TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR ILLNESSESThe first step to healing is to accept that we created our illnesses in
first place. This can be a difficult concept to swallow. So many of us are invested in prevailing Western scientific medical view of reality that we can't quite understand how we created our illnesses.
Most illnesses are caused by viruses or bacteria. If we catch a cold, or get flu, how is that our responsibility? Someone sneezed on us in an elevator, and now we're laid up in bed for a week. We're so helpless against various flu strains that there's even an annual cold and flu season every year. Every ad for cough medication, every news report on flu vaccinations only serves to reinforce belief that we're helpless victims of forces beyond our control. The only way to avoid getting sick is to avoid human contact for six months of year.
But what about people who don't bother with flu shots, and don't avoid human contact and yet they also don't get sick? Are they just lucky? They're being exposed to same bacteria and viruses that we are. How is that that they stay healthy? Could it be that their thoughts support perfect health and a strong and functioning immune system, while ours somehow invite illness?
What about hereditary or genetic disorders? How can we be responsible for these? Or is it just possible that our belief in heredity is what creates hereditary diseases? If we believe that because heart disease "runs" in our family that we are "at risk" for a heart attack, how does that belief become our reality?
Of course, in case of heart disease, there are so many other contributing factors, such as diet and exercise that have as much, or more to do with health of our hearts than heredity does. It may just be possible that what we inherit is not a genetic predisposition to heart disease, but nutritional and lifestyle habits that actually result in heart disease. We inherit behaviors from our families as well. We're responsible for our choices, and we're responsible for any dis-ease that results from our choices.
I have a friend who "inherited" a degenerative neurological disorder that affects her feet and makes it difficult for her to walk. Every doctor she saw told her that she would be in a wheelchair by time she was 40, and there was nothing she could do about it. She knew how her relatives had lived out their lives with this disease, and decided that this was not an acceptable life for her. She refused to accept diagnosis, and began to explore alternative therapies. She made radical changes to her diet and lifestyle, and very quickly noticed a radical improvement in this chronic, progressive, degenerative condition. According to best medical experts, she shouldn't be able to walk today. However, because she took responsibility for her illness and changed thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that created her illness, she has been able to reverse it.
Many conditions result from negative thinking and limiting beliefs. Unexpressed anger, regret, grief, and other painful emotions can manifest as chronic, painful, and sometimes terminal illness. In order to heal these conditions, we must identify negative thought or belief that is at core. The challenge, however, is to identify and release negative thought without triggering ego. All too often, we punish ourselves for having negative thoughts in first place--we beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up. This only reinforces negative thought and destructive patterns.
We must accept that every belief we hold, no matter how negative or limiting, serves us in some way. This goes for our illnesses and dis-eases as well. Before we can heal, we must become aware of what benefits we get from our illnesses.
DISCOVERING AND ACCEPTING THAT OUR ILLNESS SERVES US
Every choice we make, we make because it meets a need. We created our illness because it gives us something that we believe that we want. What is payoff we get for being ill? What are we getting out of this situation?
No matter how painful or debilitating illness, there is always a benefit. Objectively, we may have made a rather unskillful bargain, of course. We may feel that we're paying much too high a price for benefits we receive. But until we identify benefit-until we become aware of what it is that we get out of being ill, we can never truly heal.
Healing requires that we identify what it is that we get out of being ill, and then become aware of our beliefs surrounding this need. We must be willing to give up these benefits, or recognize that we can meet these needs in less debilitating ways.
When it comes to minor illnesses such as cold or flu, often we get sick because we haven't been listening to our bodies. We've been working too hard, and under too much stress. We haven't been taking care of our physical, emotional, or spiritual needs. The only way that we will take any time for ourselves is if we're too weak to get out of bed, so that's what we create.
I have a friend who has a rather intense family history, with enough drama and intrigue to fill a prime-time soap opera. A number of years ago, she experienced a rather significant identity crisis. An inheritance set her up financially so that she could do whatever she wanted to do with her life. The fact that she could do whatever she wanted with her life meant that she had to actually choose what she wanted to do with her life, and this created a great deal of stress. She began to have anxiety attacks, and soon developed acute agoraphobia, finding it very difficult to leave her house. She's struggled with this condition for many years. The payoff of this condition is that she has an iron-clad excuse not to face her fears and do something with her life. All of her time and attention is focused on her condition and her anxiety.
We may find it difficult to accept responsibility for having created our illnesses because we created our illnesses to avoid having to take responsibility in first place. Illnesses and injuries are often cries for attention and validation. When we're ill, injured or otherwise in pain, we're entitled--and even expected to think only of ourselves. We are excused from our responsibilities to others. We don't have to go anywhere we don't want to go, we don't have to do anything we don't want to do. And we can expect other people to do things for us and we're under no obligation to return favor. We can cancel plans at last minute, or even simply not show up, because we were in too much pain to fulfill our social obligations--and we don't even have to call to apologize.
