DISCLAIMER: The content included in this blog post is not intended to treat, diagnose or cure any diseases, but are PURELY for informational purposes. This is not intended to replace any advice from a licensed health professional and should only be taken as informational.
…Welcome back to Wellness Wednesdays! We took a much needed break last week and as promised are back with more healthful information for you on your wellness journey. This week touches on a very important yet very unknown topic…the TRUE causes of disease.
Be sure to check out our YouTube Channel Care Embodied if you prefer listening to reading. As always let’s just hop right in.
What if I told you that emotional imbalances or neglect were the true root cause of physical diseases? You’d look at me like I’m crazy right…but let me explain, of course with references to back me up.
Humans are (w)holistic beings, holistic being defined as “comprehension of the parts of something as intimately connected and explicable only by reference to the whole”, also as “characterized by the treatment of the whole person, taking into account mental and social factors rather than just the symptoms of a disease” in medicine. Everything that happens to us in one part of life affects ALL the other parts; everything is connected. Just as our hips can store emotional trauma and our neck and shoulders can store tension as a result of mental stress, emotional dis-ease can manifest physically if left untreated.
This plays directly into emotional eating. If you haven’t watched our previous Wellness Wednesdays video on Emotional Eating, I highly suggest you do so for reference. According to Dr. Llaila Afrika (and countless other holistic health practitioners), the tastes and consistencies of various food types are associated with emotional dysfunction and the need to medicate this dysfunction with food. For example, craving sugary foods/sweets is associated with lack of proper nurturing during childhood and satisfying the need to give and/or receive love. If someone was never properly nurtured and loved during childhood or not in a position to give/receive love and connection, a BASIC human need, they tend to crave sweets. A LOT. And if they have yet to recognize the source of their cravings and properly address it, they will continue eating sweets and sugar throughout the duration of their life. Now what is diabetes? African Holistic Health tells us that “Diabetes is a dis-ease of the pancreas. [...] The condition exists when the body has sugar (natural fuel for the body) available, but fails to recognize it. This causes excess sugar to accumulate, which the body gets rid of by excess urinating. [...] Excessive [urination] causes thirst, dehydration, weight loss, loss of appetite, and an overworked kidney and pancreas. The pancreas secretes the hormone insulin, which stimulates the use of sugar. Diseases, emotions and/or social stressors can overstimulate the pituitary and/or adrenals, which overtaxes the pancreas resulting in diabetes”1. Lack of emotional love = sugar cravings = excess sugar in the body = overworked pancreas = diabetes. The book then goes on to LITERALLY say, “White sugar is the primary cause of sugar diabetes. Diabetes is an emotional illness that can be caused by the inability to love and/or receive love. Sugar represents love and the dysfunctional love emotions are medicated by eating sugar”1. Now imagine this same scenario in people with repressed anger and frustration, associated with salty/fried food cravings…clogged arteries…high cholesterol…heart attacks…I think you get the point.
New perspective. Blackroots Science, written by Modimoncho, a modern-day African griot, explains this same phenomena through a different lens. A griot, for reference, is a tribal historian. Chapter 16 tells us, “All sickness is caused by neglecting some aspect of your character. [...] The body is the unity of all aspects of character, and neglecting one or more of them results in illness in the corresponding part of the body. [...] Diseases fall under two classes of causes; those caused by a deficiency in the individual’s own character, and those imposed on them due to a deficiency in someone else’s character”2. Again, failure to address internal emotional issues eventually manifests as physical disease. “One common example is improper or inadequate breastfeeding. A lot of mothers in modern society breastfeed their children very inadequately, if at all. [...] The most common damage that results from this comes in adulthood in the form of cigarette addiction. Unbelievable as it may sound, a large percentage of addiction to cigarettes is the result of insufficient time spent at the mother’s breast. Cigarette companies know this, and design cigarette butts the same color as a white woman’s nipple, and make the rest of it white like milk to evoke those childhood memories, not to mention the chemicals they add to make sure people stay addicted”2. Inadequate breastfeeding/connection to mother during infancy = cigarette addiction = lung cancer and other diseases.
I say all this to say, ADDRESS YOUR EMOTIONS. FEEL THEM. Yes, this can be a painful process, and no healing doesn’t occur overnight, but you’ll regret it later if you allow yourself to get so sick that you’re paying thousands of dollars a year on frequent hospital visits and “treatments”. When you crave certain foods, stop and ask yourself, “what feeling am I hoping to gain from eating this?” Get to the true root cause of your problems, don’t just treat the symptoms. Your health is priceless, and once it’s gone, it may be hell trying to get it back IF that’s even possible. Connect with trusted loved ones to vent, ask for advice when needed, and be sure to TALK TO YOURSELF. Speaking your feelings aloud to yourself help surface some things you may be feeling but weren’t even aware of, especially during those self-venting sessions without fear of judgement. Trust me…I know.
Take care of yourself. <3
1 Afrika, L.O., 2009. DIABETES. In African Holistic Health. Astoria, NY: Seaburn Publishing Group, pp. xxxvi-70.
2 Modimoncho, 2012. The Causes of Illness. In Blackroots science. California: Blackroots Science Publications, pp. 89–90.