Roger Ruge, Peak to Peak.

“When you naturally have a healing aura, you attract a lot of damaged people, and having them in your life could drain your energy to the max. A reminder that it’s not your job to heal everyone that you encounter. You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first.” ~Christopher Walken.

Casey, whose name has been changed for client confidentiality, was the anchor of her family. Up early, Casey hit the floor running and stayed up late to fit in all the things that ‘had to be done.’ She did it all and reveled in the label ‘supermom.’ Over the years, as kids grew and obligations somehow continued to increase, her manic activity became routine. Routine birthed expectation. One of her famous tag lines was, “I don’t have time to get sick…everyone needs me,” a mantra that became a way of life.

Eventually, this constant withdrawal of energy from Casey’s personal energy bank created an over-expenditure of funds heading toward bankruptcy. The joy of serving others became a journey of constant exhaustion and a seed of resentment began to germinate. Casey began to become hyper-sensitive to a perceived lack of appreciation from those who benefited from her relentless service. She experienced nearly constant headaches that increased proportional to her stress. Casey’s cup was empty and, predictably, serious consequences to Casey’s physical and mental health followed, as it inevitably must.

We all have what I like to call root health. This is the seemingly boundless energy we possess as children and young adults which we often believe will always be there for us to enjoy for our entire lives. Because many of us take our root health for granted, it’s like having a bank account where we spend money but seldom put anything back into the account.

The powerful chemicals associated with this type of energy drain, known as survival stress, were designed by Nature to help us through times of crisis. A short burst of these chemicals is devised to flood the body-temple to allow us to survive whatever short-term crisis is happening, like being chased by a bear for example. However, with the pace of modern times, we are now saturating ourselves in stress chemicals daily, and while it is not at the level we experience in a true crisis; this constant trickle is pulling money out of our energy bank 24/7.

As our energy account begins to empty out, and the root health of the body is diminished, at some point we will begin to experience physical and mental symptoms. Those initial symptoms are ‘red flags’ intended to get our attention, but most people do not heed the warning. Instead they take this or that to try and mask the symptom while continuing on as before. This works for a while, but over time we need more masks to push through. At the end of this road the body will move from minor or moderate symptoms into chronic dysfunction, disease, injury, accident or, in extreme cases, the body will simply shut down (think sudden cardiac arrest).

I have noticed a common theme with clients like Casey in that when it comes to taking the self-care steps necessary to mitigate physical and mental exhaustion, they simply could not make a consistent commitment because, as each divulged to me, they were literally the least important person in their lives.

I often ask my clients who find themselves in the position of seeking solutions to their physical and mental challenges; what will it take to begin to put yourself in first place? Chronic pain? Disabling exhaustion? Cardiac arrest you survive? For Casey it was a brain tumor.

Numerous studies show a clear correlation between the creation of disease and injury from long-term chronic, unresolved stress. For as much as 85% of all diagnosed disease the primary cause is stress. If stress is not a primary factor it is always a contributing secondary factor. Studies also show that the stress causing this massive amount of physical and mental disease can be mitigated with simple, consistent selfcare.

The most powerful stress mitigation strategy I teach my clients is Autogenic Breath Control, a technique I learned during my career in law enforcement as a SWAT member. While I do not have the space to describe it here, I am putting on a one-hour workshop to teach this powerful technique on August 9, 2018 at 6 p.m. at my office in Nederland. Space is limited, call (707) 975-0899 to make a reservation.