Take a moment to think about how you are gauging the progress of your healing.  Are you focused on your symptoms, lab values, or the opinions of health professionals?

Are you viewing your health condition as the result of a design flaw or as according to design?

Now think about how your doctor is gauging your progress, or how they are determining the effectiveness of the treatment.  Do they see your symptoms just as things that need to go away or as valuable clues to the direction your healing is headed?

Do they see your body as machinery that needs tinkering, as parts to be replaced and processes to be modified?  Or are you viewed as wonderfully and fearfully made, an integrated being that needs healing?

There exists a troublesome mindset, when it comes to understanding what healing looks and feels like.  This is especially the case with those struggling with chronic issues, such as Lyme disease, mold exposure, and autoimmune conditions.

The terms herxing (Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction) and healing crisis best identify this error in the prevailing healing paradigm.

A Herxheimer reaction is the release of toxins into the body in response to increased microbial die-off.  In other words, there are a bunch of dead bugs that your body is having trouble eliminating. 

This most commonly occurs when antibiotics and antimicrobial herbs are used too strongly or too often. 

Similarly, a healing crisis can occur when either too much of the correct treatment is being used, or not enough support is being used to help the body detoxify and heal.

Many practitioners embrace herxing as a successful treatment.  I find this troublesome response akin to the doctor saying, “Hooray, your body is strongly reacting to a treatment protocol that is forcing your systems in a direction they are not prepared to go!  This is amazing!”

Usually, the answer to herxing, or healing crisis, is to increase detoxification efforts.  So, messes were made of the body’s systems, and then clean up efforts were applied. 

Even if used preventatively in anticipation of a reaction, this is still a problem, because there are other factors at play beyond detoxification.  Why force the body?  Why not leverage its wealth of beauty?

Going back to truth, our bodies are doing exactly what they are designed to do, given their internal and external environment.  It’s analogous to a tea bag being placed into hot water or cold water.  One way will make for fantastic tea, the other not so much.

By changing the conditions, you can change the outcome.

Our body knows how to defend, repair, and rebuild itself.  When given quality lifestyle factors (e.g. stress, diet, sleep, joy, purpose, relationships), our bodies are able to respond and adapt to the challenges of this world.

The better we nourish and nurture our internal environment, the better we can respond to our external environment.  This will also improve how we heal from chronic infection, damaging inflammation, and environmental toxins.

Every chronic condition involves multiple microbial issues, multiple toxicities, and multiple systems out of sync. 

The process of dysfunction and disease follows after we have built up nutrient deficiencies and toxic burdens.  We have an amazing ability to compensate for the insults of this world; but our physical systems are only able to tolerate so much.

A well-balanced body is able to excrete toxins through sweat, urine, or stool.  An infrequent infection, or cold, is normally met with swelling, pain, fatigue, fevers, or vomiting to regain balance.

Inflammation is a fantastic signal the body uses to begin the healing process.  We are all familiar with this process, but we too often cast a negative light on inflammation.  In fact, many of the healing processes are viewed negatively because of their inconvenience, discomfort, and unpleasantness. 

Symptoms provide valuable clues into which systems and what aspects of life need attention.

For instance, depression is not an issue of low serotonin.  Depression has origins in gastrointestinal dysfunction, lack of purpose, and not enough rest.

It is human nature to not enjoy the symptoms and signals that our body is sending us.  It’s ok; our brains are wired to avoid pain!

The problem arises when we forget that these are normal responses to healing.  Today, symptoms are reduced to stressors needing suppression with the belief that our body came with a major design flaw in the defense and repair department.

Clinging to this way of thinking drives us to a healthcare model defined by a method that works against the body’s processes.  Allopathy is the method of treatment application, through conventional means (e.g. drugs, surgery), that opposes the effect on the symptom.

There are those in the natural healing world that operate this same way, substituting herbal and nutraceutical remedies instead of pharmaceutical. 

Have a fever?  Reduce it.

Have pain?  Block it.

Have depression?  Drug it.

Herxing?  Applaud it.

Healing crisis?  Push through it.

Wait…what?!

Healing is NOT a crisis.  A crisis implies difficulty, trouble, or danger.  Healing is the natural process of making the body healthy again. 

Herxing has no place in the course of healing. 

The only good that can come from a Herxheimer reaction is to heed it as a warning that treatment is headed in the wrong direction.

Sure, when you’re applying the correct remedies, discomfort may accompany you as your recuperative powers reactivate.  But it should rarely elevate to such a level to necessitate calling it a crisis.  Should conditions raise concern, then the body needs to be respected, listened to, and supported in the direction it needs to go.

Given the way we are designed, we don’t need remedies that force out toxins, force microbes to die, or force cellular engines to run.

We need power, not force.

When force is used, by definition, an opposing force meets it.  This force is comprised of each person’s limited capabilities given the condition of their body, mind, spirit, and will.

By contrast, power is working, or going along, with something.  Restoring the body should be focused on reclaiming its power to renew itself.

Like blowing the dust off a record, allowing the best sound to emanate from that which is hidden within the vinyl grooves, so too should be the main objective with reviving the body.

Therapy should be directed toward removing interference to the organizing systems of the body, improving coherence between the head-brain, heart-brain, and gut-brain, and optimizing the biological terrain.

Healing is a process and not an event.  It is rarely linear and, therefore, likely to have ups and downs along the way.

You will experience different sensations, waves of emotions, and moments of triumph, tempered by what feels like setbacks.  Through the right support, the goal is learning to trust your body again, to regain confidence in listening to what your body is telling you. 

“A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings and learn how, by his own thought, to derive benefit from his illness.” Hippocrates

Make use of a productive relationship between you and a practitioner that can help you reclaim the integral connection between your mind, your body, and your spirit.

Now, how will you decide to gauge your progress?