Visions HealthCare

Illness

Oh yes, we all get to face this challenge at some point in our lives. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic illness, or a drastic one. It doesn’t have to be chronic or forever. It can be as simple as an allergy to green grass, or strawberries, but our bodies give us messages that something we’ve done, or are doing, or even, will do, isn’t working for your particular body.

First, we have to get past the Judeo-Christian notion, woven into our social fabric, that if we get ill, we’ve done something wrong; or, in theological terms, that we’ve sinned. Illness is not sin, it’s a piece of information—no more, no less. Hear me, dear one, if you’re ill, you’re innocent.

Now this doesn’t mean that we all always make the best choices for our health, but illness is not a time or a place to fall into or wallow in guilt or if-onlies.  It’s a wake-up call.

Your body, when it manifests illness, is saying, “Hey, pay attention to me, and let’s clean it up.”

Second, if you grew up in the West, you have a tendency to want doctors and medicine offer a magic bullet—a pill—to make the symptoms go away. Preferably now, if not sooner.

Not all illness works this way. Sometimes, we have to take more action than swallowing a tablet or two. If you broke a bone, Western medicine is the perfect solution. Go get it set, and wait till the very healing nature of your body does its thing. Have the cast off, and you’re good to go.

A lot of illness these days is more subtle, more insidious, and there isn’t a magic bullet available for it. Let’s name some of these sorts of illnesses: chronic fatigue syndrome, environmental allergies, roving pain. These are more systemic imbalances, and as symptomology goes, they make sense to me. Our Earth is out of balance, why shouldn’t her microcosmic representatives be finding the same things in our bodies?

So, let me go VERY generic [and out on a limb], and quote to you from a book I wrote called God’s Dictionary (Tarcher/Putnam, 2002).

“Somehow humanity has embraced illness as a normal and expected part of the human experience. Why? Think of other species, like lions. They don’t say to themselves that it’s perfectly acceptable to be unwell. I have a theory about illness that was inspired by some words spoken by Swami Satchidananda: When we get out of the “I” and return to the “we”, there will be no more sickness. Think about it.

“Let’s take as a working premise that all illness is foreshadowed in our lives in some way. Namely, we are forewarned. A lingering, repeated headache. Recurring bronchial troubles. Soreness in a hand or foot. What do we do with that piece of information? Some of us heed the message. Others push willfully right by it, toughing it out. There is a shame to being ill, at least in the West.

“If you’ll look at the root of the word, it could be read as the contraction for I will—I’ll. Is it sheer stubbornness that makes us ignore the signs in front of our faces?

“When a lion is ill, it returns to the pride and seeks care. Are we to re-turn our pride from I Will (prevail), and focus on the We’ll of belonging to the community of life itself? Is it belonging to we that helps us let go the I? Ask: How can I let go my I will and belong to my community today?

“Infinition: If I catch myself ignoring the billboards God is placing in my path, I let go my pride and return to the community of life which gives me care. I am wellness embodied.”

Note the italics: “When we get out of the I and return to the we,…” We often think of our community and other people when we think of We, but what if We is really your Spirit, your Soul, and the body they inhabit?