YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE
An interesting fact: Did you know that we can change our biochemistry by changing our state of being? Literally, we can equally make ourselves ill or heal ourselves depending on our mood, disposition, outlook, and frame of mind.
This might sound “New Agey”, but take a moment to think and you will find it is nothing of the sort. Notice that when you are happy and excited about life in general, your aches and pains seem distant and less bothersome. When you are engaged in a meaningful task, like happily looking after a baby, your aches seem to recede to the background. Your headache, which sometimes transforms into a debilitating migraine will be bearable. That is, if it does not fade away all together.
If you feel put out, stressed and bothered when someone comes to your door, the simple act of being grumpy and agitated, gives your migraine a place to manifest and fester. Your aches and pains will show themselves with a vengeance. If you believe that being angry all the time does not affect your health you are deluding yourself.
We are in, actual fact, more in control of what we allow to take root in our bodies than we, or the medical establishment gives us credit for. I am not saying that there are external and mitigating factors such as trauma, environmental toxins, or actual microbes which can gravely affect the body. I am saying that the extent to which these things can disrupt our natural homeostasis is in direct correlation to our ability to stay in a state of calm, and allow our body to do what it does best: heal.
Part of accepting the fact that you can heal yourself, is accepting the fact that, you are the direct cause of much of your suffering. Of course there is natural law that states that we only have a certain number of years on the planet, and people do fall ill. However, let us think about who is actually suffering when a child, or sickly person of advanced age, succumbs to illness. Or, who is it that that signs paperwork that allows a dying child or elderly person to be resuscitated over and over. We batter failing bodies, destining them to a lifetime of suffering or months more on a machine in pain. It is us who cannot let go, we are trying to avoid our own pain not prevent suffering in those who have already let go.
We are so scared of death and pain in any form, that the fear of these things permeates our daily life. We see what we fear around every corner. What we don’t realize is that avoidance or total focus on our fears, call those exact situations into being. This is so that we can face the fear and overcome or give in to it. Most drug and alcohol addicts are so scared of the pain and discomfort of sobering up that they run around in more suffering from anxiety of getting the next fix than they actually go through in the process of getting clean.
The truth is we are so scared of the truth of who we are as human beings that we will do almost anything to shine a light elsewhere. Whether it is sickness, addiction, blame, pain, our children, lack of time, we will go to almost any length to hide the truth from ourselves and others. By doing this we remain in a place where all we can cultivate for ourselves is suffering. In this state we create chaos, which breeds illness in body and mind.
I used to live in constant pain because of actual physical injuries. I was sure that the only ‘Band-Aid’ was medication for my injuries, mental and physical. I was also convinced that there was no way, absolutely no way, that my broken leg, wrist, pelvis, and ribs would improve at my age. I was 34 at the time and I thought that the road was only downhill. Three years after I leapt out of a third story window, having had a devastating experience with post-partum depression, I knew that life was not going to get better. Of course every year I got worse and required increasing levels of medication. It was only when I came to peace with the fact that I was going to have some pain for the rest of my life, did things turn around.
My pain today, is less than it usually was before I injured myself 6 years ago. I am taking less medication than I have in the past 20 years. All of this came about because of a shift in my attitude about pain and suffering, mental and physical. It surely is not easy to come to this place. I had to accept and take responsibility for the fact that I was, in fact creating my reality, and only I had the power to change it. Whether the pain is actually less or I just don’t notice it as much because I am not focused on it, there is no definitive way to tell. I simply know that my life does not revolve around pain. My life is fabulous and it is my responsibility to keep it that way. I know that I do not wake up fearing the day and what it is to bring. I no longer lie awake at night in a state of perpetual anxiety. Whatever there is in store for me it can hardly be worse than what I have already been through in my life. If it is, then there is some lesson urgent enough to really take a major upheaval I still have to learn therefore I welcome the opportunity to grow.
This change in my outlook, and view of self, has improved my physical and mental health to a place I thought was outside of my reach. Being able to recognize what comes my way as a gift and not punishment, has reduced my suffering to a point where what I do is, notice any pain. I am able to observe it, and try to work out what that pain is telling me. I look at it from the position of the observer rather from the position of someone suffering because of or due to something. I do not indulge the pain. Then I take action or not depending on the situation. Illness and pain are simply signals to shed light on an issue. The more one realizes this fact, the less any pain or illness can take a hold of your consciousness and take permanent root in your body. “Amor Fati” “love your fate”.
Artwork titled “Tentacles of our Mind” painted by blog author Nonaine Levy
