Acceptance | Cure Eczema Forever

Another great post from itchylittleworld.com – Natural remedies for eczema to soothe your itchy little world..

This week, we’re sharing an inspirational video from my dear friend Marieke, a certified life coach and founder of Your Novel Life, whose own daughter had severe eczema as an infant. If you’re feeling particularly low or depressed due to living with eczema or dealing with your child’s eczema, then please watch this beautiful video. I’m sure you will find it’s message of trust and acceptance enriching for both your body and mind.

(begin transcript)

Hi everybody! I’m a life coach from Your Novel Life. I’m here today to share some tips with you about what I wish I knew then when I was handling my baby’s eczema before I became a life coach.

My daughter is now 7-years-old and she’s dairy intolerant. Our journey with her eczema started right as she was about 4 months old and I had noticed that her cradle cap started migrating to her face. She had small patches on her body but nothing too major. It was really when it started migrating to her face that I freaked out and I didn’t know what to do. I had never seen cradle cap like that. I started to think maybe it was eczema, so I started researching. And what I found was that it was probably really bad eczema.

Because I tend to go more of a natural route, I discovered that it was probably related to food, but I wasn’t really sure. So I visited my doctor with Fira (my daughter) and I described what was happening. My doctor actually told me that there is no conclusive evidence between eczema and food issues and I just felt that couldn’t be right, something seemed off. I’m a big believer that food is medicine.

Here’s where my first tip comes in to play: trust your own gut and intuition. I consulted with some naturopaths that told me the biggest allergen I was consuming was dairy. When I eliminated it from my own and my daughter’s diet at six months of age, I noticed a difference in my daughter’s skin every two weeks (I was still breastfeeding at this time) and a change in my health as well. Her skin just started clearing up and by the time she was a year-old she was basically eczema-free. So, I trusted my gut and my gut was right.

One of the other ways we handled her painful eczema (she would just cry for hours from the pain and I could sense her internal frustration) was by soothing her with a pacifier. I had never been big on the pacifier before then, but for some reason I had one laying around during one particularly bad moment where I couldn’t settle her. I gave her the pacifier and she took it immediately. It’s like all her frustrations went out into the pacifier. She found an outlet for herself. She found a way to soothe herself. Nothing else had worked for us, so I trusted my gut, that the little plastic device would do something. I had tried everything to soothe her and I was at my wits end. So, that pacifier become her go-to self-soother very quickly. Even after her eczema was gone and she was a little bit older, she would still use the pacifier to calm herself.

So my first tip I want to share with you is: Trust your gut. Trust yourself that you know how to care for your child.

My next tip is acceptance. I know how hard it can be to accept that your baby has some kind skin condition or intestinal issue or allergy or intolerance, that they are living with eczema. I personally found that challenging. I also found the fact that I was going to have to give up cheese or cream in my coffee really, really scary. I didn’t feel like doing it. I felt like I had just going through pregnancy where I’d given up alcohol and I felt like I was just getting my body back and I just wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. But I realized that wasn’t going to happen when I discovered that the issue with my daughter’s eczema was dairy. So acceptance is my next tip I want to share with you, my lesson learned. Suffering stems from not accepting what is. At the time my daughter was suffering form eczema and I had this intuition that it was dairy and I didn’t want to accept that. But once I did decide to move forward with that, once I accepted it, MAN things got easier. So, that’s my tip, accept what is. Accept what you’re willing to do or not do (because not doing anything is okay too).

Another tip I would suggest for anyone watching this video is to feel all the feelings. When I was dealing with my daughter’s eczema I had grief, frustration, resentment, fear and I struggled to come to terms with everything. It’s actually important to let yourself feel sad. Let yourself feel frustrated that your child has to be living with eczema, then move on. When we resist our feelings, things just persist. Give yourself the option to really understand your emotions. Write them in a journal. Without accepting our feelings, we just stay in the present and are not able to move on.

Feeling empowered and knowing that you can do something is also a great tip. Don’t think about it as I NEED or SHOULD cut out dairy, but instead as I WANT to cut dairy. I’m making this decision for my children and their future. Making your own decisions for you and your family is actually really powerful and I invite you to feel into the power while you navigate these waters. Find others living with eczema that can support you through this hard time and connect to a community that shares the same fears. By creating a community and discussing issues with each other, we can inspire one another as well.

When I cut out dairy, I shared my daughter’s story with so many people because it ultimately changed her life and mine. Which leads me to my last tip. Accept everything as a blessing. Think about how changing your child’s life is a true blessing that you can pass onto your family or others you know. I’ve shared my story with our neighbors and other friends who have seen improvements in their own children’s health after cutting out dairy.

Bio: Marieke (last name) is a certified Martha Beck Life Coach.

She focuses on providing life coaching for women with full and busy lives who want to learn how to slow down and take better care of themselves so they can feel lighter, more peaceful, and in charge of their lives. She is also founder of the site Your Novel Life that provides several workshops and inspiring resources.