What’s the #1 thing you must do to heal your acne?
You might be thinking it’s to balance your hormones, heal your gut, support your liver, or cut out sugar and dairy.
What if I told you that the MOST important thing you had to do for healing acne was healing your thoughts and emotions, and that healing the mental/emotional side to acne was addressing the ultimate root cause?
It’s true! In my experience, 95% of healing acne is mindset and retraining your nervous system to adopt a healthy physiology by working on your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions (your psychology). Only 5% is actually strategy and working on your physical body with therapies like nutrition, lifestyle, herbs, and supplements.
Acne is more than just a physical condition
When I had acne, I was frustrated and depressed about my skin ALL the time. So I deeply understand how much acne can impact your mood and emotions, which greatly affects your quality of life (and even how you live your life).
I know how it feels to not want to leave your house on a “bad skin” day, or to spend hours in front of the mirror picking at all your spots and feeling awful about making it all worse. When you have acne, it can be challenging to look people in the eyes, go to social events, or feel comfortable not wearing makeup. And when you don’t feel comfortable in your skin, you’re going to suffer emotionally.
Does any of that resonate with you?
Thinking about acne can take up so much space in your head, from “What if this food breaks me out?” to “I feel another pimple forming on my chin…” or “Why does everyone else around me seem to have perfect skin?!”
The thoughts around skin can stream on endlessly, and most of the time, they aren’t very positive. You might notice that the way you speak to yourself in your mind (your self-talk) is full of negative thoughts or self-judgment, and those same thought patterns may often be on repeat, like a broken record.
The mind/body connection
There is a huge mental/emotional side to acne that is not often discussed, but it’s incredibly important to address in order to heal from acne. I often find that once someone is able to address their underlying thoughts and emotions that are tied into their acne, their skin improves dramatically.
There is a reason your body produces symptoms, including acne. Symptoms are your body’s attempt to communicate when it is imbalanced and out of alignment with Nature. Your body is wise and fully capable of healing itself when provided with the right conditions and a healthy environment; when these conditions aren’t met, the body is imbalanced and symptoms arise as the body attempts to restore balance.
As an unspoken language, symptoms provide clues as to what is out of balance. When it comes to acne, your body is demonstrating what is imbalanced both on the physical and mental/emotional levels. Physically, there are a number of reasons acne develops, including poor elimination of toxins and cellular wastes, blood sugar and hormonal imbalances, and inflammation. However, there is always a psychoemotional component as well. The psychoemotional component typically manifests as an ingrained negative belief system that is the emotional root cause of your acne.
Do any of these belief statements resonate with you?
“I don’t like or accept myself.”
“I often feel afraid or threatened.”
“I don’t feel safe to be me or to express myself.”
“I can’t express my anger.”
“Something in the past keeps me locked in fear and anxiety.”
Do you find yourself thinking similar thoughts, or feel like you might be unconsciously stuck in a similar belief pattern? If so, you may have just identified an emotional root cause of your acne.
So what came first: the negative beliefs or the acne?
While acne can perpetuate your stress, anxiety, or depression—and all the negative thoughts that come with those states—I imagine that your belief systems were already in place before the acne developed. And right now, your body is using acne to try to get you to realize what needs healing.
Remember, your body can’t use words to communicate, so it uses symptoms to restore balance. In this case, your acne is bringing to light all of your negative beliefs about yourself, and asking you to heal them.
Our minds are incredibly powerful. Our thoughts can either limit us or lead to abundance and well-being—both physically and psychologically. It has been shown that our thoughts directly impact the health and function of our cells, and therefore the health of our entire bodies. (The book Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, PhD, is a fascinating read for those who are interested in learning more about this concept.)
So how do I heal the mental/emotional side to acne?
Remember that you didn’t develop these thoughts and emotions overnight. They’ve been gradually ingraining themselves into your subconscious mind likely over many years, so in order to heal from these thoughts and emotions and take on a new state of being—one that is free from acne—you need to work on retraining your nervous system and “rewiring” your subconscious mind, so that your conscious mind is more apt to think positive, health-promoting thoughts; thoughts that are in alignment with the true essence of who you really are: a beautiful human being who deserves love and a joyful life—and clear skin!
One way to do this is by identifying your predominant negative belief system. What negative thought do you find yourself thinking most of the time? Is it that you don’t like the way your body looks? Do you feel overwhelmed and incapable?
Whatever the belief system is, name it. Write it down. If you’re having a hard time identifying just one belief, take your thoughts and journal about them. You’ll likely find an underlying theme to them all. What is the one core belief they all have in common? (There may be a few, so let’s just work with one for now.)
Now take that negative thought pattern and let’s reframe it. If you’ve identified your core negative belief as “I don’t like my body,” then reframe it as “I completely love and accept my body exactly as it is” or “I lovingly accept my body and know that it’s working for me and trying to heal.”
Write this affirmation down on a notecard and place it somewhere that you’ll see it multiple times throughout the day, such as on your bathroom mirror or on the back of your phone. Each time you read the affirmation, feel the truth of your words in your body; feel your heart expand with the knowing that you are a radiant, beautiful human being who deserves to love and be loved.
Repeat your affirmation to yourself first thing in the morning and right before going to bed. These are the times when you’re most able to tap into your subconscious mind and retrain your nervous system.
Do this every day for several weeks, and you will see changes in your skin, your mood, and your outlook on life. It’s amazing how something so simple can dramatically improve your health and how you feel!
