“I am a failure- I did not work hard enough. Everything I did, ended up not being good enough!”
I heard this admission from Steve- a 40 something professional who was seeking help originally for his gout and IBS. But a Homeopathic physician is interested in not the symptoms, which are the end result of a deeper disturbance- I was curious to know how Steve’s mind, body and spirit ended up in this state that he was in.
Your symptoms are the best possible defense that your body can exhibit to externalize a much deeper disturbance. Eliminating these symptoms does not cure the person, it just delays the resolution or in some cases suppresses the symptoms and drives them into more deeper organs only to end up with a more graver illness down the road.
Steve had a well paying job, a loving wife and children who were excelling in school and sports alike. But Steve always found himself comparing him to his friends who drove better cars, cousins who had bigger houses, or neighbors who had better careers than him. He always felt he could have had a better education, he second guessed his life decisions and was never satisfied with his accomplishments. He said he felt stuck and inadequate. Like someone who never realized their true potential, and this prevented him from being content and happy.
To get to the bottom of this, I asked Steve how long had he been feeling like this. We discovered that he had never consciously analyzed this himself, since he felt inadequate most of his life. But upon deeper rumination, we found patterns emerging from his childhood. He was the only child who had a very successful father. Steve always commented on how his father achieved success way earlier than he did. He felt he was half the man that his father was and would never be able to step out of his shadow in the family lore.
His father was hard to please and always demanded nothing but perfection. His earliest memory of feeling like a failure was when he 3 or 4 years old when Steve presented a drawing he made for his father, but was told “That does not look like a gorilla, and gorillas are not purple!”
Steve inherited OCD-like traits from a young age- to compensate for being inadequate, he had developed behavioral patterns that comforted him when things were done in a very particular way and that way only. He was a very obedient child and was bullied in school. Unsurprisingly, he felt something was wrong with him and hence he was picked on, and that was the reason why he never reported the ordeal he faced almost everyday.
It is important to remember that we are not born inadequate. Life experiences and core emotions as a response abet in creating that sense within us. Steve was criticized from a young age and knew nothing better than to accept that “he was doing it wrong”, or “he was dumb”. This is how Steve like other demonstrable cases of child abuse/ neglect grow up to be adults who carry shame, guilt and feeling of inadequacy.
Truth be told, every human being is capable- is adequate. Every person is Enough. Yet, to feel more self assured, Steve had to work on this childhood trauma to transform the delusion of being a failure to someone who appreciated and showed and felt gratitude for what he had.
The remedy that helped Steve was Aurum metallicum. Homeopathy and a good counselor at work helped him identify his negative thought patterns and quell them before they reached prominence. The new mantra taught to him by the counselor was “Compare and you Despair!”
Immediately after the first dose of the remedy, Steve reported feeling very strong emotions and the need for catharsis, which provided him immense relief. He felt less anxious, was able to enjoy intimate moments with his wife the way they used to when they first started courtship!
Over the course of next 15 months his bowel movements had regulated and he was managing stress better and thereby improved his IBS and gout symptoms.
Some DIY measures that were advised to Steve that you may try to shake off your insecurities and inadequacies are as follows:
i. Practice mindfulness – There is nothing more grounding than bringing one’s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment.
ii. Deep abdominal breathing – Helps to calm down, improve oxygenation and release toxins.
iii. Exercise on a regular basis and set realistic and achievable fitness goals.
iv. Vitamin D- 4,000 IU per day, preferably in liquid form.
Remember to try and identify your negative traits and become aware of your insecurities and inadequacies. Once you find out where and how these thoughts originated from, you can distinguish them from your Self and know that you do not have to live with this feeling anymore and that the correct constitutional Homeopathic remedy can help you with this process since each one of us have traveled different emotional journeys to be where we are today, and each homeopathic remedy charts a different core feeling and an experienced Homeopath can help select the best suited remedy.
Knowing is the first step, and knowing that you are Enough, is the most important step to inner peace and happiness!