Finding Hope When You’re not Experiencing the Healing You Long For
You’ve been implementing healing protocols in your life for some time now. You feel like you’re doing all the right things but you’ve hit a plateau and you can’t seem to pinpoint why.
I’ve been there, several times throughout my healing journey actually. Being in this place often felt hopeless and initially cause me great despair.
Health Freedom Idaho is thrilled to hear from Jennifer, a Certified Essential Oil Coach and Health Coach with FeastingOnJoy.com as she shares healing journey overcoming the feelings of hopeless by providing practical encouragement and hope for each individual healing journey.
The Dreaded Plateau
When I first starting healing my Hashimoto’s, after my rock bottom I began to experience what it felt like to feel well again. I was on cloud nine! After feeling awful for years, this victory was extremely motivating. However, as some time went on, I started feeling like I was on a plateau or that I just wasn’t progressing in healing like I thought I should be. The frustrating thing was that I was doing all the right things to obtain optimal health, but I would still have bad days and not be able to pinpoint why. Sometimes these times became overwhelming and I would often feel like I was never going to heal.
Have you been there? Are you there right now?
Being a Certified Essential Oil Coach and (soon to be) a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, I consider myself a hope-giver.
“As a hope-giver, we guide others to anticipating, embracing and living out the vision of God’s hope, love and beauty, creatively exploring ways to live fully alive, right where we are amidst life’s brokenness.” Dr. Catherine Hart Weber.
If you need some encouragement and hope on your healing journey, I wanted to share 3 steps to move through the plateau and persist for the healing you’re longing for.
3 Steps to Embrace the Plateau
1. The “P” Word
The healing journey can be rigorous. You may be learning a new protocol, spending time at the doctors, coordinating appointments, ordering supplements among many other things. Just those tasks can be exhausting and stressful for the body.
Sometimes the mind can’t rest because of all the “to-do’s” when it comes to healing. That’s where my first step comes into play.
As counterintuitive as it may sound, it’s beneficial for you to PAUSE where you’re at. Pausing will look different to everyone but it could include:
Not making any new doctor’s appointments
Refusing to read or learn any more on healing your condition
Purpose to think about other things
Spend time on a hobby, or going outside into nature
Set aside time to dig into God’s Word and write some scripture
Of course, this is only a temporary pause but it will allow your mind to reset and refocus on the task at hand.
“In taking a step back, you are awaiting your step forward.” Jennifer | Feasting On Joy
2. The Right Path
Once you have given your soul, mind and body the pause it needs to refocus you will inevitably have clarity on what the next step is to get yourself off that plateau. You may need to get on a different path.
For example, as important is whole, unadulterated food is for healing, I learned that food is not the only area I needed to focus on to heal. It was during one of those plateaus in my healing journey that I stepped onto a different path of parasite cleansing and dealing with silent infections {like the Epstein Barr Virus}.
In veering off the path I was on, and heading a different direction for a time, I was able to get off my plateau and help my body get rid of some nasty bugs {a-hem, we all have them}, conquer an infection and continue deeply healing my body.
If I hadn’t paused and taken a step back, I never would have known I needed to get on a different path for a time to get off my plateau.
3. A Caring Someone
Journeying through healing chronic illness is not for the faint of heart. Additionally, it’s not meant to be done alone. Creating a support system is crucial for healing not only your body but your soul.
Throughout my healing journey, I have been privileged to have a very supportive husband and parents. They’ve helped me through many discouraging times where I was in deep despair. More importantly though, for me personally, one of my biggest supporters is Jesus. He is the ONE I have leaned on and trusted in daily {and sometimes hourly} to help me through the day. He is the ONE that has given me the strength to fight this battle and He is the ONE who I surrendered my healing too. His plan is perfect.
Not only do I dialogue with my family about what I am struggling with but I write Scripture every single day. It’s so therapeutic.
I use this system called QUEST {Quiet Unmatched Enjoyable Scripture Writing Time} which allows me to choose the topic I am struggling with and write the Word specifically about that. It could be the topic of fear or Healing, or even anger and getting wisdom. It’s been a perfect tool to help me be content with the plateau and eventually move off the plateau and continue healing.
Don’t walk this journey alone.
As Helen Keller says, “Alone we can do so little; together, we can do so much.”
Finding Hope When You’re Not Experiencing the Healing You’ve Been Longing For
It is so hard when you have such strong desires and visions of what life could be like if you felt better, or if you completely healed. However, by pausing and taking a step back, potentially taking a different path and creating a support system you can lean on, you can learn to find contentment on the plateau and gain strength for when you move past it.
