In honor of the 4th of July, I want to take a moment to recognize freedom.

Because what is health without freedom?

Freedom of body, mind, spirit, time, attention, and energy.

A lack of freedom in any one of these areas becomes its own form of prison—taking opportunity and moments away from life.

Often, psychological suffering can be greater than physical suffering.

The interesting thing is, people with health issues may not experience any pain at all for years. The body can compensate for a lot of stress for long periods of time. It can be years before reaching a breaking point that results in injury, heart attacks, strokes, inflammatory disease, digestive issues, or diabetes.

At which point, you miss what you don’t have.

I once worked with a teenage patient that had most of his colon surgically removed because of advanced inflammatory bowel disease.

Not only did he lose normal digestive function and had a lot of issues eating and digesting food, he had pain from the scar tissue the surgery left behind and was noticeably anxious about his health. His mom was also understandably anxious and now very protective of her son.

Once someone loses trust in their body, it can consume their mind and spirit, which just leads to more mental health issues and the physiological effects that come with stress.

While not directly a health example, there have recently been a lot of layoffs at Microsoft and in tech in general. Over 9000 people lost their job at Microsoft based on recent news.

This brings me back to the days when I worked in Silicon Valley as a very green Search Marketing Specialist/Account Manager—and got laid off twice in 6 months during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. I remember it triggering what I called a "quarter life crisis" because I was just a couple years out of college at the time.

I had to face the fact that there was no real job security and often the security comes at the exchange of being put in a glass cage. I had to face the fact my manager or employer was not responsible for my well being or career advancement. I had to face the fact that I was solely responsible for taking ownership of my own meaning and purpose.

I also spent anywhere from 30-90 minutes each day commuting depending on the traffic on the 101 from San Francisco to Mountain View. Then I spent another 6-8 hours sitting at my desk or in meetings.

I started experiencing back spasms in my mid and lower back. I could feel an area of my skin going numb. I had no idea what was happening. I was afraid I was developing some type of neurological disorder. This was not an existence I wanted for myself.

There’s no greater loss of freedom than loss of spirit and being trapped in emotional purgatory.

Enter Hering’s Law of Cure

Hering’s Law is something I’ve observed in my own health journey and a has been useful clinical heuristic to know if healing is progressing—either towards or away from freedom.

The law was named after Dr. Constantine Hering, a homeopathic doctor from the 19th century that observed how his patients healed.

Don’t worry if you don’t know or care what homeopathy is…this still applies.

Hering’s Law: healing occurs in a specific sequence, moving from the inside out, from the head down, and in the reverse order of symptom appearance.

The first law states that healing progresses from the deepest part of the organism—such as the mental and emotional levels and the vital organs—to the external parts, such as the skin and extremities.

The second law indicates that as healing progresses, symptoms appear and disappear in the reverse of their original chronological order of appearance.

The third law suggests that healing moves from the upper parts of the body to the lower parts.

What is interesting about Hering’s Law is that the mental, emotional, and spiritual levels of disease are the deepest levels of disease. Imagine the loss of freedom when someone loses their mind and memory from dementia, Alzheimer’s, or psychosis.

Lack of freedom can also come in the form of anxiety, apathy, and depression, not being able to get out of bed and engage in the world while having no signs of a physical disability.

There is a lot more awareness around the importance of mental health today, but I think we should be concerned about the increasing prevalence of mental health disorders especially when the diagnoses are showing up at a younger and younger age.

This tells me that our population as a whole is moving away from health and towards more severe disease.

Claiming Your Freedom

What we think is a rise in mental health seems to me to be highly correlated with the general worsening of collective metabolic health. It’s estimated that only 12% of Americans (1 in 8 people) can be classified as metabolically healthy.

To truly claim your mental, emotional, and spiritual freedom, you have to start by claiming your physical and metabolic health.

Looking back at my teens and twenties, I realized I had a lot more frequent episodes of feeling "down." I never thought it was a big enough deal to think it was depression. Most of the time I had a smile on my face and seemed easy going, but inside I could tell that I felt flat and periodically depressed.

I wonder if I had mentioned this to my primary care doctor at the time if I would have been referred to a psychiatrist and put on a lifelong supply of anti-depressants much like I was prescribed a life-long prescription of steroid cream for my eczema.

It was in naturopathic medical school that I began to really link food with my mood. And then I saw links with stress and exercise on my mood. And then I could start to focus on doing work that was meaningful to me.

Over time, as I replaced food that was inflammatory for me, it was like a fog lifted off my mind and the first sun of Spring appeared after a wet and gray Pacific Northwest Winter.

The "a-ha" moment for me was realizing that our mood, emotions, and spirit are THE reflection of our lifestyle and internal and external environments.

This is a basic truth that has been lost in the conventional medical system.

Now I have seen a lot of examples of my clients’ own "first sun" moments—clear thinking, clearer skin, being able to walk without pain, no more allergies or migraines, no more fear of diabetes or heart disease.

The most rewarding stories to hear the stories of a new sense of peace and trust in their bodies and minds.

On this Independence Day, I’m wishing you and your loved ones freedom of body, mind, spirit, time, attention, and energy.

P.S. If you want an accessible review of the research behind inflammation and anxiety, Nick Norwitz, MD PhD published a video, Inflammation Causes Anxiety: Root Cause and Cure (Watch on YouTube Here: https://youtu.be/9azjuXdSYSg?si=fcBXRkSoJkpnHLFV).

P.P.S. If you are interested in a Healthy By Design consultation session with me where I can help you identify areas for more health freedom, schedule one here https://l.bttr.to/uYxzi or reach out via email.