Autoimmune Disease, Emotions & Beliefs

A recent news story highlighted how men who are seemingly healthy can still have an autoimmune disease:

"The recent report out of the Annals of Internal Medicine profiling President John F. Kennedy’s autoimmune disease surprised many Americans due to his appearance throughout his presidency of health and vitality."

Although women are much more likely to be diagnosed with autoimmune diseases (as was I last fall with Sjogren's), men also have autoimmune disorders, which are often not diagnosed properly due to seeming vitality and external indicators of health.

I've become increasingly interested in autoimmune diseases, learning about dietary and physiological starting points (i.e., how are difficult-to-digest food molecules, like wheat and soy proteins, interacting with a person's genes to create syndromes like "leaky gut" and related immune-system overdrive behavior?).

I'm equally interested in the cognitive and emotional components of autoimmune diseases. I have talked to too many people who had significant emotional events that preceded an autoimmune diagnosis and who; with mindfulness, emotional release techniques, and/or belief system revision; found themselves healed.

One friend was stressed out about leaving one job for another very different kind of opportunity, one that called for her to step up into her real calling. She did a 30-day meditation retreat and the professional issue she was "fighting herself" over cleared up. Her Lupus diagnosis also disappeared, like a morning fog subjected to warm afternoon sunshine.

Another friend was on thyroid medicine for five years. After going through a difficult separation from her husband, who had been cheating on her for years, she discovered Louise Hay's work on healing the body by understanding the emotional connection to the dis-ease in the body. My friend found that disorders of the thyroid are related to "humiliation" and decided to journal and journal and reflect on all the ways she had been ignoring the signs of her marriage being in trouble.

After a deep dive into her own subconscious and bringing her deepest emotions to the surface and into language, my friend "miraculously" healed and no longer needed any thyroid medicine. Her physician was astonished, believing that my friend's thyroid had become so dependent on medicine that it would not be able to function on its own again.

I spent years fighting myself over whether to stay or to leave my marriage. I finally left my marriage and a huge amount of my energy returned, almost overnight. My body became less reactive to certain foods that I had eliminated for over 8 months.

Still, I have a lot of beliefs about the "dangers" of wheat, dairy, and eggs, which are hidden in so many foods. I am suspicious when I feel sinus pressure or puffy eyes, wondering if it's food or environmental allergens. It's a kind of constant scanning for problems that will make my immune system overreact and go into the self-fighting-self mode of autoimmune disease.

Instead of living permanently on a highly-restrictive diet, I am eager to work on the vigilant emotions and beliefs around "allergens," all of which are basically unconscious at this point, and see if this kind of work can help me live a little more freely.

I have scheduled a Body Talk session tomorrow to explore ways to help tone up my immune system and also work with the emotions and beliefs that predispose my body toward reactivity against food molecules. I will perhaps schedule a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) session after that (NLP is known for having effective allergy-elimination processes).

If you have a favorite process for allergy elimination, please drop a line to me or comment here on my blog (below). Many of my readers will be extremely grateful for any extra support or pointers!