Not Honoring ‘Self’ Can Make You Sick

Last week a friend send me a post she found on the internet by a female doctor who writes about women’s health issues. You can find the article and more about the doc at: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/repressing-the-real-you-makes-you-sick-for-real.html. My friend added a personal note – “This is what you’re always saying.” It certainly is what I believe, but only from personal experience, not from any evidence I had gathered from science. It felt great to have validation after all these years. In truth that was the impetous in making my memoir/workbook “Little Nancy: The Journey Home” available to a large audience. The women who had either read the book, or taken the workshop I have been offering with it, had experiences that were clearly profound, and they had these experiences because they had the courage to look closely at some of their deepest issues. Was this easy, for them or for me? Hell no! But I will say that for me, delving deep at this point in my life actually contributed to a changing perspective on my life and its choices, both negative and positive. In most instances, especially in regard to my two failed marriages, I found forgiveness. I can’t emphasize how freeing this was for me. I could not only see the trajectory of the path that had led me to each of those marriages, as well as the issues I missed or ignored in each case, but what I had gained from both experiences. I actually asked my first husband to have a cup of coffee with me, and told him exactly that: there had been very worthwhile aspects to our marriage, and then I shared what they had been, at least for me. Because I had used ‘coffee’ to tell him all the ways he had hurt me as I learned about them over the years, I was amazed he agreed to meet me yet again, and he looked equally amazed at what I had come to share. I thought it only fair to tell him what I had gained from our marriage since he had sat through all my thoughts on the negative side. The understanding and the sharing lifted a weight I had been carrying for years. I knew in my soul to shed that weight had to be good for me, but I never realized such exploration and sharing might actually prolong my life. Even without that knowledge, plumbing my own depths offered obvious emotional healing: it made me feel better, lighter, more whole. Dare I say: more ‘me’. Most of us shy away from anything we know might be painful, and certainly looking back over our past choices and missteps would qualify. It has always seemed to me that not looking back is equally perilous. When I have blocked out pieces of my life I have been destined to repeat them, or at the very least, similar, miserable experiences. So I have dug, and looked, and dug again, and with my book, urged other women to do the same. Nice to know I am also urging them to take care of their health. The healing isn’t just felt, it is healing in a medical sense. How amazing! Or maybe not so surprising after all.