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The Hallmarks of Optimum Health

Finding the Path Home

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

— OSCAR WILDE

As we travel through the systems of our body, learning to listen to and use its wisdom, we would be wise to be on the lookout for the signs of optimum health — the road maps that lead us in the right direction.

One of the hallmarks of a healthy system is appropriate and constant connection between all of its parts. When you have an optimal flow of information throughout, it supports the life of your system, creating a feeling of well-being and balance.

Healthy Boundaries and Healthy Connections

At a micro level, the same principles of healthy boundaries and healthy connections apply. Existing within a membrane, all our cells operate in constant communication with one another. Every healthy cell continuously receives oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, allowing life-giving nutrients in and keeping toxic substances out.

A vigorous immune system is consistently providing us with protection from the pathogens in our environment.

At a macro level, these principles are also true. A strong family unit provides safety, stability, love, and nurturing to all its members. In this secure atmosphere, we develop trust that when our needs arise, they can and will be met.

When organizations are healthy, they operate in a manner that supports the individuals within the system, the mission of the institution, and the greater world.

What Goes Wrong?

So what happens to us as human beings? Beginning in utero and throughout our lives, each of us has experiences that are less than optimal. This may be a persistent condition, such as poverty or chronic ill health, or it may be just the everyday stressful issues related to work and family. The fact is everyone experiences daily events that are traumatizing in small and sometimes large ways.

When our body senses a threat, we instinctively take action to protect ourselves. We tighten down and hunch our shoulders. Our hearts beat faster, and our breathing gets shallower. Our spines may compress, causing neck and back pain. We may stumble or fall as we rush to get somewhere.

We anxiously yell at someone who may be the object of our fear or frustration, and that person may yell back at us! All of this protective behavior results in cycles of tension and pain as we tighten our gut, curl in our shoulders, grip our tailbone, and clench our jaw. This is the body’s attempt to protect us from possible harm and prepare us to perhaps fight or flee.

Then there are the ordinary, “under the radar” traumas we don’t recognize as such. These “small” things don’t seem like much at the time, but we react to them in ways that mold our future. Rather than minimize this kind of trauma, I want to emphasize the importance of it, even though we are often unaware of it at the time. The impact can be profound and chronic if this kind of trauma is not processed and healed.

For example, Tony is a caring nurse practitioner who manages a team of hospice nurses. He always appears calm, unflappable, and caring. He volunteers, stays late, has extra degrees, is impeccably groomed, and is soft spoken. He has set three dates to retire, and each time he has decided to stay on. Recently, he came in for a session after having a heart attack.

Lying on the treatment table, he remembered standing at the top of the stairs in his childhood home, listening to his single mother on the phone. His younger brother had broken his arm again, and his mother didn’t know how she was going to pay the doctor’s bills or how she could miss work to stay home with the boy.

Tony became aware that that was the moment he decided he would give up everything to make sure his mother didn’t worry: He volunteered to stay home with his brother, made sure the house was always clean, and kept straight As in school. His whole life became dedicated to caring for others, but ultimately at his own expense.

This seemingly small decision made in early childhood created a mandate that was still operating decades later — and wreaking havoc on his health. Stories like Tony’s show up in my classes and practice constantly — seemingly “small” decisions can affect the whole direction of our lives, or the pace we keep, or the people we choose to be in relationship with, and so on.

New Research on Trauma

In the last decade, exciting research on trauma has been coming in from all directions. These studies point to how human mental disorders, chronic pain and illness, and even everyday tension can come as a direct result of unresolved past trauma. Bessel van der Kolk and many others have looked at populations at risk and the number of psychiatric diagnoses (such as bipolar, oppositional-defiant disorder, ADHD, and so on) whose roots most likely grow out of traumatic experiences.¹

In the 1990s, the “Adverse Childhood Experiences Study,” conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente, looked at physical and mental health in middle-aged adults when early childhood experiences were threatening, negative, or damaging in some way.² They surveyed seventeen thousand patients from 1995 to 1997, and these found that adults with a significant number of adverse childhood experiences had significantly impaired health and adult functioning on all levels. The CDC continues to follow these patients, so the longitudinal data is still being gathered.

Let’s take a look at how this manifests.

Daily Tension and Acute Trauma

As I have described, when something adverse happens, our systems naturally tighten down and go into a protective state. When the threat or danger passes, ideally we realize this and release the tension. After a long, harried commute, being able to relax and walk in the door ready to start our workday would be optimal. Unfortunately, most of us forget to stop, take a deep breath, and relax our neck and shoulders. Instead, we carry the tension from the drive right into our offices, which is not a good way to start the day.

Consider Sally, who experienced a significant emotional trauma prior to coming to work. Sally’s beloved cat died after a long night at the vet’s office, and she had an important meeting early the next morning. Sally felt sadness and a heavy heart over her pet’s death, but these emotions had no place in her business meeting. So she held in her emotions and contained her sadness throughout the day. When Sally finally got home, she had a splitting headache and was too exhausted to allow her true feelings to come to the surface and be expressed.

When the event is a serious physical injury due to a car accident, a fall, a head injury, or any painful trauma to the body, the body’s first response is shock, the ultimate protective state. Shock can manifest as numbness or paralysis. Often, the pain does not register until the shock has dissipated. Only then can the body’s work of healing itself begin. The effects of this level of trauma can last for years depending on the severity of the injury and the level of attention it receives.

Chronic Harmful Experiences