I spent the last three days feeling like tumbleweed trapped in a blizzard of a head cold. I didn’t feel capable of steering myself purposefully and powerfully in any particular direction. To be honest, I felt quite impotent, unable to focus on anything but the cold and congestion I was feeling in my entire body but especially in my head as fluid flowed out of my eyes and nose uncontrollably.
To be fair, over the years, I have acquired an ability to manage myself reasonably well under these kinds of conditions and this almost always means that I recover more quickly that I used to.
I have also learned to maintain a certain degree of equanimity during times like these and I believe it is a key factor in facilitating my recovery. Whereas, in the past, I might have resented being ill and especially feeling the various forms of discomfort that accompanied my illness, I have become much more accepting of the change of tides that wellness and illness create.
Another important difference in the way I respond to illness these days is the lack of fear I have around it. There was a time when any deviation in sensation and appearance from what I had come to accept as a ‘normal and well body’ would trigger anxiety which in turn triggered all kinds of mild paranoia. The bottom line was the belief that my body was failing me and something horrible and irreparable underlay the symptoms I was experiencing.
Well, that belief no longer troubles me. Instead, I have come to see illness as a self-correcting mechanism and process that helps to restore my natural state of wellness as I respond to it with presence. And ‘presence’, as I discovered in my most recent experience of illness can be different to how I have mostly experienced it.
As I said earlier, the persistent congestion in my head and watering from my eyes and nose accompanied by my inability to get warm enough no matter how many layers I piled on and how much sunshine I exposed myself to kept me well and truly ‘preoccupied’. These were the things that seized my attention and held it captive. Every now and again, I would be granted a break to consider what physical nourishment I might undertake. Intuitively, I was called on to prepare myself soups which I devoured with relish and gratitude.
Every now and again, I would also find myself inquiring into my condition:
- What mental and emotional precursors had led to my physical condition?
- Why was I unable to meditate, to get ‘present’ in the way I was accustomed to getting ‘present’?
- What kind of ‘wrong thinking’ (ignorance, unawareness) had I been lost in?
- Does illness limit one’s ability to be truly present and clear when surely this is the time when such presence and clarity are most needed?
- What was the best thing for me to do now?
The good thing about these flights of enquiry was that they happened without stress, without any kind of self-chastisement or self-rebuke. Instead, they happened in a mostly gentle and loving manner. Again, I should add, that this approach and attitude is something that I have increasingly allowed and encouraged over the years.
Now, my physical condition allowed only the briefest flights of enquiry, enough time for questions to arise but not enough time for contemplation let alone answers. In fact, the fog of the head cold ensured that my attention was almost immediately returned to my symptoms. To tell the truth, I don’t think my attention was ever fully diverted from them.
And this naturally caused me to focus on the dominant sensations I was feeling – the tickles in my throat, the urge to cough, the cough itself, the fear of hurting my throat more each time, the congestion in my head, the sharp sensations every now and again in my head, the dullness of mind – it was as if my mental vision which could normally extend indefinitely was now reduced to about a millimeter off the screen in my mind – the congestion in my nasal passage, the need to breathe through my mouth from time to time, the runny nose, the teary eyes, the tenderness in my eyes forcing me to keep them closed…all these became the focus of my attention, though fortunately, not aggressively or even intensely. Not entirely a tender focus either but an alert and purposeful one.
I became aware of asking myself what I might gain from paying attention to these sensations. Could I pay attention without the desire for them to go away? Was it wrong or unhelpful to desire their departure? Why? Why not?
These questions became increasingly meaningful as they reflected some of my strongest beliefs:
- It is unhelpful to force change.
- It is important to allow change to happen naturally, effortlessly, unhurriedly.
- Suffering is not necessary.
- Discomfort happens.
And then I found myself questioning a particular belief – Is it really a bad thing to force change? How do you instigate change without rejecting ‘what is’? What were my real reasons for wanting rapid change i.e. for wanting to get well quickly?
The last of these questions seemed to draw out answers more easily than the others:
- I wanted to feel better and there was nothing wrong with that. Feeling ill ain’t a good feeling.
- I wanted to prove that I could command my own healing and the time it would take.
- I wanted to convince myself that I could become aware of whatever ‘wrong thinking’ or ‘ignorance’ or ‘lack of awareness’ had caused my illness and that I could correct it.
- I really didn’t want to find any value in remaining in a state of discomfort.
- I really wanted to prove to myself that wellness is natural, spontaneous and instant when the mind intends and allows it.
Becoming aware of and present to these motivations enabled me to move beyond the millimeter mental berth that my head cold had thus far restricted me to.
It enabled me to accept the fact that, in my current situation, my ability to sit or lie in meditation was severely reduced. And although I feared a little that such impairment during a person’s illness could be most detrimental to their recovery, I also noticed something else.
When I was asleep and for a few seconds upon awakening, I felt free of any of the symptoms that were dogging me. Yet, they very quickly returned and appeared to match the thoughts and feelings I was having.
The more resentful or worried (albeit mildly) I felt about my symptoms or about other things in my life, the more congested I’d feel in my head, the more I’d cough, the more the tears would run, the more I’d need to blow my nose. Yet, when I allowed those thoughts and feelings to be replaced by pleasant memories or future plans, the symptoms eased off! It happened with almost textbook predictability.
At some point in this episode, I took advantage of the periods of relief and settled down to listen to one of my favorite spiritual guides, Stuart Wilde. At the end of his talk, he presented a guided meditation. It was at least as good for my spirit as the chicken and fish soups I’d been having over the last three days had been for my body. I felt so much better for having been on that spiritual journey and I believe it predisposed me to a rather marvelous realization:
Illness provides us with an opportunity to reconfigure and repattern ourselves by causing or rather presenting a breakdown in the status quo. What we call illness is really a bunch of symptoms that we experience when the internal system or status quo has finally broken down.
(Fortunately for us, the system never breaks down completely though that too does happen in extreme circumstances involving total loss of consciousness).
When the system breaks down, we have a choice. We can either hurry a restoration of the system which is what most people do with the use of drugs and procedural interventions such as surgery. Or we can responsively manage the breakdown by allowing and supporting its renovation, or, if we’re really ready and willing, a complete rebuild.
If we choose the former, what we get at the end is more of the same. If we chose the latter, what we step into is an elevated state of vibration. And that is clearly how I felt when I finally came through the other side of my recent illness. In fact, that is how I have mostly felt when I have undergone illness such as a head cold or a tummy upset.
I took no artificial medication feeling completely confident that my body could heal itself with my mental, emotional, spiritual and nutritional medication/support. I drank lots of a mixture of lemon, honey and ginger steeped in hot water in between cups of warm water and soup. I covered myself in layers and kept a hot water bottle close and toasty. I spent almost all day in bed for three days with brief periods spent cooking and drinking soups, watching television (often while keeping my eyes closed), feeding my dog and taking her out for her toilet and attending to my toiletry needs.
I realize that many people reading this might cringe or roll their eyes incredulously thinking, ‘Three days???!!!! That’s a luxury I can’t afford, not with all the commitments I have – job, kids, mortgage…’ In fact, one friend actually responded with ‘If you can afford it’ when I told him that I would take the following day off if I didn’t feel better in the morning. I am sure he meant well but it’s a tragic reflection of the state of fear that we live in when we have to put our jobs before our health and too many of us do.
But, back to illness and the choices we make toward our recovery. We could take a fast and furious approach where we aggressively set out to crash and burn the ‘offending’ agent – pathogens, misbehaving cells, faulty joints – with drugs and procedures. Or we could take a responsive, intuitive, nurturing and supportive approach with nutrition (including supplements), rest, inspiration and appropriate exercise or movement.
The former may appear to produce immediate tangible results which we are relieved and impressed by. The latter may take a bit more time but is altogether a more holistic treatment and outcome.
If we think that illness affects us only physically, we are dreadfully mistaken. Illness affects all aspects of our being – mental, emotional, spiritual and yes, physical. In fact, the physical aspect is but the last manifestation of illness, all other aspects being precursors.
The drawback with the fast and furious, crash and burn approach is that it offers us little incentive to deal with the other aspects of our illness – the mental, emotional and spiritual, and that is a serious drawback. What is more, it returns us to same ol’, same ol’.
The beauty of the responsive and nurturing/supportive approach is that it gives the body-mind-spirit the time and space it needs to bring about its own healing.
A system that knows how to breathe, digest food, eliminate waste and toxins, generate energy, reproduce, think, feel, imagine, intend, grow, replicate, to mention a few of its features, must surely also have within it the intelligence and wherewithal to correct, restore and enhance itself. All it really asks is our lack of interference, interference that happens primarily in our minds through our self-sabotaging thoughts and feelings of fear, distrust, anxiety, guilt, anger and so on.
I want to make one thing clear before I finish. Drugs and artificial medications can and do help when there is belief in them. To that extent, they are a useful option for those who believe in them and rely on them whether directly or by proxy (as with children). My advice to those who choose this option is twofold:
1. Approach your illness and your health gently, lovingly and with great trust
2. Seek to heal all aspects of your being – mental, emotional, spiritual and physical
Finally, I like the metaphor of a kaleidoscope to describe the effects of illness. Depending on how we turn the kaleidoscope, a different pattern emerges. Turn it fast and hard and you are more likely to get a repeat pattern. Turn it more gently though, and you get a completely different pattern. Same content, completely different design.
So it is when we approach illness with a soft and trusting hand rather than a hard and punishing sledgehammer, when we attend to it spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically rather than mechanically. The former can take us to a whole new frequency of being on all levels of being. The latter will almost always return us to the same old level, primed and set for a repeat breakdown.
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