The Universal Solvent

If you’ve followed this column over the years, you know that physical, chemical, and emotional stressors, beyond the individual’s ability to adapt, are the root cause of nearly all disease.  Two of these are easier to adapt to and prevent a state of excess.  For physical stress, you need to make time for regular exercise and utilize healing methods such as chiropractic, massage, physical therapy, yoga, etc.  In the case of chemical stress, you need to reduce the toxins from fake foods, drugs/medications, and other chemicals while fortifying with the proper sources of lean proteins, fruits and vegetables.  But what do you do for emotional stress?  Given the season, I thought this would be an appropriate time to discuss strategies of psychological stress reduction.

I found an article that was given to every patient that came to the Mayo Clinic for treatment of fibromyalgia.  The article was all about forgiveness.  The article stressed that we all need to let go of grievances, anger, resentment, guilt, and regret.  These negative emotions only hurt the person who’s carrying them while stimulating the hormones in our body that perpetuate the stress response.  This response is known to cause high blood pressure and cholesterol, inflammation and pain, depression, sleep disorders, sexual dysfunction, cancer and virtually every other ailment.  As the Mayo article states, we have to let go in order to begin the healing process.  Traditionally, there are five basic steps to achieve complete forgiveness.  First you need to forgive any other person that is involved.  This does not mean you agree with the person or condone their behavior – you’re just letting go and not letting them control you anymore.  Next, you allow the other person to forgive you for any part you may have played in the situation or conflict.  Most importantly you need to forgive yourself.  Fourth, you need to learn the lesson from the situation.  Try to find some positive lesson you can gain from going through even the most negative experience.  Finally, and this one’s the toughest, once you recognize a lesson, you need to be grateful for that lesson and the opportunity the conflict gave you to learn from that situation.  These steps sound simple and sometimes it can be when you’re ready to let go. 

Emotional stress truly is the silent killer because it gets into our subconscious mind and alters our physiology through the stress response.  Fortunately, healthy diet and exercise can help shut off the stress response temporarily.  Yoga and meditation are also very helpful at interrupting stress at a subconscious level and helping to restore emotional homeostasis.  But forgiveness is the universal solvent that heals the negative emotions linked to so much stress.  In the spirit of Christmas, I thought I’d leave you with scripture from Mark 11:25:  “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”  Wishing you peace and forgiveness this Christmas and in the coming new year.