It’s fall in Colorado, my favorite time of the year. The trees are changing colors and the temperatures are cooling.
I love this time, especially because we notice the vibrancy and life of the trees and plants. rich reds, gold, and a spectrum of yellows. The aspens turn a warm, rich yellow that glitters in the sun. As I look over the aspen groves you can see hundreds of different trees standing tall, shimmying their leaves as if they are talking to each other.
It’s easy to forget that all of these separate, majestic aspen trees are actually ONE life. One tree grows its roots throughout the forest sprouting up new identical trees, creating one genetically identical organism.
Without looking deeper though you may never realize this.
We seem to have the same false image of our bodies. Separating arm from a leg, heart from lung, digestion from food. Forgetting that we are ONE; mind, spirit and your entire body. Everything we do, think, experience affects our entire selves.
So why do we compartmentalize our health? Seeing a dermatologist for your skin, a gastroenterologist for your digestion, a neurologist for your headaches. Looking at separate symptoms for one body, as if areas do not touch or rely on each other. Why do we treat our body as though it has different independent parts?
Like the aspens, our functioning & systems are all interconnected and inter-dependent. Your diet can affect your gut health, it does matter what you eat when you have Crohn's disease or cancer. Your thyroid does interplay with your adrenals and hormonal system. Your skin is affected by your nutrition, your hormones, and your stress. And all three of those examples are interconnected together. A symptom could have an underlying cause that you would never think to be related.
It may sound overwhelming, that one part of your body affects all the others. However, to truly find health and overcome your issues we must stop individually labeling symptoms & disease. We must stop treating our body like a dinner plate, trying to keep the peas separated from the potatoes, the rice separated from the chicken.
Because we are messy, beautiful beings that deserve to be looked at as WHOLE. For all the mystery and magnificence that we are. If you have been suffering from a chronic issue or from symptoms that you are covering up with medications, I encourage you to explore the idea of the intertwining systems in your body to get to the true underlying cause.
Ask why an issue has arisen and where it may have come from.
Ask how your habits and lifestyle may be affecting ALL of the parts of your body.
And start to look at yourself more like the aspens and less like the dinner plate.