Setting the Stage to Heal BY JOANNA CHODOROWSKA
I
believe the body can heal, given the right tools. Over twenty years ago, I learned this first hand. Five months after my first Ironman triathlon, I was diagnosed with adrenal exhaustion, also known as chronic fatigue. I was so tired that I needed a nap after I walked to the mailbox and back. How is it that I could do a twelve-hour endurance event and now be exhausted? I was like a horse with blinders on, focused on the goal and only the goal. My body was shutting down, yet I ignored it because training was the only thing that brought me joy and the only way to escape my stresses.
My diagnosis was my wake-up call to start taking care of myself in a different way. I needed to learn how to listen to what it was my body was asking of me, and how to find new ways to cope with stress in my life. With my alternative team of doctor, nutritionist and me, I revamped my nutrition and my way of coping with stress, and started to notice where it was that I was lacking in balance in my life. Years later, I started Nutrition in Motion, an intuitive nutrition therapy coaching company, to guide athletes to optimize their health naturally and help them set the stage to help their bodies heal. We often need a team to help us get past our own blinders and set the healing stage into reality. Recently, I read the book Cured: The Science of Spontaneous Healing by Dr. Jeffrey Rediger. It provided case studies of the body healing from incurable conditions. This is where I first read the phrase that we can “set the stage [for the body to] heal.” The body innately knows how to hea, yet we often choose to do more, rest less, take on more obligations, and add stress unknowingly. We create the stage for imbalance, ill health, and, like me, extreme fatigue. And it sometimes hits us like a ton of bricks. Ouch. If you want set the stage for the body to heal, there are some easy options you can commit to. It may be several of these, or all of them. It is different for each of you. 18 |
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021
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