Acne is Often a Reflection of Internal Health: Why Does This Notion Upset People?

Chronic Acne, just as with any other chronic health condition, doesn't happen by accident. It doesn't just happen randomly to a few unlucky people.

Sometimes this notion bothers people, it used to bother me too. And so I wanted to analyse this. Here's my understanding as to why:

1) Most of us haven't been taught about true health: that is, we're not taught to look at our body as a whole. If you develop eczema, you're usually given a cream to help - without any investigation into what's going on inside the body to trigger eczema in the first place.

Or, if you have recurrent yeast infections (which is very common), you're given a pessary or cream to treat it without the understanding that the current state of the body has created a perfect environment for Candida overgrowth (causing a yeast infection) to thrive.

And so every month when the yeast infection flares up, and a pessary is used to treat the symptoms but the internal environment of the body isn't addressed, the cycle continues and the yeast infection keeps coming back (the root cause wasn't healed).

It's not my or your fault. Most of us simply weren't taught to think this way.

We have a system (I'm from and live in the U.K.) that treats symptoms but rarely the root cause, and the terrain of the body is never addressed.

2) It feels crappy to think that we're causing our Acne.

I don't believe that 'we're causing our own Acne'. But, I think that's what people assume when they see people like me saying that acne is an indicator of internal health or that acne can be triggered by diet (as one example).

What I actually think is that due to our modern circumstances, lifestyle, diet, internal and external environment, we're set up to develop chronic disease. I don't think it's our fault and it's never a personal attack when I say that acne is a reflection of health. Which brings me on to the next point.

3) It can feel like a personal attack, and maybe we don't want to know that it's possible for us to heal ourselves - because that means we have to take full responsibility for our life and health* (health = life).

Sometimes, without realising it, we take comfort in our 'powerlessness'. When we're so used to giving our power and autonomy away to doctors, leaders, big tech, family members, partners, it can be scary to even think it's possible to fully reclaim our own power.

One of my favourite quotes from my long time role model, Marianne Williamson, is “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." (This quote is often wrongly attributed to Nelson Mandela, but it's actually from Marianne's book 'Return to Love'.)

The idea that we can take our health in to our own hands can be a hard one to swallow, because it means we have to address some of the unhealthy habits we have, our food addictions, our lifestyle and so on.

It's also not the easy route to take, healing holistically (addressing root causes) can often take a long time. It's certainly more challenging (in some ways) than taking a pill or applying a cream to keep the symptoms at bay.

4) Other reasons people get upset by the notion of Acne being an indicator of internal health are: people simply don't want to believe that it's true as it goes against their own belief systems, people assume it's just genes (I have a social media post about this linked here). Or perhaps, people just want to be outraged by another thing they've seen on social media - but, this serves no one and actually causes a stress/trauma response in the body which is crappy for both the person who's outraged, but also the person who's receiving the outrage as the same bodily response happens in their nervous system too.

*I would be remiss to not talk about the unfair disadvantage that many people have in terms of simply being able to afford optimal health - because when you have a chronic illness like Acne, you will usually need to invest to get your health back on track (organic food, high quality supplements, gut health protocols, decent quality housing without mould, maybe coaching or seeing a Functional or Naturopathic Doctor). I still see many people saying that being healthy is inexpensive, I disagree in multiple ways (and agree in some ways). I'm going to write a full article on this topic, rather than include it here. Subscribe to my email list to get the article direct to your inbox (you'll also receive a free Acne Checklist PDF).

To conclude, there's a whole bunch of reasons that people get upset about the 'Acne is a reflection of inner health' notion and I get why. Sometimes people are just too damn tired, and don't have the access or time to address root causes (this was me for a long time) and so it can be easier to believe that Acne is an unlucky, random occurrence. It's truly up to you how you decide to manage, treat or heal your own body but if you're interested in healing holistically then you're in the right place.

Once again, Subscribe to my email list to get the article direct to your inbox (you'll also receive a free Acne Checklist PDF).

By Mehgan Weatherley

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