Saturday, February 16, 2013

Why I Don't Believe in Miracle Cures

I still remember the surprised look on her face. "You what?"  
I repeated again, "I'm on a special diet and I can't eat sugar."  
"But, there is sugar in everything!" she protested. 
I agreed. "Yes, which is why I'm not even able to eat fruits and have to be careful about my carbohydrate intake."  
I ran into her again at the other end of the store where she asked me how long my diet was going to last.  
"Six months," was my answer.  
"Good luck," she wished me. 
"Thanks!" I'll probably never see her again, but the conversation will stick with me for a long time.

It is difficult to pursue healing. Very difficult. It is time-consuming. It is costly.

It'd be easy if there was a miracle cure out there for Candida albicans, CFS, or cancer... but there just isn't. Progress has been made on all those fronts, but there is just no simple, easy, one-size-fits-all, just-take-this-pill answer.

And... I might shock you when I say... I don't think there ever will be.

There is a very innate, intuitive reason why we all are skeptical of "miracle cures" to our weight loss, health, and pain problems. We all realise that the human body just doesn't work that way. We realise that it takes time and effort for us to cause these problems, and that the solutions will often take longer. It is easy to accidentally cut a garment when removing a tag; it is more difficult to restore the garment to its original state of perfection. We know that the human body works the same way.

The more I learn about health and wellness, the more careful I become. The more I see and discover in my past that I thought was perfectly okay for me to eat or do which has actually caused very deep and lasting damage.

My heart breaks for the poor, exhausted mother who drains her body's precious adrenal resources by taxing this small but vital gland with the strain of numerous morning cups of coffee. My heart aches for the college student eating another cup of noodles because he doesn't understand that it isn't real food. My heart cries for those who were once thin, trim individuals who have succumbed to the toxic lure of fast food and soda, or even "healthy" yogurts, granolas, and juices which are loaded with sugar, preservatives, artificial and genetically modified ingredients.

The reason I don't believe in miracle cures is because almost everything we do stands in the way of allowing some of natures miraculous healing remedies to work. We are building road blocks when we should be clearing roads. We are holding up traffic where it ought to flow. We are ruining our lives with convenience.

And, so, when a problem arises, a process begins.

Our eyes are gradually opened. We've brought this upon ourselves. Our own choices have spelled the ruin of our health. We begin to see, for the first time. We've been tricked. And it isn't easy to take off the blinders, to foster the awareness of what the body truly needs, and to spend time in the kitchen preparing healthy food when we used to just take for granted what we could purchase at the store.

Are you willing to take the time? Are you willing to wait? Are you willing to admit you were wrong, that you were deceived, that you contributed to the state of our own downfall.

I am. Because it's the only chance I have for healing.

I can't sit around and wait for a miracle pill. But I can start rebuilding from the ground up.

5 comments:

  1. You are absolutely right Camille.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "The reason I don't believe in miracle cures is because almost everything we do stands in the way of allowing some of natures miraculous healing remedies to work. We are building road blocks when we should be clearing roads. We are holding up traffic where it ought to flow. We are ruining our lives with convenience."

    This, exactly. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I know exactly how you feel. Im almost to 14 months gluten free, 8 months grain free, and most recently eliminated caffeine (although occasionally I will cheat on that one, mostly by accident when I forget to ask for decaf!) Eventually I want to get off of sugar as well, (although I don't think I will ever give up fruit!) I was trying to do that this year, give up sugar, but it's proving to be much harder than I expected. I have switched to honey or maple syrup in baking. But I'm a sucker for candy and chocolate when it's around. :( Prayers would be appreciated. You would think after giving up so many things that this would be easy. I'm totally not tempted by grains at all! But put some chocolate in in front of me and I can't resist!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey, Aprille! :)

      Your comment made me smile, laugh, and nod a lot. Wow, I am impressed that you have been able to entirely give up grains! I think that would be easier for me to do if organic meat was more available to me. So often I default to a grain and veggie dish since I am quite limited on my meats. Next week I plan to try to reintroduce beef, which I haven't eaten at all since mid-November. We'll see how that goes.

      It might not work, but have you tried roasted carob pods instead of chocolate? That is something I'm allowed to have on a candida diet occasionally, but I haven't been able to find them anywhere just yet. Since you're already mostly used to giving up sugar, you might find them sweet. Let me know how they are if you end up trying one!

      Love,
      Camille

      Delete
    2. Never heard of those. I'm trying to work myself up to DARK dark chocolate. I can handle 70-80% cacao but after that I starting making BLECK sounds lol. But I always try to eat dark chocolate at the very least to cut down on the sugar.

      We have organic meat at kroger but it's SO expensive...I probably buy organic meat about 30-40% of the time but soon we might not be able to afford it either. I feel your pain!

      Delete

Disclaimer: If you have a health resource you can't resist sharing, I would love to hear about it if you feel it will be truly helpful. I am already doing my best to fight this illness from a nutritional, structural, as well as medical stand-point. Please avoid comments with "miracle cure" stories about your Aunt Milly's granddaughter who drank coltsfoot tea for a week and has been fine ever since. I'm very thankful it worked for her in her case, but there are so many environmental, emotional, and other factors that make CFS/ME complicated and different from just an average illness. That being said, please leave thoughtful and uplifting comments below.