Addressing the Adrenals
I am reading an excellent book right now by Dr. James L Wilson on Adrenal Fatigue. This is a subject of interest to me as I’ve been experiencing many of the symptoms common to adrenal fatigue, including the most obvious…. fatigue.
Dr. Wilson expresses just how important a role your adrenals have and how these little glands can wreck havoc if stressed. He writes that,“they not only significantly affect the functioning of every tissue, organ and gland in your body, they also have important effects on the way you think and feel.”
Stress has the biggest impact on the adrenals. Particularly long term, chronic stress.
In his book Dr. Wilson includes some suggestions and exercises to help with the stress factor. One that caught my attention was a re-framing practice aimed at shifting the internal equation.
The Internal Equation
Dr. Wilson is clear on the fact that your body reacts physiologically to stressful thoughts. Especially when these thoughts become beliefs.
“A belief is like an internal equation you live by,” Dr. Wilson writes.
He included a story of one of his patients who had a horrible, horrible day. Everything seemed to be going wrong. Her car broke down on the way to a big sales meeting, she had to hitch hike to the airport, lost her luggage, and ended up losing the sales contract after all was said and done.
She wallowed about it for awhile. Then one day she came across an interview with a man who had a near death experience. Despite health difficulties, he was grateful and enthusiastic to be alive.
His story caused a shift in her.
She started to look at the difficulties in her life differently – as information about where she was off in her life rather than as an overwhelming force knocking her down.
This new attitude changed the way she approached her work and personal life. She started to regain energy, focus and enthusiasm and she started taking better care of herself.
Her difficult day ended up turning into a life changing day of opportunity. All because she changed her perception.
I can relate to this on my healing journey with endometriosis. Hitting that low point became an opportunity for me to shift the way that I cared for myself in a life changing way.
Change Your Response & Regain Control
Re-framing is a process of changing focus. It alters the way you see a situation. When you change how you see something, when you find the “silver lining”, you change how your body physically responds.
When we look at things from a different angle, allow our attitudes and beliefs to change… then stress and tension begin to diminish.
“Changing your responses puts you back in control of the situation,” Dr. Wilson writes, Reframing shifts your focus from the wall to the doorway.”
Sometimes the things that we want don’t happen. But perhaps they were not meant to happen? Maybe things weren’t supposed to go the way you planned.
I think sometimes these are subtle (or not so subtle!) hints from the universe that a different course should be taken.
Are you paying attention? Or still wallowing? 🙂
Re-framing Exercise
Dr. Wilson offers up the following exercise as a way to practice re-framing.
1.) Pay attention to negative self talk. Write down the messages you send to yourself. Use simple words: “lazy, failure, fat…” you get the point, Lol 🙂
2.) Across from these negative messages write the opposite in positive terms: “rested, successful, healthy…” Get it? 🙂
3.) Ask yourself: what would life look like if the descriptions in the positive column were true? How would your life be different?
4.) Look at how you can re-frame troublesome areas of your life to get what you want according to this new positive framework.
5.) Act accordingly.
An example of an action to take would be with nutritious food choices aimed at making you feeling better, with more energy and self-confidence. If food cravings came up that weren’t so nutritious then these could be taken as an aid instead of an obstacle.
Ask yourself: what is the obstacle trying to tell you?
On the Positive Side?
Stress has such an impact on our bodies, especially on the health of our adrenals. The good news… your body responds to positivity and the adrenals are spared.
Sometimes it takes imagination and effort, but shifting to a positive perspective can have a huge impact on your health.
It is up to us to “turn lemons to lemonade” with conscious altering of how we see our difficulties. It is time to experience something better. We all have the power of response.
It is empowering to turn an issue into an opportunity to get what you want instead of allowing obstacles to stand in the way of what you need.
When you change your belief about the situation, you change the situation.
What do you think?
I leave you with Dr. Wilson’s words…
“If we wait around waiting for a series of happy endings we will probably be disappointed. However, when we choose to use reframing techniques to shift our perception about situations that have been wearing us out with stress, we empower ourselves to stay healthy. We change how our bodies actually experience and respond to these situations.”
– Dr. James L. Wilson
Much Love,
Aubree.
