The Highest Frame Dictates the Game (& Health!)

The way that you frame - or perceive - yourself and your experience in this world, will dictate how you exist in this world. 

If you want to fully overcome your body burnout - your energy, mood, gut and other inflammatory issues - and find joy in your life again, you will have to go beyond just popping pills (even natural ones) and doing tests. While these body healing things are part of our toolkit, when it comes to healing the body, they will only ever get short-term relief (if any!), if that is all that you are doing.

To end your body burnout - for good! - you will absolutely need to tap into the hidden powers of your thoughts and feelings. Healing the mind is principle #1 in our Ending Body Burnout Method. 

I’m Not Talking About Wishy-Washy ‘Mindfulness’ Here

Now let me be clear here - when I talk about your thoughts and feelings, I’m not talking about wishy-washy stuff, or even being ‘mindful’ necessarily. This isn’t just for yogis and monks. I’m not really even talking about ‘meditation’ here. 

Your thoughts and feelings are literally the basis of EVERYTHING that happens to you - both inside you, and around you. I’m literally arguing the fact that by focusing on ANYTHING, you can literally change the trajectory of your life. If you are constantly focusing on your pain, you will feel pain. If you are constantly focusing on your poor motivation, you will be demotivated. If you are constantly focusing on how annoying the kids are (or your partner!), they will be annoying. On the contrary, if you focus on your vision for yourself and the steps that will take you there, you will become the person you want to be.

But I’m also not just talking about ‘thinking’ and ‘wishing’ and ‘hoping’ here. When I talk about working on your thoughts and feelings, I’m talking about this with the outcome that it will lead into purposeful driven action (or growth-behaviour). Frankly put, you need to get your head screwed on, and then get to work!

Chris, my hubby and our personal development coach within our practice, believes it was the power of his mind that got him to competing in national level sport. In 2016, Chris competed in a national strongman competition, against the world’s strongest man at the time, Eddie Williams. Eddie was clearly stronger physically than Chris, but the power of Chris’s mind enabled him to beat Eddie in the log press. Because Chris truly believed he could win the log press, because he played it out in his mind first with such conviction, when he played it out in reality, he came out the ‘stronger’ man.

It may sound voodoo - that you can THINK yourself into existence - but neuroscience backs this up. Scientists show that the brain has the ability to create new neural pathways and new brain cells, in response to intrinsic and extrinsic factors - for the better or the worse. If you focus on positive thoughts and feelings, become growth-minded, and repeatedly do the things you need to do in order to get healthy, organised and in control, and more connected, you will create new neural pathways which will help you to stick to your goals, and do the things you need to do to get to where you want to be.

Change Neural Pathways For Healing

But changing neural pathways and the way that you think, isn’t just about creating a strong mindset to stick to your goals and reap results. Data also shows that stressful thoughts & feelings impact body function, which can lead to many diseases and pathological conditions. From a healing perspective, Annie Hopper, author of Wired For Healing  and founder of the Dynamic Neural Retraining System has showed that the brain (the limbic system) can become damaged due to chronic stressors or exposure to toxins in susceptible people. Hopper argues that damage to the limbic system can create a chronic fight-flight feed-back loop, where the affected person is constantly feeling wired, which can eventually break down body systems, and lead to burnout symptoms like fatigue, anxiety, depression, low immunity, chronic pain, and in worse case scenarios severe chemical and mould sensitivities and bed-ridden. Hopper goes on to show that using the power of the mind, and tapping into your thoughts and feelings, we have the ability to rewire the brain and heal from even the most crippling and mysterious physical symptoms. Hopper herself went from living homeless, in a ramshackled boat in the middle of nowhere (because she had become so sensitive to chemicals, noises, and EMF’s), to healing her brain through neuro-linguistic programming, and a range of other neuroplasticity techniques, and overcoming her many health symptoms and living a full life again.

We also had a beautiful client who was crippled with gut pain, eczema, allergies, fatigue and insomnia, and it was really affecting her business, and her family life. Initially I tried to address her health issues purely from a physical standpoint. We did all the lab testing, all the supplements, all the diets, but yet we weren’t getting very far improvement-wise. Then I introduced her to Chris, and Chris started working with her very low-vibrancy mind. She had a lot of trauma from her past, and her self-confidence and trust in other people was low. She was constantly plagued with worrying, anxious thoughts, and she was an emotional mess. It wasn’t until she did the inner work on her thought and feeling patterns, and rewired these to create new neural pathways - or new ways to think and feel - that she was then able to see an improvement on all of her physical symptoms. 

Science Is Clear: Thoughts & Feelings CREATE Disease

To start the healing process, you need to go right back to where dis-ease all begins - the thoughts & feelings. If you’re constantly feeling overwhelmed, unhappy, dissatisfied, these thoughts and feelings can directly impact the health of your body. For example, emotion suppression is very common in our culture, especially among men. But even many women struggle to voice what they think and how they feel, for fear of creating conflict or being ridiculed. Over time these emotions can build up, causing not just emotional stress, but also physical stress. In fact a study showed a link between emotional suppression and risk of early death from chronic diseases, including cancer. Mental health & suicide is also on the rise, and linked to a suppression of emotions. And finally, there are plenty of studies to show that suppressing thoughts and feelings can negatively impact relationships also.

Thoughts and feelings also dictate your actions, and can negatively impact your behavioural patterns, habits, lifestyle, and how you show up in your family and in your business/career. 

If you skip addressing your thoughts and feelings, it’s highly likely you will never be able to change other important areas pertaining to your health, your work-life balance or your connection with your family. As the saying goes: “the only thing we can control in our life are our thoughts, feelings and behaviours.” 

If you’d like to see how you rate in the ‘Mind’ category in our holistic healing method, take our (free) Ending Body Burnout Assessment here. 

Filipa Bellette is Co-Founder of Chris & Filly Functional Medicine. She is an accredited Clinical Nutritionist & Functional Medicine Practitioner. She is also a Ph.D. thought-leader, award-winning writer, and regularly published as a guest blogger & in the media. Together with her husband Chris Bellette, Filipa has worked with over 2,000+ busy, burnout clients in the last 10+ years, and specialises in producing healthy, balanced, and happy Mums & Dads...or as she calls it, a Power Parent! Filipa’s own passion for producing high-performance Power Parents came from her own personal experience of Mummy Burnout, after having babies and juggling the demands of business, family, and her failing health.