Making Lemons Out of Lemonade:
3 Steps To Restoring Your Body To Whole
By Dr. Angelina Stevens
I recently stepped back into my yoga practice after a three month hiatus. My only excuse for the lapse in practice was that I was feeling good and no alarms were going off while training. Once my running mileage crept over 40 miles per week I noticed my muscles starting to stiffen and contract. Before I knew it, I couldn’t touch my toes after track workouts and I was nursing a hamstring strain that was cramping my style and my mood.
Fortunately my personal slackness became a breakdown that produced a huge breakthrough that has me running faster and better than I ever have before. While rest and time off may be the right choice, the proactive part of rest could be seeking the help of an injury expert, trying a new rehabilitative exercise, or examining the emotional component to our health problem. The key to breaking the vicious cycle of injury and recovery is to return your body to wholeness through these three steps.
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Step 1 – Find Your Yin/Yang Balance.
We all know what we should be doing more – be it sleeping, eating well, having fun, or loving more deeply. However, resistance towards these things based on procrastination, fear, or self-neglect can produce a rude awakening when the physical body gives you a wake up call. If you are dealing with a health breakdown or injury now, you have to ask your self, “What am I avoiding doing?” or, “What am I resisting in my life right now?”. We exist in a world of Yang energy which is outward, energetic, left-brained, multi-tasked and uber efficient. As our bodies evolve and become leaner, faster and stronger, our minds and thinking must follow. The Yin energy is the restorative, creative, life producing, soft and restful energy. Yin energy balances Yang and ensures that our bodies can recover from stress. As our lives become faster, our training gets harder and our lives get busier, so does the popularity of yoga, meditation, art classes, and holistic therapies such as chiropractic, acupuncture and massage.
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Step 2 – Check In With Your Mental and Emotional Status
Physical pain occurs as an alarm that something is out of balance in your body. Every health issue has an emotional component that must be realized and resolved in order to restore health to wholeness. Many major autoimmune diseases like Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, RA, and Lupus occur after trauma or major life changes.
Some emotional connections to common body ailments are:
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Low Back Pain – Experiencing fear with finances, feeling overwhelmed or overburdened
Neck Pain – Feeling indecisive, irritable or irritated
Cold/Flu– Feeling sadness or grief, inability to express your true thoughts or feelings
Digestive Problems – Holding on to that which is no longer needed or helpful, experiencing difficulty letting go of something or someone
Leg/Foot Pain – Having difficulty moving forward in life, or feeling stuck or stagnated
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Step 3 – Visit Your Doctor Regularly, Especially When Nothing is Wrong
It may sound absurd, but it I believe it is the future of healthcare. In order to keep our cars running a long healthy lifetime, there are times that we must change the oil, rotate the tires and refill fluids in order to avoid breakdown or trading up every few years. Since we can’t trade in our bodies for new ones, and breakdown equals illness or major disease, the future of our health lies in the hands of doctors and practitioners that help in balancing the body as a whole: physically, chemically, emotionally, and spiritually. A vital part in our present healthcare is geared toward saving lives, and we have all taken a “not broken, don’t fix it” attitude at times. The new healthcare model is geared toward a augmentation of health rather than symptom suppression or avoiding disease. The doctors of the future are geared toward assisting in removing stressors from the body, and allowing the body to heal naturally.
I have come to reject the downward spiral of health that supposedly comes with getting older. I continue to watch my parents become healthier, happier and more physically fit than they were 25 years ago. They chose to create their lives and family based on personal growth and a holistic lifestyle. This commitment lead to Dr. Josh’s and my career in Holistic Healthcare and an upward spiral in health and happiness for our family and community. Holistic families create balanced communities, functional societies, and more peaceful worlds. As we grow older we need to appreciate the incredible wisdom, experience, and potential for experiencing true inner peace. So as with all of these perks to look forward to, we can stop resisting our age and focus on making “Whole Lemons” from our lemonade. I am so happy to be a part of our upward spiraling community.
Yours In Health, Dr. Angelina Stevens
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Dr. Angelina V. Stevens, D.C., owns holistic chiropractic and acupuncture centers in Durham and Chapel Hill. She is passionate about healing the body naturally without the use of drugs or surgery and by finding the true causes of pain and illness. As a triathlete, Dr. Angelina has completed in world-class events and has represented the U.S. as a triathlete on Team USA 2001. She currently competes as an elite cyclo-cross racer and can be reached at www.stevenswellness.com or e-mail at drangelina@stevenswellness.com
