Early on in my recovery, my health practitioner wanted me to work on strengthening my blood and constitution to build my energy. If you think about building energy and strength in the body, you are encouraging every system in the body to become stronger from the cellular level to the more subtle, fluctuating systems in the body, like the blood sugar levels. When you are grounding and stabilizing the body, you are also encouraging stable blood sugar levels.
Stable blood sugar levels means reducing or eliminating cravings, developing a natural willpower and improving decision-making. All of these come from stable blood sugar — but to get that stability, your body needs to be fueled with healthy food and you need to be able to digest and absorb that food.
For a moment, let’s just touch on trust. If you have a deep inner fear or lack of trust, if you always feel tightened up and on edge, if you feel you need to control things in your life to be safe, you may have a deep distrust of life. This can happen to a lot of energetically sensitive people who feel and sense things that they can’t understand. There is no evidence or hard facts to explain what they are sensing. While I have known for awhile that I am energetically sensitive, I didn’t realize how much until later in life. A constant hyper-vigilance kept me on alert — think of it as antenna, always scanning the environment, to make sure you are safe and OK.
This is not good for the digestive system. It creates a chronic, low level of stress. For many who are energetically sensitive, it’s imperative to learn how to work with your energetic sensitivity so that you can allow your body to rest, relax and trust life.
know how to digest life…Louise Hay has long taught about what can happen if we don’t know how to “digest life” and in Loving Yourself to Great Health, we all address healing your digestion, including healing your thoughts and your digestive organs.
If you have been under chronic, low level stress — whether energetically sensitive or for some other reason — your nervous system, gut, heart and brain will benefit from strengthening your blood, nourishing your cells and stabilizing your blood sugar levels (which often are one of the first things to go haywire for the energetically sensitive).
One of the things my health practitioner had me do, which was very healing, is to include burdock root in my diet. When I first saw burdock root at the health food store, I couldn’t believe it. “This thing looks like a branch I’d find in the woods!” I thought. She taught me to choose burdock root that is firm and not too flimsy or bendy. She said that all I needed to do was scrub the root with a brush and then take a butter knife, scraping off some of the “bark-like stuff,” leaving some of it there (like a dirty branch — hahaha). Then slice it up very thin and saute it in coconut oil, turmeric, sea salt and pepper.
Weird, right?
It was DELICIOUS! If I couldn’t find it in the health food store, I’d order organic dried burdock root from Amazon (comes in small bits in a bag) or MountainRoseHerbs.com.
How Is Burdock Root Good For You?
- Reduces sweet cravings
- Cleanses the blood
- Tones and strengthens the intestines
- Acts as a prebiotic, to feed healthy bacteria in the gut
- Alkalizes the body (great source of minerals)
- Helps to give you strength if you are feeling run down (e.g., colds, flu, high stress)
You can cook burdock root like carrots (whether using fresh burdock root or the dried chunks) or include them in soups, stews and stir fries. Burdock root has a wonderful, nutty taste.
Making Burdock Root Tea
- 1 teaspoon of fresh or dried burdock root
- 1 cup water
- Simmer in a saucepan on the stove (just simmer, don’t boil) for 15 minutes. You can add some thinly sliced ginger for added digestive benefits, if you like.
- Strain out the water and enjoy!
- Use the pieces of burdock you strained for cooking.
Here’s a recipe that I used quite a bit when I was in the initial stages of my recovery and needed to get off of bread and bagels. It’s a millet loaf with burdock root recipe that you can cut like bread. It doesn’t behave like bread, but if you go deep and listen to your body, you will feel that a slice of this loaf can satisfy at the deepest cellular level.
The more I learned about the healing properties of real food — and invested the time to shop for and cook them — the more my body learned to trust. The more nourished my body was, the easier it was for my brain to recognize trust. For my nervous system to calm. For the stress to fall away.
Bottom line
It’s much easier to trust life when your brain and body are grounded. It’s much easier to embrace and work with your energetic sensitivity and intuition when your brain and body are grounded. This grounded body sleeps better, thinks better and loves life more. This love can be born in your kitchen. And nurtured in every meal.
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