HOWDY, BRAVE & DARING LEADER,
Far too many humans are not healing because they are masking symptoms with medication vs. being connected to the aligned healers who are equipped to treat the root cause. I’m deeply passionate about this conversation because of my own journey, and it’s a joy to get to share guest writer, Erika Shepard, MSN with you. Enjoy!
Sir, I am prescribing Naproxen, 750 mg daily by mouth.
That is what I was taught in my Nurse Practitioner training to do if someone was experiencing inflammatory pain. And the thing is… it usually worked. Caveat… it usually worked only if they were taking the prescribed medication.
While I was in my Nurse Practitioner training at Georgetown University, I was getting a world class education. And I appreciated the hell out of it. But after almost a decade of working in conventional medicine as a Registered Nurse, I had also become disillusioned with the results my patients were getting with Western Medicine. The only area I saw Western Medicine shine where nothing else could was when I worked as a Neuro Trauma ICU Nurse. If you got into a car accident, you better believe surgeons, ventilators, and potent medications and blood transfusions can mean the difference between life and death. Otherwise, I often saw Western Medicine keep people’s illness at bay, but not heal it. I knew in my gut that although Western Medicine had its place and was very important when needed, that there were more pieces to the puzzle.
One sunny day, I walked into the doctor’s office where I was doing clinicals for my NP training. A patient came in for a follow-up appointment after having had a battery of tests for unexplained neck pain. His scans, exams, and medical history came up negative for anything. In other words, everything was unremarkable, and he had a seemingly healthy neck with mysterious and inexplicable pain. I remember waiting for the same old jingle of prescribing him some pain medication. But the Nurse Practitioner I was training under had a different plan…
She looked at me and said, “Do you know those patients where nothing is wrong, but obviously something is wrong?”
“Yeah…”
“Have you ever studied mind body medicine?”
I remember smiling big in an awkward way. Was she about to tell me about a missing piece to the puzzle?!?
She pulled out a book out that had a glossary of emotional/spiritual contributions to physical disease. My first thought was, “WTF, emotions and spiritual states and can contribute to this crap?!” We went into neck pain. One of the contributions was, “Having trouble seeing other people’s points of view.”
How poetic. How utterly fascinating. Could this man really have trouble seeing other people’s points of view, and then that be what was primarily contributing to his neck pain!?
We went back in to talk to this man, and she started inquiring (with his consent of being open to alternative explanations of his neck pain). When she asked him if he had trouble seeing other people’s points of view, his reply was, “Oh my gosh, that is something I have always struggled with.” She wrote on a prescription pad to work on this over the next 3 months, and then come back and see her. He left fascinated and eager to see if this worked.
“Does this ever work?” I asked her pleasantly perplexed.
She replied with a smile, “All the time.”
This blew me out of the water. The whole notion that our mindset, or how we view the world and people around us, could influence our bodies.
But it makes all the sense in the world. Our cells are influenced by the physical environment (hot, cold, what we put into or detox out of our bodies), and also HOW WE PERCEIVE the environment (aka mindset).
Let’s take an example of two people who are in the same situation. For simplicity, we shall call them Shelli and Debbie. Both have lost their jobs. Shelli, understandably, is having a tremendous amount of anxiety. She thinks that there aren’t any jobs out there, and that she is going to run out of money and not be able to provide for herself. Debbie, on the other hand, sees everything as an opportunity. Although she is upset and a little anxious because she doesn’t know what’s coming next, she trusts the process of life, and believes there is an abundance of job opportunities out there for her. This mindset quicky qualms her anxiety and keeps her grounded.
Weeks later, Shelli has had stress and anxiety levels of 8/10 daily (10 being the worst) while Debbie has had anxiety levels of around 3/10 (10 being the worst). Due to her stress hormones being chronically high, Shelli eventually got sick with a virus because her immune system was suppressed from being in chronic stress. She is also having difficulty sleeping with the constant, racing thoughts. Shelli then spent over $300 on doctor’s visits and medications to help with the virus and her sleep issues. Debbie’s health remained intact… no doctor’s visits or added bills.
It was Debbie’s MINDSET that kept her body in balance, and thus she remained healthy while Shelli’s mindset led to her body releasing a constant supply of stress hormones. Shelli’s body saw everything as a threat and dangerous, so her body responded appropriately to threat and danger. If Shelli had that mindset piece added to her puzzle, she probably would’ve saved her time, money, and added suffering.
It is my invitation to you to choose mindset over medicine. Physical medicine has it’s place (truly). But your body listens to what you tell it. And with that, your mindset is one of the most potent medications and treatments you can use!
Your prescription this week is to tell your body a point of view that will serve you.
Shine on, shine bright
Xoxo Erika
Erika Shepard, MSN is a healer, coach, speaker, and former nurse practitioner. Erika utilizes mind body medicine and people’s innate ability to heal to reclaim themselves after love deficient relationships or childhoods so they feel consistent self-love, peace, calm, and joy in their everyday lives. You can contact her through www.erikashepard.com and follow her on IG and Pinterest @mserikashepard.
