Are you On Track or Off?

When it comes to success in most areas of our life we want to constantly be evaluating if we are on the right track to achieving what we set out to do, or if we have somehow deviated from it.  Continually checking in with ourself we can get to our goals a hellava lot faster. Which I don't know about you sounds pretty great! It has recently come to my attention, through personal experience, that our health doesn't always work that way. Let me back up just a bit, give you some context, and see how it shakes it out.

Since February this year I have been dealing with chronic urticaria, commonly known as hives. When we think of hives it's usually in response to an acute allergic reaction to something that we have eaten or touched. Chronic hives isn't quite the same, they reoccur seemingly at random without any trigger. Dealing with this has been very frustrating, and I wrote about it on my personal blog, check it out here. I wrote that particular post in March, so pretty early on in the process. If you don't want to read the other post here are the cliff notes. Breastfeeding was triggering the hives, it wasn't the cause and I was on a quest to figure out how to support my body in a way that would allow me to continue breastfeeding without breaking out into unsightly red welts. Fast forward to August. I had about 6 weeks with no hives. Then they were back. I no longer think that breastfeeding is a trigger, but they are cycling on and off at intervals of time.  For the last month or so I have been receiving acupuncture and diving into the emotional stressors that may be causing them. Slowly they are improving, for the most part. 

So what does this have to do with success, your health goals, my health goals and kind of being on the right track. At the start of July I set a goal for myself to figure out my hives in the next two months. I want to be done with them. I want to resolve why my body is freaking out for seemingly no reason at all. But, here's the kicker, it's really hard to know if I'm on the right track. Healing isn't linear. Getting to a hive free (hive-less?) state could literally happen overnight or they could slowly fade away and one day I realize that I haven't had hives in a week. Point A is being all hivey (or insert your condition here) and Point B is being symptom free. The journey between those points is going to be all topsy turvy and look different for everyone. So while I'm and you are working towards point B, we can evaluate our progress and say we are kind of on the right track. 

I'm not going to pretend that it's not frustrating. As of writing this I had 4 days with minimal hives, until this morning when I woke up with a lot more. What changed... who knows? But I do know it's not going to hurt to consistently put in the work on the path that I kind of know is on track. Right now that entails - Chiropractic care, low carb diet, high water intake, acupuncture, meditation, ramping up my self care (massage, float tank, solo nature time, napping), and specific 3x daily affirmations from Lousie Hay's book Heal Your Body. 

What about for you? Your 'kind of on track' to your health goals is going to look very different, and it's up to you to find out. That doesn't mean you shouldn't enlist help. Everyone needs a team, but you are the only one who lives inside your body and that means you know it best. Take the time to listen and then get to work. You deserve it.

Peace, Love and Wellness,

Dr. Liz