The New Normal

Recently I was reminded of a conversation I had with the CFO of a small business talking about the economy. She commented on how we as a population have been dealing with the aftermath of all the financial fallouts these past few years. All the cutbacks, layoffs, tightening our belts and doing all kinds of things we never thought we would be doing just to make ends meet. As the dust begins to settle (at least we hope it is), we must now adjust to the new financial world order. This is the new normal. We don’t really have a choice in the matter, we just have to figure out how to deal with it.

I pondered this and how our relationship to our financial state is so analogous to our relationship with our health. When patients come into my office for the first time, regardless of what their issues are, I always ask them how long they have had their symptoms. A lot of times they say” I’ve had this for years”. Usually, they have tried everything to resolve the issue but to no avail, and that is when they wind up in my office.

This is quite common. A lot of us have been living with something, either an ache or pain or a syndrome for years and have had to adjust to life with this disorder. We compensate for it and get used to it and somehow our bodies now view this new way of being as normal. This is where the healing process can get complicated. Sometimes, the longer we have had something, the longer it takes to resolve it. This is not always the case but it is the general rule of thumb. Partly, that is because our bodies have become so accustomed to being in this state that we get used to it and it becomes familiar. It becomes a way we identify with ourselves.

Now that we identify ourselves with this way of being it becomes more challenging to change it or to imagine that it can even be changed. After all, this is the way we are, this is the new normal for us. Instead of thinking we can change it, we think we should just get used to it. This is what makes my work so interesting and fun. I love nothing more than seeing the look on someone’s face when they have healed their own pain and now have a different experience of themselves. It’s almost as if they can’t believe what they are feeling, or they forgot what it was like to feel healthy and vibrant. This is the goal of therapy, to heal and therefore have a new experience. Something we forgot about even though it is our birthright.