🚘 If this light came on in your car, and you made it your goal to quickly and easily just shut the alert off and not investigate why the light came on in the first place, the reason it came on would still be there. If something in the motor is out of balance or needing attention, left untreated, it typically would affect other areas of an otherwise well working motor. What may have been a small problem, can turn into a much larger problem.
🚨 Our bodies are much like this. When a symptom or signal arises, it’s an alert. When we just shut the alert off without considering or investigating what set the alert off, we can create larger problems.
⏰ One difference is, we’re not machines. Our bodies are highly capable of adapting. If you ignore the alert long enough or shut it off enough times without addressing the cause, the body may stop sending that signal altogether. The problem didn’t go away. Only the alert or your ability to recognize the alert is altered or diminished. The cause of the alert will persist within the body, left untreated, and will contribute to other issues in our complex and highly intertwined bodily systems. It may become more complicated and difficult to unearth and address the more it’s been muted and suppressed.
💊 Another difference is that oftentimes the methods we use to shut that alert off, contribute to damage of their own. NSAIDs, steroids, suppressed emotions, addictions, unhealthy habits, distractions, drugs, alcohol, and others often begin as a bandaid and end up as bondage. These most often lead to more imbalance and dysfunction in our bodies.
✨ Those alerts are for our benefit. Symptoms do not need suppression. They require mindful attention.