Maya's Happy Place

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I love food. So much so that I consider myself a foodie. At one point, while in a superstitious state of mind, I believed maybe that’s why I developed food allergies. So that my body could control my impulsive eating and food cravings by force.

You wanna eat that? Well, now you can’t.

My inner child screaming when I can’t eat something.

In my 20s I read You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay and became a big believer in the connections between chronic negative emotional states and disease. I do believe that psychological trauma plays a major role in the beliefs we hold onto which affect the body. But I do not believe there is a surefire spiritual prescription or way to fix everything, because every circumstance and genetic response is different.

I do find it ironic that people seemed to develop food allergies to the things they loved to eat the most. As if people are actually psychologically allergic to pleasure. A friend of mine once knew someone whose child developed an egg allergy when his parents went through a divorce. I seemed to develop the allergy to soy the more I ate it and indulged in it. Another person I know whom is allergic to cats is emotionally numb. Do people with eczema have unresolved guilt or a craving to be punished, somehow? Punishment by itching to masochistically relieve the pleasure of eating a food they enjoy?

Like guilt for simply being born.

Don’t hug me. Scratch me.

The guilt I held onto for being alive and putting my family through what I did is overwhelming. And it rears its ugly head at random times when I least expect it.

The guilt I hold on to rendered me to feel helpless and often powerless, which couldn’t be further from the truth. But in moments of extreme allergic reactions, I felt that way, because I was. As a food allergy kid, I couldn’t go outside to play with friends and as a teen or adult, I couldn’t get things done I needed to or even sometimes work. In those moments what I needed most was rest and as we all know, it takes days to weeks to recuperate from allergic reactions. How do you make money and hold a regular job on the sick days? That’s a topic for another day…

Superstition on Steroids

Since I also took a liking to Jewish Kabbalah, I took one of their teachings very seriously. The teaching that when you want something to happen, you act as if you already have it or it already happened. You think of only the most positive thoughts to bring them into existence. Well I did that. Over and over and over again. And often, I found myself becoming a hypochondriac over what kind of frequencies I was listening to, watching or thinking about. I was literally terrified of watching, thinking or speaking about anything ‘low frequency’ so I rode the ‘positivity’ stream of consciousness and only spoke of rainbows or butterflies, lest something suddenly appear out of the dark to hurt me or someone I love. Needing to adhere to these beliefs I subscribed to was not allowing me to listen to music I once loved (rock and alternative), watch shows or movies that were dark or in any way ‘low frequency’ and it felt like my sensitivity to the news increased.

I was using baths and showers as ritualistic ‘cleansing’ of my energy field instead of taking hydroxyzine, which was my go-to allergy medicine since childhood. Sometimes it worked to cure the eczema and of course, sometimes it didn’t. I now realize energy cleanses help eliminate stress and calm your nervous system down.

Nowadays, I’m not really sure what to believe when it comes to preventing reactions. Except things that a doctor might say. “Avoid the outdoors if you have hay fever or avoid grass or pollen exposure when the pollen count is high.”

“Turn on the air purifier and dehumidifier to help eliminate allergens in the air.” “Do your best to alleviate stress with yoga, pilates or other exercise.” Many of these things are common sense to most people and there isn’t much proof when it comes to metaphysics or the Law of Attraction. So what are you supposed to believe?

There was a book I started to read years ago called E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality by Pam Grout.

I only read the first chapter or two. In those first few pages, the experiment didn’t work, so I got discouraged. Maybe my power of belief was off. I used to listen to a Gratitude meditation that gave me results nearly every time I listened to it, including a phone call from an acquaintance friend who invited me to be in the studio audience for America’s Got Talent…literally minutes after listening to the gratitude subliminals.

The bottom line of all this ranting is to remind you that our nervous systems and immune systems are absolutely tied to our stress levels. That is a fact. My years and years of experiences have proven that we all have the capacity to make things better or worse, with our minds. I also know for sure that cold compresses and being in air-conditioned environments helps speed healing and calm itching. That’s why I can’t wait for the cooler temps to begin!

If you’re suffering, make sure to read this post to help you on the road to healing.

And please, get some rest. We can only do the best we can with what we know now and we have to be good to ourselves, recognizing our illness was never our fault. Your parents and family, just as well as mine, did the best they could with what they knew how. Hopefully it all made you a strong, resilient person who can one day (or maybe already does) share your story with the world.