- Mr Indroneil Mukerjee, Bach Flower therapist and a transformational Life Coach
Autoimmune diseases are ailments in which the cells of our immune system, that otherwise protect the organism from external and internal foreign and undesirable agents, attack the cells of one’s own organism. So, instead of doing their job and protecting us from all that is not good for our organism, they start to turn against it.
Depending on the type of tissues and organs they attack, there are a large number of diagnoses, such as: systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren’s syndrome, systemic sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, among others.
In the case of the autoimmune diseases as a reaction to the damage or the trauma, there is an inflammatory reaction of the tissue under attack. The trauma occurs on account of the attack carried out by one’s own immune system cells against one’s own tissues. Here the body defends itself from its own attack, that is, it attacks itself.
Corticosteroids suppress our immune response in such situations, reducing the damage to the tissue. They however deal with the consequences of the attack, which is also an important point, but not the real cause of the attack.
Autoimmune diseases are the diseases that quite certainly have emotional and mental aetiology. We attack ourselves most often because we nurture a deep-seated liming belief that we are not good enough. This comes from the voice of an inner critic, from the memories of our growing-up period, telling us that we do not behave in a certain way, that we have not fulfilled some expectations of others, that we are a black sheep – leading to a sense of worthlessness. Each time we felt rejected, it left an imprint in our memory – a sponsoring thought in our unconscious – telling us that we were not good enough. As a consequence, we learnt to discard those behaviours and traits that have not been supported, criticised, punished and reprimanded. This has led to rejecting some parts of us and aggression directed towards our own self. This self-directed aggression and self-rejection lead to occurrence of autoimmune diseases.
The limiting belief of not being good enough gives rise to an intricate tapestry of emotional, mental and behavioural responses. Some of the likely responses are as given below:
- A tendency to recall the painful past with sorrow and hopelessness.
- As above so below – soon the aggression we directed towards ourselves – begins manifesting as re-directed aggression, projected outwards. It takes the shape of jealousy, suspicion, hatred, distrust, revengefulness and likes.
- Along with it comes resentment towards others who apparently seem to be better off, often seen as replicas of those who rejected and punished us in the childhood, for not living up to their expectation. This is also accompanied with a deep sense of humiliation, frustration and bitterness, making us feel and behave like a victim of circumstances and fate.
- We also become less tolerant and critical towards other, to hide our own perceived flaws (as pointed out and punished for in the past).
- Alongside such active and passive aggression often exists a deep sense of guilt and shame, leading to self-punishing, self-denying and self-sabotaging behaviours, ‘eating’ and ‘corroding’ our own selves.
- Eventually one begins to negate and reject oneself and one’s own need in order to meet the needs of the others, not so much because of any inner motivation, but because of the inner coercion and insincere self-deception. One becomes a people pleaser, adopting a slave mentality.
- Also, not accepting ourselves as we are, leads to constantly needing confirmation from the outside that we are good and accepted and that everything is alright.
- We also need “permission” from the others in order to create our own life contexts and make the decisions as we please and in accordance with our own will, for we have actually lived our entire life in line with an imposed template, meeting the expectations of the others.
- Trepidation, fear and panic fears often exist in the case of persons with autoimmune diseases – fear of punishment, the fear of not being accepted or being rejected if they don’t behave in a certain way and the fear of self-expression and behaving in line with oneself. This is triggered by the memory imprinted in the cells of the growing up years when some of the authentic behaviours were seen as inappropriate and was subjected to frightening consequences.
- The person who has been prevented from spontaneous expression of oneself and one’s emotions, which in the long run leads to aggression aimed towards oneself, eventually suffers from endogenous depression characterised by emotional tension and the loss of vitality and will.
Such is the complex mesh of layered negative emotions that leads to occurrence of autoimmune diseases. The question now is what could be the best way of addressing and healing such these negative emotions? And probably many more? To eventually be able to heal the autoimmune diseases they precipitated?
The simplest, safest and surest way to dissolve all emotional and ontological blocks and thus their physical manifestation is Bach Flower therapy. Using 38 flower remedies along with close to 4 million composites that they can be combined into, with Bach flower therapy it is possible to heal all conceivable negative emotional states and their underlying beliefs, eventually leading to their physical manifestations as autoimmune diseases also getting healed.
It is important to note that different individuals react to a situation differently, with differing intensity. For some individuals, a situation may be exceptionally stressogenic, even traumatic. For some others, however, that same situation need not be endangering at all. For some children, even the most banal criticism may be very traumatic, while the same thing will not cause any reaction in some others. Thus, there cannot be any one-size-fits-all solution to heal auto-immune diseases with Bach Flower therapy. It necessitates a structured consultation to be carried out by a competent client-centric therapist leading to a complete diagnosis. This then becomes a blueprint for the therapist to proceed with healing in stages, one layer at a time.
