Beautiful people do not just happen

Are you stuck in a stress response?

 When Susie first walked into my office, she looked the picture of health. She was in her early fifties, elegant, fit, and seemingly full of energy. She followed a strict diet free of meat, gluten, dairy, and sugar, and packed with vegetables. Yet she had come to see me because she was exhausted. She’d been living with fatigue and fibromyalgia since her early twenties and now menopause was hitting hard - insomnia, food intolerances, perfume sensitivities, irritable bowel syndrome, and constant infections.

It’s something I see so often. Real dis-ease. A controlled exterior coupled with so much internal chaos.

Once Susie opened up, I could clearly see where the chaos was rooted. Her father had been an unstable alcoholic, and as the eldest child, she had spent her childhood protecting her siblings. Although she’d left home nearly 30 years ago, her body was still trapped in a stress response. Still in fight-or-flight.

The Dunedin Study has tracked 1,037 people from birth and is now in its fifth decade, with over 1,300 publications on health, development, and behaviour. One key finding is that children exposed to violence or early adversity are nearly twice as likely to show raised levels of inflammation compared to those not maltreated. Sadly, as developmental researchers Moffitt and Grawe observed, “violence exposure is one of the most common and severe sources of human stress.”

I see this reflected time and again in my patients with fatigue or burnout - many have been exposed to violence or trauma in childhood or early adulthood. While they often feel they’ve processed it through counselling or psychological support, their bodies are still, for some reason, stuck in that highly responsive, survival mode they relied on as children.   

A powerful step toward healing is to write about your childhood - where you came from, who your parents were, and what you’ve lived through. I mentioned this earlier in the book, and if you haven’t done it yet, I encourage you to start now. You need to know your own life story. You need to understand what weight you’re carrying, or what boulder you’re still pushing uphill.

Don’t be afraid to look. You are stronger than you think. 

Beautiful People Do Not Just Happen

 It’s hard to look back and see where you’ve come from. It’s even harder to acknowledge what you’ve been through and to accept that it has shaped who you are. But if you want to move forward and shift out of your continual stress response, you need to accept your scars as part of you.

I love how Elisabeth Kubler-Ross says beautiful people do not just happen:

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.  These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.  Beautiful people do not just happen.”

Think of a bonsai tree and how it grows.  It starts with the potential to be a huge, powerful tree, but it’s kept trapped in a space far too small for it and its growth and development are constricted for many years.  Yet these very circumstances that hold it back, enable it to become a rare, magical beauty. 

It’s the same with diamonds – they’re only formed under intense pressure and heat. 

And it’s the same with you.  What constrictions, what pressures, what circumstances have created you?  Remember, beautiful people do not just happen.

My new book on overcoming fatigue and burnout will be out soon - this excerpt is just a little taster. Make sure you’re subscribed to my blog, and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s available.