My body told the story

Author, Chuck DeGroat in his book, ‘Healing What’s Within’ says, “When we don’t have the words, our bodies inevitably tell the story of where we really are. Sometimes, our bodies will even do drastic things to get our attention.”

After several years living cross-culturally in Peru, my busyness, people pleasing, and being there for people caught up with me. My need to be needed covered up the warning lights of what was happening within me. I went on a mini vacation with some interns and a colleague which was an amazing trip to be in the Amazon rain forest and to ride on the Amazon River. Then all the lights came on at once as soon as I was home. The pain behind my eyes was not going away with ibuprofen. It got bad enough that I did go to the clinic to get checked out which the doctor thought it was a sinus problem. I went home and medicated myself with Sudafed and ibuprofen and the pain behind my eyes grew worse along with other symptoms. So, I went back to the clinic.

The doctors ran multiple tests and did not know exactly what was wrong with me. My colleagues called my Dad with three different not so good diagnoses. My body had an important story it wanted me to know. There are 12-16 hours that I have no memory of except what other people have told me what happened during that time of uncertainty. Ignoring my warning lights of stress and being overly tired only increased my stress and exhaustion, and my body told the story. It took a good six months to recover from viral meningitis, actual diagnosis, my body’s way of making me slow down and rest.

What drastic thing is your body doing to get your attention?

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