Your Body is Your Expert (Part 2 of 2)
The expert's proper role is to awaken the healer within you.
Read Part 1 here.
I do not advocate for ignoring experts of any field, particularly those in health and science. Having knowledge of how our bodies work is enormously beneficial (understanding the menstrual cycle is a game-changer) and can even act as a bridge until we can identify our bodies' patterns, processes, and needs from simple embodied experience.
Experts and their knowledge should be a support for your own self-knowledge and self-agency, and NEVER be considered the ultimate authority.
Our knowledge and understanding are constantly evolving. What was once considered scientific fact has been debunked, time and time again. What we consider "facts" are truly just theories that have held up really well over time- until something comes along and blows our understanding of those facts to pieces (quantum physics, for example).
At its core, Science is inquiry. It is a constantly shifting creature rather than a static structure. Progress only comes from daring to question and poke holes in all our theories. There are still so many large gaps in our knowledge, and what we may eventually find in those gaps could drastically affect our understanding of everything we already think we know.
The experts can never know everything there is to know about your own body and health. Your body knows exactly what is hiding within the dark gaps of the expert's knowledge. And what your body knows that the experts don't know may be the very key to unlocking your own health and well-being. That is why it is vital we learn to listen to our bodies and learn their unique individual languages.
We hear stories all of the time of medical miracles or puzzling illness or dumbfounding cases of "this shouldn't be happening according to xyz." And yet it happens. Because your body doesn't give a fuck what the experts declare. It only knows its own truth and reality, which is YOUR truth and reality.
The experts and their institutions should always be directing us back to our own bodies and inner knowledge.
The expert is not the healer.
The expert's proper role is to help awaken the healer within you.