The Sickness and the Cure
Whether you’re in recovery or not, there are times when life feels impossible to manage. If we were to cut to the chase on that issue, the answer would be that life is actually impossible to manage– but we’ll talk about that later. For now, let’s just say that the human experience is full of learning opportunities that we may find overwhelming. We could go even farther to say that many of these challenges are painful and in some cases they leave us feeling utterly devastated. Most of us don’t make it through this meat suit rollercoaster ride without some battle scars.
Just about every stage of life, and every healing crisis, goes through a few phases with peaks and valleys that can be hard to navigate. For most people, most of the time, we follow a pretty similar pattern. We find stretches of “everyday life” peppered with moments (okay maybe make that days, weeks or years) that feel unbearable until somehow we learn to bear them. It is interesting to note that the healing process is very similar to the wounding.
There are four basic components of who we are that play integral parts in the creation of every malady and the application of every cure:
- Physical –Most of us don’t recognize sickness until it starts to show itself in the physical realm. Whether an imbalance displays itself in the body itself or in physical circumstances our lessons and our problems get hard to ignore when they take material form. However, very few disturbances are played out from beginning to end on the physical plane. It is nearly impossible to process any crisis in the concrete world without a whole lot of thinking and feeling. Until we admit the truth about what’s happening and what needs changing those thoughts and emotions will only increase amount of the pain we experience.
- Mental – The majority of our problems, and a great deal of our pain, starts in our heads. We often constantly replay events and add fuel to every fire with our own thoughts. Oddly enough, nearly all of our answers will come from thinking less. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Sometimes our minds are just too loud to recognize what’s true. The cycle of healing usually begins when we can quiet the mind enough to reach some level of clarity. At that point, we need to take a deep breath and realize that we are responsible for changing the way we think.
- Emotional – Emotion is your body’s reaction to your mind. (I can’t remember if I read that somewhere or if I wrote it myself, but it’s really good!) When we are emotionally overcome through our thinking, there will be a physical response. Clearly, heart rate, breathing and digestion are affected as our bodies react to what’s happening in our minds. The good news is that in the very same way that emotions can be excited by thought processes, we can also relieve emotional distress with healthy thoughts. Now it becomes clear that we must set our minds and our intentions on healing.
- Spiritual – The disconnect from Spirit is almost always the root cause of dis-ease and we can heal by reestablishing that connection. We must finally come to the point where we are willing to lay down our burdens. This is a conscious decision that we make. When we say that that we turn over our will and our lives, that’s exactly what we mean. There is great relief that comes from stepping out of the struggle and witnessing our difficulties from a spiritual perspective. No longer wrapped up in the physical, mental and emotional dramas we find what we were looking for all along. There is a Source of Peace in the center of every challenge.
The order in which things seem to fall apart and the order in which they eventually begin to come together isn’t overly important. We are complex creatures, but our solutions are really quite simple. We tell ourselves the truth about what needs to change and take the necessary physical action required to set things right. We quiet down mentally and let our emotions settle. We accept things as they are, we appreciate what we have, we connect with Spirit and we let go. We finally understand that life is not to be managed – it’s meant to be lived. It’s just a string of experiences that we’re having and nobody promised that they’d all be fun. But that’s okay; they don’t have to be fun. Sometimes the stuff that feels entirely “unfun” is incredibly valuable.
There will be difficult times, heartaches, perceived failures and probably even a few real tragedies for us to accept and learn from. That’s just part of the deal, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t set goals and work hard for what we want. And it absolutely doesn’t mean that we can’t be happy or enjoy life. It means that sometimes there will be circumstances that are outside of our control and that trying to control them can make us sick inside. It also means that sometimes we get so caught up in what’s happening on the inside that it makes us sick on the outside. Everything is so deeply intertwined that it feels like a vicious circle but really it’s just the way things are… it’s the sickness and the cure. In the same way that all the different parts of who we are can work against each other to make us sick they can work together so that we can heal.
Help BREAK THE STIGMA by sharing your story directly on the Heroes in Recovery page and letting them know that Marta sent you. OR you can contact me through email [marta@wellnessmeetings.com] with your information and I can help you through the process.