Symptoms

Symptoms are not your enemy, they are your best friend

In all sickness, disease and illness, there are symptoms, usually multiple, that arise. Our tendency is to try and get rid of those symptoms as soon as possible using the plaster approach. Have a headache? Let me grab some paracetamol. Have diarrhoea? Let me take some imodium. Constipated? Let's swirl around some laxatives.

Symptoms are much more than discomfort. Symptoms are clues, they are warnings, they are alerts that your body uses to communicate with you. Sickness does not happen overnight. They remind you that a certain experience does not agree with your body. This experience can be mental, physical or emotional. Bloated from having ice cream? Headache after a particularly stressful day? These are all clues. It does not mean that you necessarily ate something bad. These symptoms are often caused by emotions. Every physical pain is rooted in emotional imbalance too.

So next time you are feeling uncomfortable, within reason of course, write down how you feel, sit with it. Do you notice that after a certain meeting on Mondays you feel ill? Or after you hang out with the same friend you feel nauseous? Do you feel sick after eating a particular food? For women, do certain activities give you more painful periods?

In TICM, each symptom relates back to an organ. Each emotion does too. If you read my posts you are already familiar with that. If you have particular organs that are imbalanced, check previous posts on each organ.