The symptoms are not the dis-ease!

Discover the latest understanding of illness and health

Have you ever noticed how physical health issues seem to follow predictable patterns? Have you ever witnessed client cases similar to these …

• Cathy, a woman with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), who experiences constipation followed by diarrhoea on a regular basis?

• Sue, who broke her wrist twice, and both times the new bone seemed stronger than before?

• Sam, a baby whose skin alternates between eczema and being cold and pale?

• Anthony, a schoolteacher who always seems to come down with a cold virus at the beginning of the holidays?

• And Lisa, a client with backache who, after her therapeutic treatments, experiences tiredness and increased pain before getting better? 

Have you ever considered the possibility that these patterns are not the body making a mistake - that actually, they are bio-logically meaningful? 

A cutting-edge approach to health is now providing a scientific answer to our long-held questions about how and why we experience illness. This new field, META-Medicine^®, gives us a scientific evidence of the biopsychosocial (body-mind-environmental) connection, explains how and why illnesses occur, and enables us to understand the meaningful, two-phase process of all dis-eases – from colds to cancers.

If dis-ease is a process, what causes it to start?

Contrary to popularly-held beliefs such as the primacy of genetics, lifestyle, stress and other ‘risk factors’, these are not the cause of illness in the vast majority of cases. There is no evidence of the precise moment these ‘risk factors’ take a person from health to illness.

Meta Medicine explains how all health issues (with the exception of poisoning, accidents and acute malnutrition) begin with a Traumatic Life Event: a shock that is unexpected, dramatic and causes emotional stress.

Have you ever felt stunned, paralysed or sick to the stomach after a completely unexpected event? Perhaps, momentarily, the world appeared to slow down or move away from you. These are indicators of a Traumatic Life Event (Point 2 on the Figure 1 below). Meta Medicine explains how, in the moment of shock, a sophisticated process starts on all levels simultaneously:

• Mind – The unconscious mind links and records all circumstances of the event. Have you ever noticed how smell can suddenly evoke specific memories?

• Brain – The brain area responsible for directing a specific organ activates. Which area activates depends on the type of emotional stress experienced at the moment of shock (anger, fear, loss etc)

• Organ – Cells within the specific organ will immediately begin to increase or decrease (depending on the brain area directing them)

• Nervous system – Switches into sympathetic mode, the fight-flight-freeze response

• Social environment – How we associate to our environment changes at the moment of shock. Have you ever noticed someone’s behaviour change after a traumatic event? This change is bio-logically meaningful.

 Let’s take two of our earlier examples. IBS is caused by an indigestible chunk shock: an experience in which someone heard/saw/felt something that they felt angry about and couldn’t digest. Cathy got a shock when she discovered her husband's affair, and couldn’t let go of her anger about it. Sam’s eczema was caused by a loss-of-contact; like many infants, he developed an epidermal (outer skin) issue due to the shock of physical separation from his mother.

So is healthy living still important?

A healthy lifestyle keeps our vitality high and maintains the natural rhythm between daily activity (sympathetic) and night regeneration (parasympathetic). Pharmaceutical drugs, stimulants, lack of or excessive exercise, stress, and nutritional, chemical and energetic imbalances all lower our overall vitality. A low vitality makes us more susceptible to experiencing a shock (see the dip between Points 1 and 2 on Figure 1 below).

Consider an argumentative family member or friend. Have you ever noticed that when you’re feeling happy and energetic, you can let go of an argument quickly, while at other times, when your reserves are low, a similar experience can really affect you?

Our level of vitality is key to understanding why we react to shocks, why we get ill when we do, and why some people seem more susceptible to illness than others.

Figure 1: The Two Phases

What happens after a shock?

The Traumatic Life Event starts a stress phase (Point 3). The nervous system remains in a mostly sympathetic state until the shock is resolved.

Typical indications of the 1^st phase include:

• Sleeplessness

• Absence of appetite

• Compulsive thinking about the event

• Cold body and extremities

• Weight loss

• Tense body

• Heightened sensitivity and easily stressed

There is a simultaneous organ reaction. In Cathy’s case, she experiences constipation in the 1^st phase. The bio-logical meaning is to increase the surface area of the intestinal cells, in order to enable her to digest the indigestible chunk effectively. Sam, on the other hand, experiences cell loss in the 1^st phase, so his skin becomes colder, drier and less sensitive. The bio-logical meaning is to desensitise him from the loss of contact.  

How do we resolve this stress? 

The stress phase continues until the individual resolves the shock, internally or externally (Point 4). Cathy could gain resolution by making up with or leaving her partner (an external event), or by letting go of her anger (an internal experience). Therapies such as EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) can help to release negative emotional stress, while bodywork such as massage encourages resolution from the physical level. For Sam, being reunited with his mother would resolve the feeling of separation, while nutrition or homeopathy, for example, could provide support.

Why do symptoms get worse when emotionally we feel better?

At the point of conflict resolution, we experience a switch, on all levels, to the parasympathetic regeneration phase (Points 5 & 7). Typical characteristics of this phase include:

• Fatigue and tiredness

• Increased appetite and weight gain

• Quieter mind

• Warm body and extremities

• Activation of microbes – bacteria, fungi and viruses

Often, what we consider to be an illness – a stomach bug, ‘flu, muscle ache or joint pain – is actually a 2^nd phase symptom, just part of a comprehensive dis-ease process. Anthony’s colds, Lisa’s backache and Sue’s bone re-growth are all 2^nd phase symptoms. It is in the 2^nd phase that the body rebalances. With IBS, the body lets go of the additional cells built up in the 1^st phase, causing diarrhoea. The typical symptoms of eczema – red, itching, sore patches of skin – occur as the skin re-grows and re-sensitises. 

Why do we experience a healing crisis?

Half way through the resolution phase, the healing crisis (Point 6) occurs. This is a brief return to a sympathetic state, in which the body:

• Tests its ability to return to normal health (Point 8)

• Squeezes the excess water, gathered for healing, from the brain relay and associated organ

It is during this critical stage that heart attacks, headaches, cramps and asthma attacks occur. In other cases, the symptoms are less extreme! Have you ever experienced a cold, and after a couple of days, woken up breathing clearly and thinking you were better – only to find that your symptoms returned a few hours later? This brief period of respite is the healing crisis.

How can I use the 2 phases to empower my own and my clients’ health?

Knowing how the body works in these two phases is incredibly powerful.

For self-empowerment:

• Become aware of which phase you’re in by assessing your body temperature (particularly hands and feet), energy levels and mental activity

• Notice how what you do mentally, physically and socially affects the 2 phases

• If you’re in the 1^st phase, ask yourself what emotional stresses you need to resolve, and which therapies can help you to do this

• If you’re in the 2^nd phase, listen (and respond!) to your body’s need for rest and recuperation – and which therapies can assist you to heal

• In both phases, take in additional energy and nutrients

As a health practitioner:

• Find out which phase a client is in using the indicators above

• Notice where a client is in the dis-ease cycle – this indicates what has to happen for them to return to full health

• Be aware of when and how your therapies are helping clients to move from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state

• Explain how they may feel during the resolution phase

• Tailor your approach and choose the most beneficial therapies for where the client is within the dis-ease process

This mapping of the 2 phases is just one of the 10 models of Meta Medicine, an advanced, integrative approach to understanding health and illness.

If you would like to find out more, including …

• How a dis-ease process becomes chronic

• The bio-logical, emotional and evolutionary cause of illnesses including heart disease, cancers, asthma, thyroid issues and back pain

• Scientific evidence of the biopsychosocial (organ-mind-brain-social) connection

• How to find the root cause of your clients’ health issues

• And how this revolutionary approach can benefit your health practice

Join a 2-Day META-Medicine^® Introductory Training with Robert Waghmare and Joanne Ross, two of the UK’s first licensed META-Medicine^® Health Coaches and Master Trainers.

Courses take place every other month in the West Midlands. To find out more about this exciting new field and how to get involved, call Robert or Joanne on 0845 838 6787 or email info@metamedicineuk.com

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