Protocols of the Autoimmune & the Enigmatical
You'll worry yourself sick...
“You’ll worry yourself sick.”
I remember my mom saying that to me throughout my childhood. We used to joke that I was (am) a born worrier and quick to tears because my mom had a self-described emotional, traumatic pregnancy. As my body changes and my soul ages within this vessel, after all I’ve put it and my consciousness through, I no longer find the joke funny. Instead I now recognize that those quips were intuition speaking from somewhere deep within her and through me. They were always vocalizations of a primal knowing that one of the ways we are tied together is by the uncomfortable bindings of her experienced pain, that now runs the ecosystem within each of us. It’s not her fault. It’s science.
Emerging research on epigenetics is fascinating. For those not familiar with the term, epigenetics is defined as the study of how chemical changes to DNA and histones affect gene expression and cell differentiation.* In other words, a grandfather’s desperate addiction to liquor may be as likely to pass on to his grandson as his wide nose. The difference is that the only way to narrow a nose in a noticeable way is through surgery, but the way cells are read can be reversed or modified in non-superficial ways that physical traits cannot.
I spent the tail end of 2023 and the lion’s share of 2024 in Emergency Mode, and my body is ringing the alarm bells. Frantically. I’ve gained weight without changing much about my lifestyle. My hair, generally my favorite feature on myself, has thinned. It’s a pleasant surprise when I wake up with a bit of energy. I’m experiencing allergic symptoms to most of the food I eat. I’ve been hesitant to socialize, because I just don’t know how I’m going to feel day to day. Enough finally being enough, I participated in an autoimmune assessment at the suggestion of a couple of my practitioners. The results confirmed that years of overwhelm and invasion to my gut cells have resulted in very real physical symptoms. I don’t like that. I don’t accept it. I believe that I can change the way my genes are read and provide them with a safer, healthier script.
There are many ways I’m attempting to go about this. For example, I had a somatic breathwork session with an energy worker on the same day as an onboarding call for a functional medicine autoimmune reset program. I’m trying to go at this with both mystical and functional medical protocols. I’m more optimistic about the future than I have been in a while. It’s tentative, but it’s speaking up a little louder through my experience all of the time.
While watching Brittany of Ethereal Astrology’s latest Youtube video on the December 15th Full Moon, she mentioned that she thinks as a collective we are just adjusting to the reality of what we know we have to do. I have found this to be true for me. I am hopeful, however. I’m feeling a shift toward a better mindset despite (as she put it) still dealing with the realities of my current physical lived experience. I’m thinking that there are many things I may be ready to let go of, temporarily and permanently. Caffeine dependency, overworking, harsh self-criticism, isolation, grief. Can sixteen weeks of targeted autoimmune treatment, somatic work, and soup for two meals a day help wipe away the sediment of my grief? Maybe. I’m willing to try.
If I tell my body that I can forgive myself, that I can have more hope and joy, will it listen the way it listened to all of the darkness that my self and my mother fed it since before it came in to this existence? I want to have that optimism. I’m working on it. I read an anonymous quote last week that came at a moment I needed it to be told: “It took years for this damage to accumulate. It will take years to repair it. Be patient with yourself.”
*definition provided by Britannica.com.