POV; AUTOIMMUNITY, UNIQUENESS & BODY EMPOWERMENT W/ ALANA OCERA PT.1
“So i realized you can't be hard on yourself, all this stress, all this guilt, all this worry its like clouding the vision of how far you've came, all the things you’ve done to get to this point, all the accomplishments, like little thing is an accomplishment, every little step you take is an accomplishment.”
- Alana Ocera
ALANA; The fact that I was able to change my lifestyle, cut things out..
ME; I also think for you it's hard, especially with having skin issues and arthritis issues and physically showing up in spaces and not just because we live in a world that is fixated on appearances but for you personally allowing yourself to really enjoy the experiences your apart of because it's like “omg is my skin going to flare up” “is this going to happen if i eat this, do this or use that” making you hyper aware of your ownself like your something that needs to be monitored and then you kind of go into it with that energy of like worry rather than like “okay I can kind of relax and be who i am and just like”
ALANA; breathe..
ME: breathe, and “pause to do what I need to do in those moments” and allow yourself to have that joy without feeling guilty for this because “i did this to my body, put on this outfit that will irritate my skin, wore these shoes that will aggravate my arthritis, ate that slice of pizza that will flare my skin simply because i'm just trying to enjoy the moment and honor my life cravings” and there's so many mind games that come into it.
ALANA: It takes the fun out of it, like there was a period where I would be out to eat with friends and everyone would just be eating really good food. And I would be eating a salad. Then dessert would come and I would just be like sitting there like “no im okay” or like my roommate would make something really good for dinner and I would just be eating plants, salad. The most non-nutritional. I didn't go vegan the right way. I just thought okay as long as I am eating grass and all this grown stuff then my eczema is going to heal. That wasn't the case. All this restriction in a diet raises your cortisol levels SO much.
Me: Then like you said it becomes a thing up here (in your mind) and not a thing with your body.
Alana: It messes up the connection.
Me: Even just emotionally, like as much as there's a time and a place for worry and dont get me wrong there are serious daily things that are worth worrying about, but there's also a time and a place for you to allow yourself to indulge and not be a slave to this hyper aware insecure part of yourself, that's just a configuration made up in your mind about yourself. And I feel like what's on your plate mirrors your whole experience of reality out into the world and off your plate. Emotionally. Physically. In your relationships.
Alana; It does. Like i remember because I was so overly cautious with what i put in my body, coming from a place of fear from my condition I was actually feeling like i was having withdrawals, feeling unhappy and when your not indulging and coming from a place of pleasure, indulging is good for your dopamine levels, your heart, your nervous system and your soul if you want to go…
Me: If you think about it though and you correlate restriction and de-pression your pressing down your intuition and parts of your authentic wants are being denied. In return you're actually denying your own self of having pleasure within yourself and what's around you. That's why even restricting your depressing your actual needs, wants, desires like things you want to allow yourself to call into your reality to experience joy. Simultaneously you're also denying and depriving yourself of those things in your life around you. Which we all deserve. It's almost like that forbidden fruit analogy which only puts the experience on a pedestal and so much more of this mighty superior over powering thing then it needs to be.
ALANA; then also, it really messes with your alignment too. While I was restricting, I was also going to extremes with different vitamins, herbs, and powders. There was a point where I was taking, there's an herbal store near me and it's like a wonderland. I love tea. I love herbs. I was buying the most random stuff, just because of some shit I read online. Anything that said inflammation reduction, this, that i bought. I was taking about 5 different powders putting them in my smoothies everyday. And my roommate one day said as she was in the process of applying to her nutrition program at Columbia in Manhattan I was her case study and she sat down pulled out all the little bags from the store and started researching all of them. And shes like what are you doing to your body
ME; because there's so many hidden sneaky ingredients also in all of that stuff which is quote on quote “anti-inflammatory” that counteracts what it is supposed to be doing and dysregulates other parts of your body even more. Making you think you need more supplements. Unless a nutritionist or someone like her is telling you to take supplements like they're not getting you to the root cause of what story is actually playing and being held onto within your body. There's just another element add to that equation in that hyper vigilant state that you feel like you can kind of “control”. It's like oh if i take this, then i'll be fixed. Which is actually placing a belief within you that some part of who you are needs to be “fixed” or “changed” and you're quite literally taking that belief in, in the form of that supplement.
Alana; it was just that I went overboard. I thought if i can take as many supplements and different anti-inflammatory things as possible Ill heal. Like I was throwing the most random stuff into a smoothie.
ME; Then you think how much money you waste on of that and you're like
Alana; But like now I don't buy those powders but I do buy herbs. I love herbal teas, I organize them in little jars. For menstrual health, for anxiety. Like I have my valerian root, my motherwort, mugwort. Now that's more of what my herbal consumption looks like
Me; That's literally the same for me. GABA, Valerian root like you said and they're really great for anxiety and all of that stuff even kava is great for depression.
Alana; Kava is a little too strong for me.
Me; I take it with magnesium and b12 so it's not straight.
Time to take a little bit of a shift here for a some Q&A
I have a couple questions here, and as always if you don't feel comfortable answering just say skip.
Alana; Okay.
Me; As background, what was your first memory or experience with psoriasis ? like as a kid do you remember noticing something on your skin? Or What was that experience like for you and how old were you?
Alana; It's funny how it's all linked together. Because when I think of the age of 7. I was 7 years old when I first got psoriasis but then also at the age of 7 we moved houses, my parents got divorced and I got left back and had to repeat the second grade for the second time. And I was recently thinking back, that was such a profound year because so much stuff had happened. And they say psoriasis is linked to so much stress and anxiety. I remember my grandmother would always look at me and she’d be like why are you so nervous, you're always so nervous, you're always so stressed out cause i would always chew on the inside of my mouth and just zone out.
Me; dissociation
Alana; and I still do that especially when I'm procrastinating over something that needs to be done urgently. Like I think about that and how it's all linked together but I was seven years old and just little spots here and there. I had no idea what it was
Me; Did you tell your parents about it? Or was it something you kind of noticed and was kind of scared to say something? Or do you remember your family noticing first?
Alana; I actually don't remember but now that I think about it. More stuff happened at the age of 7. I remember I went to see a psychiatrist and they prescribed me adhd medication and if I remember properly the spots started after the adhd medication. Then my mom took me off the adhd medication she didn't like what it was doing to me. Then we also had bed bugs that year so a lot of crazy things happened all within the same time span of me being seven years old. I think about all the things that happened.
ME; Also just because as a kid youre like going through so much change not just environmentally but with your family dynamic, like with school, your relationship with the way your life was and seeing all these doctors insert labels onto you and that's a lot. And i don't know i think of anything skin related as like, like you were saying your grandma noticed you being nervous. Feeling like not comfortable in your skin with all of that energy, and not being able to like express it and really vocalize that nervousness, those emotions and all that pent up energy that was beginning to store it self in your subconscious and your body literally eating away at your skin
Alana; because my nervous system has been dysregulated since i was seven years old
Me; no I literally say the same thing alana all the time, i'm like, it literally probably has been and I dont know its so sad. I guess that I wish as kids we had the tools to practice working with these dysregulated parts of ourselves before the story imprints itself inside us. Even for kids today
Alana; I wish like, I mean now I know how important it is to teach a kid how to meditate. I dont if a kid is going to sit still but you look back and everything was kind of harsh back then. No body recognized mental health, parents would openly fight in front of their kids, also we grew up in a household where everyone was super blunt
Me; and i don't know if you experienced this but even me looking back on my childhood like there's certain gaps, certain things i don't remember like i had to ask my aunt like may be two years ago, I was like I remember my parents getting divorced but i was like i don't remember leaving my childhood home, like i don't remember saying goodbye, like i don't remember any of that. So its like so crazy how the body tries to protect itself by blocking out certain things.
Alana; I think I blocked out a good amount of things. Also with autoimmune disease it is so important that you’re releasing emotions, that your not storing things, you're getting things off your chest. Like I'm a libra I don't like confrontation. For me to speak up about something is probably the hardest thing ever
Me; Same but that's another form of suppression and repression. It's another form of like you said that un alignment with your authentic self or expression. Especially, if you grew up in a loud environment where everyone's voices or decisions were all things that were kind of like roaring over you its like that inner child inside you now that your an adult in different surroundings that's like omg wait i can actually speak without like my reality being denied, someone trying to tell me what's right, what's wrong, how things should be or what to do. So it's really hard to, i feel like as you get older really like allow yourself to tap into that and trust it. Sometimes feeling that anxiousness and fear and just being like I got to for me because I deserve to be heard, because I am on my side and I'm not willing to abandon myself to make others comfortable and live out loudly.
ALana; I think about it because by nature like im very much a peacemaker,mediator but I hold so much stuff back that I'll let a grudge Ill hold a grudge for 10 years. I'll hold a grudge for so long because of me not speaking. Then I'll let all this unresolved tension in my head just build up and then I just won't talk to someone. Like i will literally just avoid them and it's the hardest thing. But I've been getting better at that. Like I've been speaking my mind more.
Me; But at least you're aware of those patterns and trying to actually to do the things to challenge them that you know mentally thats a form of discipline in itself doing those things knowing that they feel counterintuitive but like there what you need to like align with yourself and plus like no one deserves to carry that burden with them both somatically in terms of their expression and just like spiritually. You know, I think it's so funny that your things in your chart is sagittarius and both of mine are libras which my sun sagittarius and yours is libra so im like i relate to a lot of those like suppression and like being the peacemaker.
Alana; you hold a lot in and you're a libra moon you said?
Me; Yeah
Alana; So like emotionally you really hold like it's hard to speak it out sometimes and because it's such an indecisive sign it's like what am I feeling.
Me; and I feel like a lot of that, then you're de-bockling through those feelings especially in relationships. Let say you want to confront someone, you're like it's almost that pause that's like am i right to feel this way ? Like is my view and perception of this accurate? And it's like that libra in you that wants to kind of like balance both of the scales and see like those two opposing sides and it's like knowing that boundary like actually yeah my emotions were hurt so I deserve to speak up and say something or wait is one of my patterns of being triggered right now and am i the one that’s perceiving it wrong or am i just going to like sit there frozen and just like hold everything in kind of like a deer in headlights.
Alana; and there's a reason why you're triggered like. All of your triggers are things you have not worked through, things that you've been through that you just have to let go of. Like there's a reason why you'll feel some type of way about someone or you'll feel some type of way about a situation. Why do you feel that way ?
Me: and sometimes it even roots back to childhood like i don't know I feel like even socially i feel like i've always felt like that odd one out and i feel like i kind of use to think of it in a shameful kind of lens but more so recently as i get older, as i heal and as i integrate;
you learn to value and accept yourself . You appreciate I guess like that uniqueness without that need to self compare, people please or prove yourself.
Alana; because it makes you authentic. It makes you who you are and then you realize like there's no one else in this world like you that's a beautiful thing. It's the whole reason we exist.
