According to statistics, one in three people will develop an allergy in the course of their lives – and the trend is rising. In conventional medicine, an allergy is an excessive reaction of the immune system to a foreign substance. It is assumed that the immune system can no longer differentiate between good and bad substances.

Allergies are conditions that are in the realm of consciousness. But have you ever wondered where your allergies really come from? Did you know that you don’t show any allergies during anaesthesia but can already react when looking at a picture? Allergies therefore have a lot to do with our subconscious.

In this blog article I speak to Arleen Hanks, Life Alignments Advanced Teacher and Practitioner based in Australia, about her vast experience of aligning allergies and sensitivities and her own history of salvation from a multitude of them.

Tell us more about your background with Life Alignment Arleen.

 

I was always a somewhat sickly child with weak lungs and kidneys, and I had developed a spastic colon and spinal issues into my teenage year – the results of birth defects and severe trauma. I had tried all the various medical treatments I could but was making no progress. Then in my early 20s I discovered chiropractors, homoeopaths, and psychotherapy – which combined, over an 8-year period, got me back on my feet. I then had another emotional event happen in my life and all my symptoms returned – I was desperate as I could not face another 8 years to get back on track. This is when Life Alignment came into my life – it took just 1 session, and I was back on my feet and decided halfway through that session to make this into my life path. That was 26 years ago, and I have never looked back.

 

In your own words, how would you describe allergies?

 

I see allergies or sensitivities as the body over-reacting to a normal situation. For example, you smell something and instead of having a normal immune response the body over-reacts and for example instead of the skin producing a small skin reaction, to something like a bee sting, it breaks out in massive hives and breathing difficulties.

There is not just one single cause of allergic reactions, but several factors play a role and not all hypersensitivity is an allergy. On the one hand, there are genetically predisposed people. Most allergies are due to a combination of different causes. There are fewer and fewer natural habitats and this creates environmental pollutants, radiation exposure, changed eating habits, unhealthy living spaces and a weakened immune system as a result can cause allergic reactions. For example children are being born to parents that have absorbed toxins from such environmental pollution in air, food and water. The overflow of toxins has created an immune response – often related to mitochondria. On the other hand, psychological, mental, emotional and spiritual factors are often underestimated and also influence the risk of allergies.

 

Defence, Fight, Aggression, Fear.

 

These conditions are often associated with an allergy. From a psychological point of view, an allergic reaction is just as much an exaggerated defence, as from a physical point of view. This means that you create more and more differentiation between you and the world, and the repression has literally slipped out of consciousness and into the body.

Very interesting. That sounds like avoiding the trigger of the allergy doesn’t necessarily sort out the unconscious cause of it. However, we should still take the symptom seriously, right?

 

If we ignore the reaction of our body to a sensitivity it can result in serious health issues and even death in some cases. Also, in time the body’s response can build into even more drastic responses. In my case for example, as a child I was already plagued by allergies – triggered by so many things from weather to smells and I also had a lot of food issues. There was a time when I could only eat avocado and rice crackers and even then, with a lot of pain. The allergies got worse and worse over time. My body was trying to tell me something and I was not listening – so it had to get louder and louder with its request that I listen and take action.

 

What is it that we have to listen to when we have issues with allergies?

 

The cause of an allergy is not the allergen only, but it can be the deeper issue of your soul that wants to be heard. This can be for example:

• childhood trauma

• Beliefs like “I’m not good enough.”

• Unresolved conflicts with people

• Unspoken needs and feelings

• Constant violation of one’s own boundaries

 

Allergies are like little micro-traumas of your soul that want to show themselves. An allergy shows you that you keep ignoring a subject that occupies your soul. Often there are deep childlike desires such as attention, love, security, because as children we are much more needy. People with allergies often come from families where punctuality, performance and discipline are important and therefore from a value system in which their own needs are put second.

In my own example, I was generally hypersensitive. My boundaries had been shattered and my defences breached – and so I became hyper defensive. I built huge walls around myself because I was not feeling safe in my world, and it had become a very dangerous place for me. So safety, security and building healthy boundaries were a huge part of my healing journey.

Today my lungs have become so much stronger and smells and temperature and even house dust no longer are an issue for me. I have worked on a lot of clients over the years with great success too. We have amazing balances for this in the system of Life Alignment.

Yes, you are well known for your “Allergy Alignment” skills. How does Life Alignment tackle the issue?

 

In Life Alignment we are using the “Allergy and Sensitivity balancing technique” to deal with the root cause of the symptom. We identify the actual product or thing someone is allergic or sensitive to and we place this on the body and connect it to the organs or glands that will help harmonise the body to this substance. The beauty of Life Alignment is that we have balanced approach that looks at all aspects of an allergy – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We can also find the related story that is connected to this substance and then unwind that memory into something that is no longer traumatic. With help of the modality list after a session, we are able to identify if changes in the life style or digestive health for example are of priority.

Like I said, there are subconscious connections to the sensitivity and when we see, smell or taste that particular aspect, it’s actually the memory response that triggers the allergic reaction. In my case, I had been left out in the cold when I was a child, and it was the fear in that story that was being subconsciously triggered – back to being a small child in a frightful situation. My body was responding to the old story – not the current reality. When I went back into the memory and worked with creating safety and security for that child, the cold was no longer a trigger for me.

 

This makes so much sense. What are typical issues clients come with related to allergies?

 

When a client comes to see me about allergies, they often have many different ones. So, we would use muscle testing to work out which ones are the priority ones to work with. Very often it is not that they have an issue with each substance but rather that a few are the underlying issues. When you work with harmonising those, you often find you do not need to balance them all. So by working by priority, you get to the heart of the matter and that helps resolve the rest.

So much of what is needed here is creating harmony in the body and mind. We need to come to a place of peace with life rather than being defensive and at war with our environment. When we feel safer, we relax and come out of fight, flight or freeze response. The body cannot digest when it is preparing to fight for its life. So, when we address the emotional issues and can create a safer place for that part of our being – we can then switch out of fight and flight and into rest and digest mode. The reactions lesson or stop and we can pause and respond to life instead.

 

Do you have some ideas how to prepare for an Allergy Alignment?

 

Yes, work on things to make yourself feel safer in your life. There are a lot of practices you can do. For example, meditate and breathing exercises to help with relaxation and to calm the body. Imagine creating a bubble of light around your body and then going out into the world.

 

With food related sensitivities – bless your food! The good old-fashioned prayer actually does work to help create harmony with what we eat. It also makes us pause and get into a quieter space which makes it easier for our body to digest. Don’t eat on the run – remember – the body has 2 modes – fight or flight, or rest and digest. So don’t expect it to digest if you are in fight/flight mode as the digestive system actually shuts down in this mode and all the energy goes to the parts needed to run and fight.

Saying all of this, deep inner work will cause a substantial shift. In Life Alignment we often do Inner Child work, and this is so important as often allergies do relate to childhood experiences.

Love yourself – be kind to yourself. Honor yourself and build some good strong healthy boundaries in your life – these will all make you feel a lot safer and then more relaxed in life.