In my practice I particularly enjoy working with clients who are experiencing adrenal fatigue or other auto-immune related illness. Why? Because I’ve been there myself. I understand what it took to full recovery and wish I knew the tools and thought management techniques I know now. Regardless, I am incredibly thankful to share what I know today.
What I notice happening a lot with people experiencing adrenal fatigue (or other related illness) is a three part phase:
- Despair/Breakdown
- Determination/Identify Protocol
- Maintenance or Plateau
The first phase is clear for anyone who suddenly understands the depth of their situation. It’s a time where you begin to question everything in your life and analyze what lifestyle patterns may have caused adrenal fatigue in the first place. Bottom line: give yourself a good cry. Don’t judge yourself for why you got here or panic about how you can change things. Let it be and give yourself compassion.
The second phase is a re-birth of sorts. You begin to track down some of the best doctors who can help you identify a path to recovery. It’s a time to learn more healthy lifestyle habits to incorporate and if there’s one piece of advice I give to anyone going through this now it’s this: don’t get overwhelmed about the plethora of information out there, this is the opposite of recovery. Trust the information will flow to you; trust the timing and don’t rush it.
The third phase is what I wanted to emphasize in today’s blog post. You see, how you manage your brain will be the KEY to whether or not you can mindfully continue through to maintenance phase or it will be the point it which you plateau completely or retreat back to phase one.
You have to understand that one of the biggest root causes for adrenal fatigue is stress, and stress can only come from one place – our minds.
If we can’t manage our minds to begin with, we will have a much longer time recovering from adrenal fatigue. This is why understanding how your brain works and whether or not it is serving you will be key to achieving peace.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to understand whether or not you need to evaluate your current thought process:
- Do you often feel rushed, anxious, angry, or worried throughout the day?
- Is there a set of thoughts and/or problem you repeat over and over again in a given day?
- Do you feel overwhelmed by a thought and/or problem to the point where it starts to cause physical stress?
- No matter how much you apply will power, do you find yourself using food, drinking, working out, or the internet to avoid/buffer in order to feel better?
If you answered yes to any of the above, chances are you would benefit from understanding why your brain works the way that it does, and how making tweaks to your own internal process can help provide more peace, joy, and personal power into your life.
You see in a nutshell, when you understand your brain and why you have certain thoughts you start to uncover limiting beliefs, habituated thought and behavioral patterns. With this recognition you can now do the work to understand your individual mental model that has been driving your actions until now.
After all, if you’re doing all the work to live a healthier, more mindful lifestyle why not work on the one thing that can help you manage stress to begin with?
Because the good news is it’s completely possible to optimize your very own internal world and THAT, is priceless.
In wellness,
Susan
Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash