Tuesday, September 2, 2014

What Came First? The Emotional or Physical Symptoms of Colds?





JAN
2012
27





I started the month of January with my right eye swollen shut, the tip of my nose glowing like Rudolph, my nostrils flaring as the air burned my raw skin and my body plastered to the bed, unable to move.  No, I wasn’t attacked by the little people hiding under my bed in my sleep.  It was worse. I was attacked by a cold.  I wasn’t the only one either who was ambushed by the dirty, little pathogens spewing through the air. I remember calling my friend and waiting two minutes to speak as she answered the phone with a deep-chested, roaring cough. It’s the end of January, and although my cold symptoms have diminished I still don’t feel swell. My friend is still fighting this battle with a cough that is literally making it hard to function. We don’t get sick!  Why couldn’t we shake this?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the average adult gets 2-4 colds per year, usually in the fall and winter.  5-20% of the population per year comes down with the flu. As the days get shorter and the weather colder, the slimy little germs spread quickly from person to person through touch, coughing, talking, and sneezing. Infectious diseases, such as colds and flu are spread by bacterial and viral pathogens that enter the body.  Many times our immune systems win the battle against the pathogens preventing illness; however, if the immune system is down the pathogens have the upper hand and can create an army, leaving us defeated on the battlefield.
As the stores are filled with sniffles, coughs, and sneezes, the power of the pathogens stands true. But, could there be a deeper, more internal reason why we get sick and what our symptoms are? Ancient philosophers and the earliest physicians believed that illness manifested as the result of evil spirits or as sign of God’s anger. Today, there are many who believe that every emotional thought is the underlying cause of any physical illness, based on the belief that thought patterns affect the health of the body. Although the bacterial pathogens may truly be in the air, enter your body, and attack your immune system, the emotional state of your body determines the outcome; if you get sick and what your symptoms are.
In the book, You Can Heal Your Life, Louise Hay, a metaphysical lecturer and teacher, writes about the connection of emotions and illness, explaining that an emotional imbalance in a certain area of the body can, in turn, cause a physical ailment in that same area. Louise Hay supports the belief that there are seven major chakra systems in the body; emotional energy systems that are directly tied to the functioning of physical systems. For example, if there is something that you need to say but are suppressing, your throat chakra becomes weak and may cause a sore throat. Or if your vision becomes blurry and your eyes are watering there may be something that you don’t want to see.
Hay further explains more underlying causes for general illnesses and disease. Her claim for colds? Too much going on at once. Mental confusion disorder. Small hurts.  Well, that makes sense, right? When we are exhausting our bodies, our systems aren’t strong and we get sick. However, we encounter pathogens on a daily basis and continuously fight them off with no avail. It isn’t until our emotional energy centers are weak that we begin to see physical symptoms. Therefore, as the colds spread from person to person these winter months, with various, similar symptoms, the underlying reason is internally different for each of us.  My friends chronic cough could mean she is screaming to the world to be heard, while the swollen, watery eye and runny nose only on my right side could be the result of feeling overwhelmed or hurt by a man.  So the next time you find yourself with a faucet for a face, or knives in your throat, don’t reach for the DayQuil but instead ask your body what it’s really trying to tell you and LISTEN.

To find out underlying causes of some of your symptoms check out Louise Hay’s book, You Can Heal Your Life or visit www.paganspath.com

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