Sick Leave
Miracles are nature unimpeded. Seth, Jane Roberts
That last newsletter was prophetic for me. By Friday night, flu-like symptoms were setting the stage for the gift of ill health, right in my own body/mind. So, if anyone wondered if those who espouse the mind-body approach to health get sick, the answer is, "Yes, and we feel miserable, just like everyone else does."
As I writhed sleeplessly in my "bed of pain" Sunday night, I reflected on what difference using the mind-body approach makes to me when I'm suffering from the flu or a cold. I felt physically and mentally wretched and didn't seem have any mind-over-body capacity available to do anything to change that. What is different about how I do ill health, then?
The main difference is that I don't ever think illness "just happens," which means I always look for the message any illness or injury brings. In chronic illness, becoming aware of such messages is the key to healing. In any case, they are always the key to accepting the gift of ill health.
Does that mean I think I "wished myself sick" or otherwise made myself sick? I'd phrase it this way: in this particular case, it appears that I needed to take some time to rest, reflect, and regain my mental balance, but I felt it was impossible to give myself that luxury. Getting sick allows me -- more or less forces me -- to accommodate a pressing, but denied, internal need to stop all my doing and regroup.
Looking back over the past month or so, I notice I was feeling increasingly anxious about whether my business transition was progressing quickly enough. I was also feeling isolated, driven, pressured, and overwhelmed. I didn't think there was "enough time" to do everything that seemed to need to be done. In other words, I was all cranked up in an anxious direction that wasn't doing the mothership any good.
Didn't I, Ms. Mind-Body Health, recognize that I was off balance? Yes, but I kept trying to keep going anyway -- in the belief system that was driving my imbalance, there was no time to lose! I'd notice I was feeling crazy, do just enough mental work to move back from the fearful edge a bit (each time feeling annoyed with myself for succumbing to this distracting anxiety) then start hurrying and worrying again.
Therefore, one gift this ill health brought me was 24 hours of cathartic black depression when I dragged every worst-case scenario out of the mental dungeons, dressed them all up, and imagined having to plan my life around them. I call that cleaning the sewers. It's not the kind of work most of us volunteer for, but it suited my sick state of mind perfectly.
The next gift came when I phoned a friend who brought me food, treats, diversions, and a willingness to listen my parade of misery and to laugh at it with me. We discussed what kind of car a homeless person with three cats could live in most comfortably. Then she participated in helping me think more sanely about dealing with the demands of my transition.
The next day, as I soaked up the morning sun with my cats, still feeling afflicted, a thought entered my mind about a previous successful career transition that had come about because of an impulsive conversation with a stranger. That led to another and another such thought, until I got up and made a two-page list of these "miracles" -- things that others might call "coincidences" or "accidents" or "luck" or "crazy ideas." As I made the list, I noticed that I had experienced anxiety during every transition I’d ever made, yet they all had worked out well. For an hour or so I marinated in the health-promoting notion that life provides a limitless bounty of gifts that act as underpinnings to our leaps of faith, especially if we aren't rushing around so frantically that we don't stop to accept them or if we aren’t so anxious that we abandon them before they’ve had a chance to finish unfolding.
Did that mean I was then "all better," ready to stop coughing and take on the world? No, "hurry up and get well" isn't part of this gift of ill health. I may have other things to think about, other reassuring everyday miracles to contemplate. In the meantime, I need to find another box of tissues for my runny nose.
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