Shame and guilt (over pizza)

Before we get into it this week, thank you to the lovely people at the McTimoney Chiropractic Association for inviting me to speak at the weekend on vitamin B12. I had a great time, answered a ton of questions & met up once again with the excellent Dr Chris Collaca DC PhD.

Hopefully the MCA members will be saving and changing lives with the knowledge they now have on B12. Remember without it you can’t make myelin, fairly important !

Last weekend I took my five year old son to a birthday party and left with feelings of shame and guilt.

Now my son has done his fair share of things in private and public to make me feel shame and guilt (smeared his faeces on my parents bathroom walls during my 40th birthday party, embarrassing yes, but then he did it again an hour later in the dining room, urinated down the stairs in a pique of anger after I suggested he put his clothes on… I could go on but you get the idea, quite frisky).

But this time it was all about me.

You see, I have the gene for Coeliac disease.

Me and gluten we just don’t get on.

I don’t have coeliac disease but the gene means my immune system attacks the protein gliadin found in gluten and inflammatory hell breaks loose thereafter.

Shortly after my son was born he was screaming blue murder and developed terrible eczema.

My wife cut out gluten dairy from her diet (and in the end tomato and strawberry) and his skin was perfect.

When he was six months old we weaned him and trialled some gluten, but it gave him terrible diarrhoea.

He has been exposed a number of times since then, and while it’s not as explosive he really doesn’t feel good.

And that at a children’s party is an issue, as the food is almost exclusively gluten.

So I had already whipped out his gluten free stuff to eat, plus a cheeky GF brownie as he couldn’t have the cake.

Then the pizza came round and he just loves pizza.

“Oohhhhhh pizza, can I have that?”

“No, sorry, it will make you poorly”

There were a variety of other delicious goods offered up, which he asked “will that make me poorly?”

And with a lump in my throat, I had to keep saying yes again and again and again.

Shame is a very toxic emotion.

I learnt that at a transformative weekend with the Mankind Project.

Gents, if you want to be a better man (and despite what the mainstream media tell you there is nothing wrong with being a man, you have feelings too), sign up and get in touch with your shadow.

You can run from it all you want, but turn around and it’s still there.

One of the best things I took from the whole experience was learning to feel your emotions and as I left the party there was no doubt I felt real shame and guilt about the genetic hand I have dealt my son.

This week I also had a conversation with a client who knows she shouldn’t eat gluten. We have discussed it many times and she has gone completely gluten free trials a few times.

There is little doubt, part of her terrible reflux, fatigue and pain is from a sustained inflammatory response secondary to gluten sensitivity.

At home she is gluten free, but when she goes out and friends houses, she struggles to say no.

And it’s not the temptation per se, it’s the feelings of…..shame/guilt/embarrassment?

I get that. When I was on a strict zero starch diet and no nightshades I would get my wife to phone up friends before we went over as I was embarrassed.

I also drank lager & ale for a few years after diagnosis in total denial.

In reality it’s not your friends or waitress/waiters that have the issue, it’s us/you.

A few years ago I was a bit of a gluten nazi and would have told her to be 100% all the time.

These days I am more gentle.

If she wants to stop her stomach acid flooding her oesophagus at night, & reduce her neuro-mechanical pain she knows she should avoid it totally, but it’s her decision.

She is better than she was, but not as good as she could be, and that’s OK.

It’s my job to manage her neuro-mechanical health primarily not make her a perfect wellness specimen.

I won’t make her feel guilty for it, equally I won’t accept responsibility for her symptoms from it either.

She has to take responsibility.

Which is one of the main tenets of the Mankind Project:  You are responsible for all your actions both conscious and unconscious and their consequences, both in health and life.

ACTIONS TO TAKE TODAY:

Gents, check out the Mankind Project UK https://mankindprojectuki.org/

And read Steve Biddulphs excellent book “Manhood”

Ladies try: https://womanwithin.org.uk/

Try going gluten free for two weeks and see how you feel, you might be surprised.

Don’t invite my son to your birthday party.

And as always don’t waste those valuable adjustments,