Being a breathworker, yoga practitioner, massage therapist and energy worker, I am not an authority on the immune system and I certainly don’t assume to know the scientific details of how it works.
However, I do know the human immune system is very sophisticated, intelligent and complex and, like all the systems, it is a part of a whole, the immune system both affects and is affected by all other systems and dimensions of the body.
In its simplest form, most of us understand the immune system as our defence against disease in the body.
For me, it’s all about the Vibration! Generally, all parasitic invaders are of a low vibration, so if our vibration stays high, our immune system is in good health and is highly effective, and we get rid of those bad guys pretty quickly.
In saying that, the immune system is very sensitive to not only external factors, but also to internal factors such as feelings and thoughts. In many cases, of our modern society our immune system has been weakened, but what is the cause?
Being a breathworker (emotions), yoga practitioner (mind) and massage therapist (physical), I am going to break these reasons down into categories of physical, emotional and mental.
Physical Reasons Our Immune System Can Be Compromised
Most physical causes of immune deficiency are generally well-known and widely recognised in the health and wellness areas and include, but are not limited to:
- the over use of modern medicine;
- nutrient deficient food, fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides all contribute to creating toxins and lowering our vibration;
- deficiency of nutrients in the soil;
- the exposure to chemicals in the house and work environments;
- lack of exposure to natural germs and pathogens that actually strengthen our immunity;
- lifestyle choices: smoking, drinking, junk food and being sedentary;
- incorrect breathing habits; Breathing is a major contributor to health; and
- incorrect posture and movement habits.
All these contribute to physical stressors and actually lower our vibration and weaken the system, creating a host that is hospitable to invaders. It’s not rocket science! Just common sense.
Emotional Reasons Our Immune System Can Be Compromised
Negative emotions themselves don’t lower the vibration of the physical body and weaken our energetic bodies, but rather it is the suppression of negative emotions which weakens our energetic bodies.
The suppression of emotions happens when an emotional response was unable to be expressed in childhood, the reasons range from:
- a real fear of physical punishment;
- a decision made by the child (i.e. a lot of anger being expressed in the family of origin can make the child decide anger is wrong and will not allow itself to express it);
- a ‘Boys don’t cry’ or ‘Girls don’t get angry’ type of scenario;
- making fun or (making wrong) of a child’s feelings, (i.e. don’t be silly… you don’t need to be scared of that);
- pushing them into challenging themselves can make them suppress fear in order to be good (get love);
- getting into trouble for crying (i.e. Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about); and
- the perceived withdrawal of love, such as being put on the naughty chair or sent to your room or isolated in some way.
Through punishment, humiliation or perceived loss of love, eventually, the child learns to suppress those feelings in an attempt to avoid feeling unloved.
After a while, the child does not have to regulate itself, it becomes a habit and the emotion gets suppressed without the child even experiencing the feeling. Adults or parents experience that as “learned good behaviour”.
But we continue this habit of suppressing the feelings and we were unable to express from childhood into adulthood.
So the behaviour that kept us safe, and in the love bubble of mum and dad as a child, actually harms us in adulthood.
It can manifest on the surface level as illness or dis-ease. Suppressed feelings become very powerful and the energy it takes to keep them down zaps our vitality, lowers our vibration and compromises our immune system.
The answer is not to just let kids run wild, all children experience this on some level, as they have to as part of being human. In adulthood, it becomes our responsibility to investigate this, to know and understand ourselves and make changes.
The suppression of negative emotions, as mentioned, becomes a habit and we don’t even know we do it!
It’s unconscious. and because they get stronger and more powerful often, we need to use vices to help us suppress feelings and this leads to bad lifestyle choices and, in the worst cases, addiction!
Which of course links back to the physical issues and symptoms. It is widely accepted that the suppression of feelings and experiences can lead to addiction.
So what does addiction look like? Well for most of us when we hear addiction we think of alcoholics or gamblers in the gutter who have lost everything and are unable to function in life.
But addiction or emotional suppressive behaviours can be incognito and really it’s the drug addicts, alcoholics and gamblers that become the scapegoats of society.
Because addiction can also be seen in the activities of society considered more virtuous such as: workaholism, consumerism, asset accumulation, food, success and money addiction, yoga, running, exercise, body image, spiritual practices, competitiveness, diet and health, being a victim and even being sick, can all become addictions that assist in suppressing emotions!
All these activities if they become fanatical are symptoms of something deeper that we are trying to avoid. These are feelings that our addictions, virtuous or not, are covering-up that require investigation.
I am not saying to stop doing any of your virtuous behaviours, just be aware, be curious, and investigate who you are.
Hmmmm has my Yoga practice become the vice? Investigate…. What happens when I don’t do it…. I get angry and stressed…. Investigate.
Mental Reasons Our Immune System Can Be Compromised
Negative thought processes, low self-esteem, self criticism, unhappiness, unworthiness, comparisons, dissatisfaction, negative thinking, obsessive thought trains and internal dialogues are all habits and conditions that contribute to lowering our vibration and immunity.
Is it the negative thoughts themselves, or is it the suppression of them, or the identification with them?
My experience with this has been long and personal and I still battle with this today. However, I have realised that the negative thoughts are always going to be there, see we attach feelings onto thoughts, which we don’t really need to do.
Feelings,by themselves, don’t last that long but the feeling is perpetuated by the thoughts we create to stay in the negative feeling that we are getting some kind of juice, charge or love from,in a weird and twisted way (which is another whole can of worms).We need to investigate.
The issue with negative thoughts is that we identify with them and we become them, then we become the feelings attached to them and lose all sense of self and sink to a low vibration.
A lot of our negative thoughts are unconscious, therefore, more powerful. When we become aware of them as thoughts, we can just say…. “Oh that’s interesting, I think I am an idiot, Ok thanks for sharing… not buying into that today, I have got too much to do.”
| Human beings have a predisposition to be negative and identify with the seven negative traits of the ego; • Greed |
If we are really honest with ourselves and look into these seven traits,they are often or probably always at the bottom of negative thoughts and feelings.
So how do we change? Well, we have to start to become aware; we have to acknowledge, we have to feel, we have to stay with the feeling, sometimes in the right environment we have to express the feeling – but not become the feeling THIS IS THE KEY.
As far as the mind goes, it is the identification with what we think, feel and do that causes pain and brings us down.
As the yogis say, we need to learn non-attachment to experiences, feelings and thoughts. Learn to observe that we feel happy or sad, because today we are a success and tomorrow we are a failure, today we are healthy tomorrow we are sick, today we are sad tomorrow we are happy, life is like that!
To be content, we must learn to identify with the part that observes the experience, not become the experience itself, as that will lead us to the bi-polar experience that many of us currently live in.
OK, so we all know what weakens the immune system, so how do we strengthen it? We investigate, through AWARENESS.
Our modern life has become a consumer society, we consume everything!! Even in the Health and Wellness Industry (if I can call it that…. It seems to be an industry) its all about selling and consumption. Eat more; Greens, Chorella, Spirillina, pro-biotics, vitamins, minerals… educate more, read more, listen more, do more, be more, have more more more!!! This in itself is a dis-ease.
Sometimes less is more, this is a saying for a reason…. It is true.
When we are sick with a virus, a cold or flu. We tend to want to fix it quickly, a natural response, we don’t have time to waste lying around healing and also our absolute aversion to feeling bad in anyway, we need to fix it fast!
So our answer is to consume something that will lessen the pain and, sometimes, we just want soup and toast from Mum!! Which also demonstrates our need for love and comfort.
Hhhmmmm do we sometimes get sick because we need love and attention? This is super common and yet another massive can of worms! Investigate.
A quick story: during my two year breathwork study, we covered a lot of modalities; core energetics, psychotherapy, emotional release and intelligence to name a few.
One of the participants had been generally sick her whole life from a small child always with something, it was real, she really did get sick and then into teenage hood became mentally ill to the point of being on antipsychotic drugs and in and out of psych wards.
During her process, she had a memory come up that when she was five or six, she was sick and had the day off school. She remembered in this case that mum stayed at home with her, rather than going to work, her siblings were all out at school and she got mum to herself and felt loved and looked after, then dad came home and gave her special attention.
She realised that something inside her five-year-old mind realised that when her love needs where not getting met, she would get sick and her needs would be met.
Kids don’t ask for their needs to be met, they employ their defensive behaviour!! This then continued on unconsciously into adulthood. I was blessed to be there to see her realise that there was actually nothing wrong with her, and since then, she is happy and rarely gets sick!
This is a very insidious memory and occurrence but outlines how we manipulate to get out love needs met and indeed how powerful our mind is! How the mind can suppress the immune system to get love! Check out Bruce Lipton’s Biology of Belief.
We could take a leaf out of the Yogi’s book as to what to do when we are sick and the best thing to do is nothing, eat nothing, do nothing… just let the body do its thing.
Is our body much more intelligent than our intellect? When we can see that the human organism is absolute genius and we think we know better? How absolutely outrageous!
This is a symptom of our egoic nature and really it is just an opinion. Let’s have a humility process and just let the body take over.
Getting sick and resting actually builds the strength of the immune system, our vaccination process is just a copy of our body’s natural immune building system.
The yogic practice of fasting is opposite to our consumerism, it’s ‘do not put anything in!! Stop consuming for just a few days’.
A Cold or Virus is considered just purification and by resting, and this actually builds the strength of the immune system (vaccination is just a copy of the body’s natural ability to build immunity through exposure).
So by fasting and being with any feelings or thoughts that surface because of that resting and abstaining from your usual activities, a deep purification of body, emotions and mind occurs, also more awareness which means a raise in consciousness too!
Eating is actually a suppressant.
It’s common knowledge that people emotionally eat or want comfort food, when you fast you take away this powerful suppressant, we may experience the intense emotions and become plagued with negative thoughts that are bubbling underneath.
In reality, this is just a deeper level of purification occurring, these thoughts are coming up for recognition and release.
So sickness can be a gift of healing, albeit wrapped in S*%t. If we can surrender and allow. If we can do nothing but be, be with what arises. Basically rest and get out of the way…. Let the body do its thing!
Be with, feel and observe, try not to become the feeling or the thought, just watch.
In spiritual traditions, they use fasting as purification; purification of the physical, emotional and mental bodies, once impurities are released you allow spirit to fill you up. There is plenty of information out there on fasting. Investigate.
The elephant in the room now is technology; iPhones, ipads, computers and TV’s, our modern acceptable addiction that completely lowers our vibration and suppresses feelings! So stay of the technology too!
Spiritual traditions also use all the elements of creation for purification of lower vibrations.
Earth: get in-touch with the element of Mother Earth, nature purifies us and increases our vibration, we know that….
Water: we know that our body is made up of mainly water and that water holds an energy charge, that charge can be positive or negative, the spiritual traditions always use holy water as way to purify, so drinking pure water that has been mineralised by the earth and blessed with intention, immersing yourself in highly charged water like the ocean or waterfall is another way to increase vibration and purify. Check out Dr Emoto’s books on Water and how it holds positive and negative charges from thoughts!
Fire: fire transforms everything it touches and is very purifying we can see that on the Earth after a bushfire,sprouts of new growth appear and often the seeds need to be heated to break open and grow, so the destructive power of fire is the death and rebirth.
We know this in our bodies when we get a fever… the immune system heats the body right up to destroy a pathogen and if we let the body do its natural thing then…. The fire in the body transforms. Fire also governs our digestive power to transform consumption into fuel.
Air: Could be the most powerful purification of all! Breathing Air into all the cells of our physical body and also the more subtle cells of the emotional and mental bodies. Air is not just oxygen but energy.
Most of us know what we need to eat and drink but many people don’t have good breathing habits. The human organism can go 40 days without food and seven days without water but only two minutes without breath and, yet, most people have a very poor quality of breath!!?
Food and water does not sustain the body, breathing sustains the body. Breathing is the only function of the body that can be autonomous or consciously controlled and that is why awareness of the breath brings you to the present moment.
Conscious breathing is the key to health on every level. Firstly if you become conscious of how your body is breathing without controlling it, you will quickly realise that your breathing indicates how you feel, your breathing tells you when you are anxious, angry, sad or happy.
Breathing can be controlled to calm down and become relaxed or to be energised or to bring on emotional release or even become transcendental to the point of experiencing the very fabric of existence.
The quality of our breathing is a direct indication of our health, we breathe how we live! It is the most powerful tool of transformation, it links spirit with physical existence. Every-thing is in the breath.
There could be many reasons the immune system is impaired, it could be physical, mental, emotional, karmic or a spiritual contract. I don’t pretend to know why or diagnose. This is why it is so important to know thyself!! Investigate for yourself, be honest with yourself.
Sift through information given by health professionals, most health professionals love to diagnose and prescribe, but there are many dimensions to human beings and most health professionals work with only one dimension and, at best, work with three: physical, mental and emotional.
However,the realm of spirit is beyond our comprehension and many things that may seem to be negative are actually for our spiritual growth and are actually quite positive.
Our worlds are subjective, we all share the one world, however, we each live in a different world. Each of us must go through our own experience and enquiry. That’s the humility, the mystery and the wonder of life!
You can find much more information on living a holistic lifestyle in these free magazines and on our YouTube channel.
Skye Hennessey – Breathworker & Therapist
