Sickness Re-Visited
After the last Bull’s Eye - where I shared some questions about the
way we presume that sickness is always about something we have been
doing ‘wrong’ – I already had in mind the title of this follow-up.
Little did I know my extraordinary abilities - either to manifest, or to
predict – because this month our family did indeed revisit sickness. We
once again had a baby rushed to hospital, this time for an emergency
lumbar puncture, while the toddler contracted chicken pox. More
opportunities to expand my thinking around the purpose of illness and
how to create a new way of handling it!
Last time we covered this simple, but hard-hitting logic given in
someone’s reading:
• If you call something ‘wrong’ or a punishment for doing something
wrong, you cannot also be truly grateful for it (unless perhaps you are
into celestial sado-masochism :)
• Until you are grateful for something, you cannot receive the fullness
of its gift.
• Therefore, while you are still calling something wrong, you can’t
experience the fullness of the gift that it brings
So, if we still see sickness as necessarily some sort of correction from
the universe, we will not be fully open to all the possibilities and
shifts that it can bring. That’s because we will still be interpreting
the sickness (or accident or injury) from within a consciousness of
punishment, which is rather a narrow and murky pair of specs through
which to be looking at the world.
So if sickness isn’t a correction from spirit when we ‘stray from our
path’, then what exactly is its purpose? In a universal sense the
function of sickness, like everything else in existence, is to move us
closer to our real joy, thereby expanding our own vibration and
simultaneously the vibration of All That Is (it always looks more grand
in capital letters!).
The translation of that into your personal life is very simply that
sickness can mean a whole variety of things for you, depending on the
space you are in. I have come across these explanations of illness in
recent readings and I bet you what it cost to keep Daniel in ICU for a
week (i.e. a whole lot) that there as many more meanings to sickness as
there are people and contexts:
• Sickness as the body’s way of allowing a shift into a higher vibration
(I have noticed that many people get sick, and sometimes very sick,
around major personal transitions. Like your computer, your body needs
downtime to upload new software)
• Sickness in groups as a communal response to current global energies
(In the last few months there has been a surge of illness around as a
group response to the energy of integration that surrounds us at the
moment. In other words, the sickness you experienced may not have been
all about you personally, but more about your group identity).
• Sickness as the body’s way of directing your path somewhere new
• Sickness as the body’s way of opening you to deeper experiences of
compassion, joy, truth, courage etc.
It may seem that this last possibility is really the same as saying you
have not been compassionate enough, joyful enough, truthful enough, but
it is vastly different! Consider your response to the following two
sentences:
‘Hi, this is your body speaking, not doing very well on Truth, are you?
Here’s some laryngitis for you. Now go to your room and think about
being truthful.’
‘Hi love, this is your body speaking. Thanks for the chocolate cake and
carrots last night, just what I felt like. I see that you’re keen to
develop Truth. Cool! How can I help? How about a few days off with a
chance to focus on your throat?
Which one is likely to get you on the side of your body as opposed to
fighting it? Which one is likely to open your heart, relax into the
situation and go where your body is leading you? There may be only a
semantic difference between the two statements ‘your sickness is showing
you that you are not being truthful and ‘your sickness is encouraging
you to be truthful’, but the difference in impact is huge.
Here’s a letter from a client in response to last months’ Bull’s Eye:
"Morning Angela,
I read your news letter in connection to "A healthy approach to being
sick".
I would like to say, that I totally agree with your path of thinking. I
have been thinking in that line for a long time now. I was diagnosed
with breast cancer, with metastasis to the bone seven yrs ago. I had
chemo, radiation and a mastectomy. I also had a total hysterectomy as
prevention so that the oestrogen did not feed the cancer. I have been on
treatment for the bone with iv, called Zometa, which is a biophosphante
medicine, and in turn I got osteonecrosis of the jaw, which is a side
effect only discovered the last two yrs. To cut a long story short, I
have coped very well, and am well.
I believe that I have been a spiritual person from a toddler, because I
remember what I used to feel. I have read Louise Hay and Carolyne Myss,
books, and in the begining took all that to heart, but a few years down
the line it just did not agree with me. The fact that it did not agree
with me, I put it down to that I needed that, because it made me feel
better, that I was not doing anything wrong. I felt the so far I have
always worked for the best to elavate myself and those around me, and
what ever I have chosen to do, is exactly that, so how can it be wrong
when I clearly knew what I was doing. The worst thing that I still need
to deal with, is when people that have read these kind of books, are
quick to say you need to change .... so that you can fix this ailment.
Hog wash I want to say, how deep do you really know me, and what do you
know what I want to fix or not, or whether I am trying or not. I in
these circumstances sometimes choose to be quiet, because I just watch,
and think it is easier said than done, because these same people that
tell me what to do at the end of the line, have to deal with their own
cross that they carry.
So basically, my defence lately has been, "saints have not had it easy,
why should I be different?".
I am gratefull, that my life has kept me on the path of enlightment. I
grow and learn everyday, and I realise that I am climbing the ladder,
and that I love myself more everyday on a physical, emotional and
spiritual level.
Thank you."
Christina’s brave and profound view is that her illness has allowed her
to love herself more - it is not cosmic karma or punishment. Not only
does that view resonate with me on a deep philosophical level, the
practical implications are fantastic! You will be far more empowered and
eager to deal with sickness if you believe that it is assisting you to
reach your full joy, than if you believe it is some form of necessary
but unpleasant correction.
Next time you get ill, I suggest the following. Instead of immediately
wondering where you have gone wrong, stop and do the following:
1. Say thanks to your body for the communication (tough one I know)
2. With an open heart and mind (saying thank you first will ensure that)
ask ‘What is it that this sickness ALLOWS for me?’ That is a far more
useful question than asking what the sickness ‘means’ (after all we are
the creators of our own meaning). Keep that question alive in your mind
for some time and listen to where your body is urging you to go, even if
that is to bed!
If you respond in this gentle, non-judging way you will have turned your
sickness into wellness, no matter how long the symptoms persist.
December 2007
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