Gratitude can be at the root of healing.
Let’s take a look at gratefulness specifically within the weight loss context. How specifically is gratefulness at the root of healing? We really want to take a root cause approach to reclaiming health and releasing weight. It’s not about calories in, calories out.
Consider gratefulness as a root cause for healing because…
- Healing is a process of letting go. Letting go of infection, letting go of inflammation, letting go of negative emotions, letting go of traumas, toxic thought patterns, spiritual stressors.
- Gratefulness turns off the chronic stress response. This is really big. When our stress response is chronically turned on, it causes a cascade of metabolic chaos, a cascade of hormone imbalance, a cascade of gut issues.
- Gratefulness triggers the fruit of the spirit. In Galatians gratefulness is not in the list of the fruit of the spirit, but it triggers the fruit of the spirit.
Gratefulness triggers love.
Gratefulness triggers joy.
Gratefulness triggers peace.
How does this process happen?
We are 3-part beings made in God’s eternal image. God is three in one.
He has a physical body that can be seen and described.
He has a soul. He has a mind, a will and emotions.
He has an eternal spirit.
He created us in His image.
OUR BODY: In our fallen state, we are not able to fully reach the glory of God’s image. We “fall short” Our flesh, blood, bone body is in the process of degeneration as a result of the fall and the curse. We are degenerating quicker than we are regenerating. Death, the wages of sin is death.
OUR SOUL: We willfully and mindfully and even emotionally go against what God has for us.
OUR SPIRIT: Our spirits are separated from God in our natural state. When our spirit is rejoined to God through believing His Word, His promises, who He is through the person and work of Jesus, when our spirit is united with God’s Spirit, that influences our mind, will, emotions, and even can impact our bodies.
Unwanted weight (fat) gain is a result of stressors. And those stressors can be physical, like infections, toxins, hormone imbalances, bad gut microbes etc. or they can be emotional, anxiety, depression, sadness, boredom, and even be spiritual of bitterness, envy, greed, worry, etc.
The outside aspects of wellness that deal with our bodies, our sleep patterns, what we eat, how we detox, how hydrated we are, stress management and fitness, all those aspects of our external body, affect how we think, our emotional mood, our decisions, and our spiritual health.
And just likewise, the arrow goes bi directionally. Our spirits, if they’re joined to God, if they’re full of joy, if they have a deep faith, if we have the significance of who we are in Christ and our position, what that really means; that totally affects our mind and our thinking, our emotions and our decisions, which totally can affect us physically!
You can heal from the inside out and you can heal from the outside in. There’s not a right or wrong. It’s a matter of what priority that is the most impactful for each person. When we work with a client who is doing all the right things on the physical side, they’re eating well, they’re getting good sleep, they’re exercising, and they’re not getting results on with weight loss side, then often times when we look a little deeper into the soul and even into the spirit for stressors that maybe they haven’t really recognized are there that are holding them back. That are signaling the body to hold onto things.
So why is gratefulness a key piece to the healing process?
It’s because it begins in the spirit. It begins in the heart, and that heart can affect everything on the outside. The power of gratefulness is seen in stopping the cycle of spiritual stress. And that cycle is highlighted in these ten steps in The Power of Gratefulness in Healing & Weight Loss Part 1 Video.
Not every disease/weight loss resistance symptom is related to being ungrateful, of course, but we want to at least rule it out and say, hey, is my life a true reflection of the gratitude? And for a lot of people, when they let go of some things that they desire and they’ve been holding on to for so long in their life and become grateful instead shifting focus to what they DO have vs. what they don’t can give the body the signal it’s safe to release weight!
Stay tuned to Part 4 in this series, where we will show you some steps on how to do that practically!
Here’s a direct connection between spiritual stressors of ungratefulness and physical health issues from research and Scripture! There are three main physical health systems that are affected by ungratefulness! This is so fascinating to me!!
#1 – Envy can affect our musculoskeletal system:
How does envy actually affect the musculoskeletal system? Envy is simply setting my affections – my mind and thoughts, my will, my decisions, my emotional energy on what someone else has with the focus on how I can claim it for myself. When we talk about the musculoskeletal system, we’re talking about the structural support system of the body, bones, muscles and connective tissue (fascia, cartilage, tendons, ligaments).
Our musculoskeletal system allows us to actually carry out our work. With 106 bones in our hands and feet alone, and our muscles being our greatest energy hogs, the musculoskeletal system = doing.
Interestingly enough, statistically, women have far more cases of osteoporosis than men. And women struggle with envy far more often than men. That doesn’t mean the correlation equals causation, but the facts do bear out as well as the Genesis curse states that the “desire” will be there with women as a result of the fall.
Scripture states, “A sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones.” – Proverbs 14:30. Envy can be released out of our lives when we replace it with gratefulness.
#2 – Greed can affect the immune system:
The immune system is our inflammatory response. Up to 85% of our immune system is in our guts. How we detox and how we use food as fuel is linked to our gut health. The gut is often called the second brain, since the microbes in our guts manufacture neurotransmitters. The lymphatic system also is a key immune support to the body. Keeping lymph flowing through exercise, stimulating therapies and nutrition can also play a key role in weight loss. Greed can clog these systems up!! T cells and B cells and cytokines and all kinds of inflammatory responses can be triggered by spiritual stressor of greed.
Greed is expecting money or material possessions to do what only God can do.
We work a lot with gut health and detox in phase two of our weight loss coaching program. So just think, if you’re building gratefulness in your life AND you’re healing your gut, that is powerful!!
The Scripture focus, “Take heed and beware of covetousness or greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses.” – Luke 12:15 “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and have pierced themselves through with many a sorrow.” – I Timothy 6:10.
Isn’t it interesting they’re making a connection between literal pain – which is a result of inflammation (immune response) “pierced themselves through” and greed “with many a sorrow” – the emotional core of the body in Scripture is our bowels or gut.
Again, anytime someone has an autoimmune condition, doesn’t always mean they’re greedy, or it doesn’t always mean they’re ungrateful, but we want to make sure we don’t rule that out, and we don’t ignore the possible connection of a spiritual stressor that could really affect a systemic health condition.
#3 – Lust can affect our endocrine system:
Our endocrine system is all about our hormones. Lust is an ungoverned selfish desire for something we do not have. There are three types listed in Scripture:
- Lust of the flesh
- Lust of the eyes
- Pride of life
Our hormone balance can be tied to this spiritual stressor.
“So I say then, walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” So when our lusts are keyed in to God’s will and his desires become ours, our hormone balance can often follow. Hormones are tied to our drives and desires. And hormones affect so many weight and health issues!
Hormone balance in Phase 3 of our coaching program are a result, not a root with physical stressors like mold sensitivity, heavy metals, infections, etc that can affect our hormone balance, then there’s gut health issues that are tied to hormone balance, but there can also be spiritual stressors like lust that affect our physiological balance!
Especially, when hormones are way out of balance at a young age, or hormones are way out of balance for the menstrual cycle in a month, or lifestage, that’s when we want to make sure we get to the root. All glands can be directly affected with a spiritual stressor, not just the physical stressors.
We’re starting to rebuild from the inside out and start to heal and let go of a lot of the desires that we know we shouldn’t have. And the cool thing is we’ve replaced our selfish desires with God’s desires, God’s desires for us. And that’s what we focus our mind and heart on instead of the selfish desires we have that have gone ungoverned in our lives that are causing all of these issues that we’ve realized the gratefulness, replacing the gratefulness mindset and the gratefulness life shifts our thinking from that to the desires that God has for us.
And we start mirroring our lives based on God’s desires for us, based on what we DO have and through faith gratefully acknowledge His faithfulness to us, that is a healing process.
Is your gratitude just a list? Or is it your life?
Is gratefulness at the root of your healing?
