All that begins ill ends well
To become ill is to experience a body that is somehow out of balance. Without illness, it is difficult to experience the joy of health restored. Illness makes it possible to appreciate wellness. It is the rain that makes the rainbow a fleeting moment of delight.
Serious illness followed by restored vitality brings unspeakable joy.
Do you experience illness as an externally imposed, unfortunate event, maybe like a traffic accident?
Did you get hit by a terrible virus?
Then there are those mysterious and terrifying modern illnesses that are produced by our own bodies. We often speak of fighting “them”.
You will not have time enough to await some scientific study to prove the astonishing superiority of your auto-generated pharmaceuticals over those that are synthesized in a laboratory and sold to the sick. The vested interest in mass illness is colossal, but do not become ill over that. To do so would be to fall into the trap, once again, of letting your external world make you miserable and ill.
Your life is out of balance, so there is no surprise that your body will be as well. The power of your often misguided will has placed enormous strains on your body, resulting in premature ageing, disease, and exhaustion. You have isolated yourself emotionally from others, and in this denial have embedded the pain deep into your cells. You have fouled the water.
It is astonishing how your body is able to maintain itself in spite of you. Sometimes you try to destroy it, consciously or not, violently or surreptitiously. It is your radical freedom to do so. Your chosen purpose in life is not necessarily to overcome cancer. Christiane Singer gave the world testimony of her joy while dying of terminal cancer. She wrote that on the other side of the worst thing imaginable, there was nothing but Love. What would be the value of such an affirmation if it were not uttered from the mouth of one who suffers immensely?
You have three choices, and each has its beauty.
You can progressively restore balance in your life and thereby fortify your health. You can experience bouts of illness and the magic of restoring your health. You can becoming gravely ill and die from your illness, accepting this as your life and making a positive expression out of it. Each of these choices is to be honored.
Don’t wait for a laboratory cure. The cure is within yourself, in a place where no stethoscope has gone before.
The next time you fall ill, here are three new ways of thinking to experiment.
1. Experiment acceptance.
Accept that you have allowed this illness and accept yourself for having done that. You are not its victim. Accept that you can have weaknesses, and that in spite of such weaknesses you remain worthy. Accept that your body is “speaking” to you and that the message should not be ignored.
2. Attune yourself to the intelligence of your body.
Speak to it. Speak to what? Your body...to the cells that compose your body and in particular those you sense are ill. You may not believe that your cells are capable of communication with your cerebral intelligence, in which case you will probably not believe that you (as a cell within a greater body) are capable of any communication with that greater body. So you don’t believe it, but you’re ill so what do you have to lose by imagining this, for once?
Tell your body that you accept its weaknesses and that you are listening to its message. Focus your attention for as much time as you are able on what is out-of-balance, as if your were consciously guiding it back into balance. You can place your hand over a place of hurting while you do this. Breathe intentionally to circulate the subtle energies within your body. Imagine this movement of energy as you inhale.
Unlike your willpower that made you ill, this is relaxation-resolve to make you well. Your body does not need to be forced to heal. It is the natural flow.
3. Envision your restored health
As you focus your attention for as much time as your are able, recall to mind the feeling of restored health. Call to mind the things you will be doing in health and let these thoughts create elevated emotions. In your mind, go for a run on the beach and feel the ocean air filling your lungs. Feel gratitude for your health restored. If you can feel it, it has already happened.
If all this seems laughable to your rational mind, you can also laugh yourself back to health. Laughter has been clinically proven to accelerate healing.