Winning the Battle when your body goes through the war

Time and Time again, I am asked how by people how to overcome health issues naturally.
And over and over again I see the need for people to take complete inventory of their lives to see the entire picture of what is going on.
How is your environment, family life, stress and anxiety levels, food choices, and recreational use of drugs or alcohol?

When I became an herbalist, it was my religion. I followed hard after it, did everything I should, avoided any "unclean" thing as much as possible for several years.
In 2006, I was diagnosed with a reproductive cancer.
I had abdominal surgery, then radiation, went through menopause in the span of a few months, and began to seriously doubt everything I believed in and felt as though I had failed.
It took almost a year for the light to come on and encourage me back into the world of herbs I love so well. Also, in that year, I began to really see the stressors in my life that may have contributed to the disease I have had to overcome.
Knowing in that moment that eventually I will die, it was even more important to me to live my life in as much joy as possible and to look at the needs of my community around me.
Ironically, despite my doubt in myself as an herbalist, when health problems would occur due to treatment, doctors had trouble finding out just what was wrong, and yet they were amazed at the strengths I had in other areas that often bother people.

I attribute that all to the plants I was using and how they cared for my body. My scars are minimal, although present, not as bad as most felt they should be. My strength often times is incredible, although my strength often still fails me too.
However, in getting through lifes day to day burdens, as well as battling life changes in the body, herbs are friends, allies and nurturers.

As most of you know I am rather a liberal herbalist, having been through the health challenges I have. I learned to love my doctors, medications when needed, and in return, they respected my use of herbs. It helped me have hope that one day we can all work side by side in a supportive role in helping people.

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I had to chose between healing herbally or doing mainstream medicine.
It took me several weeks to make the decision to have treatment, looking at my children was part of that choice.
I spoke very little words in those weeks and realized that no amount of plants I was using could probably reverse what I had to face.

Herbs supported my body throughout the ordeal, both in nervine, strengthening, and nurturing.

However, I found that through some situations, I simply could not reduce pain.

When people come to me needing pain relief they cannot find in herbs, I am not afraid to encourage them to use over the counter medicines, and even prescriptions.
I believe strongly that to ease pain can help the rest.
I know this may not be popular belief, but pain causes anxiety, stress, and suffering of the spirit. These, I have noticed, tend to be the very things that can actually block a healing response.
I have heard recently the teachings that stress and anxiety are self created. Well, to be honest, I think that is only partly true.
For most of us we live in continual debt. Mortgage/rent, phone bill, vehicle expenses, food, clothing are all needs, and often most of these we carry on our shoulders knowing that every month, that bill is come due again, to which we cannot seem to get from under it.
Then there is the news. We see climate issues, environmental issues, and suffering around the globe every single day.
We have family matters, money matters, community matters constantly surrounding us.
Is it not uncommon that many of us run on fight or flight responses throughout our day?
And then health issues. In our busy world, if one gets a bad cold or flu, it is expected of us to go to the doctor and be back to work in a couple days. In some cases, this works fine and people can go on and recover, but in more people that I have seen, it only causes a person to continually battle over and over illness. Why?
More than likely it is because people are not allowed to rest as they should to recover and are up and about far sooner than their body truly needs to heal. Then your lovely co worker, that should have been home resting, comes back to work, only to expose you to the illness they had succumbed to.
And it is nobody's fault, really, because that person was expected to be back to work, and they also had those debts and bills they cannot pay without being back on their job.
It is a circle that our society lives in that unfortunately won't change anytime soon.
We are all going to leave this planet eventually. Even living what we perceive as a perfect life will not change the fact that we will depart at one point.
When I went through my bout of disease, I finally decided that I was only going to do the best I can, I was going to eat, drink and be merry without questioning every single thing I did, and do my best to move forward and make a difference in this world.

What is the point of this musing today? I do not know exactly except to say that each of us has to follow our own hearts without putting expectations on others to do what we deem is correct.
I love my herbs and use them for many things to sustain my family. So many people say to me, Your plants must work because you are rarely sick.
However, my body is somewhat frail due to cancer treatment, and when I go down, I crash badly. The worse part is that it effects my family, co workers, and the people I love when it happens.
Herbs do not make us eternal beings, nor do they keep up from ever having a problem.
But what I do see is how they help us reconnect to ourselves and bounce back. They can prevent many illnesses, and strengthen us to go through one if we are unfortunate enough to come in contact with something that seems to take hold.

I am so grateful for my plant friends to sustain me today!