days ago, I woke up to the most intense pain radiating out of the exact spot where my scar is from that accident, and no amount of icing, Epsom salt baths, heat packs, or any other measure I tried even came close to touching the pain. But I knew they wouldn’t; I was finally releasing the trauma.
Two days ago it was my right hand, where our old Jack Russell, who had the most aggressive prey-drive of any animal I have ever known, completely attacked me when I reached down to try and stop him from going after a cat that had come into our backyard. Again, I felt like I would get in trouble at the time, and now I had pain in the exact places where he bit me.
Not only has all this made for a fascinating observation, but I have simultaneously watched other physical symptoms just disappear, some things I have been dealing with for many, many years.
My whole point here is that we owe it to ourselves, and especially to our children, to really, truly deal with our traumas. And I don’t just mean the big ones; I have done work around even small things, like something someone once said that I locked away in my body and never would have guessed it could have made the impact it did. When we heal this neglected emotional presence, we are such better parents, and the time we spend together with our children is so much deeper and more meaningful. We are no longer carrying something that has unknowingly influenced how we react emotionally; in turn, space opens to allow for us to be more joyful and authentic.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to this work, there are so many avenues to explore that can bring about immense changes. It happens to be helpful for me to talk to someone (oftentimes, I am able to recall memories that I could not recall otherwise through prompted questions), but you will know the right method, or methods, when you find them.
The saying is so true – we cannot change the world, but we can change ourselves, and if we all do this work to heal ourselves, we in turn will change the world.
