As I have been dealing with some health issues over the past couple months, I find myself asking many questions to find out what is going on. This is a similar predicament most folks have dealt with, especially with Lyme disease.
Am I eating the wrong foods? Am I not exercising enough? Am I not processing my stress? Do I have parasites?
This leads to the way many of us have felt at times when our health is poor and trying to figure out why we are sick. Whether we have a disease or not, there are a multitude of influences on our bodies and minds, every second of every day, that effect how we feel.
There is our immediate environment and weather, the food and drink we have consumed, and our social interactions with friends, family, and strangers. If we have exercised or not, have creative pursuits, and are engaged in fulfilling sex. There is our mental outlook, as well as physical complications of trauma and weakness affecting us all. The sun, moon, and stars are shining down upon us (or not) and change how we feel. Electro-magnetic frequencies influence our being, along with microbiological entities. We are made by genetic information passed down for generations, that teach us how to interact with the world and its pressures. With the complex nature of our health and the influences around us, these quandaries can be a gift.
As Stephen Buhner writes, “Illness has a great many functions. It teaches us to be aware, to know ourselves, to understand how the world around us affects us each minute of our lives. It teaches us how to alter the fabric of our lives in order to become whole again… and how to remain that way. Illness also teaches us about the darkness that each one of us must face sometime during our lives. In the process, we learn how to enter the darkness and endure its touch. We learn about the territory of illness, the depths of depression that often accompany it, and struggle to face our own mortality. We acquire, often slowly and with great resistance, the qualities of character necessary to survive the journey.”
To find our illness as a blessing and a gift, is part of the process of healing, and learning about ourselves and the world around us. May we grow from these struggles and challenges, with wisdom and compassion.
With all my best,
Thank you for reading.
Timothy Lee Scott 