Don’t worry – I am not one of those muscle tigers who believe that you need to go against the messages that your body sends you to stop, so that you can brag about the foolishness of self-inflicted physical pain while you show off a beautiful but hurting body.
On the contrary.
One thing I have learnt over the years is that it is essential to listen to my body – not just in terms of the limits of exercising, but also in terms of the diet I follow to ensure a healthy body.
There is also another very important reason for listening to your body.
Kahlil Gibran said, “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding…Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity. For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen…”
What does this mean? Why would you choose pain?
This all relates to healing and becoming One, which is the focus (both consciously and unconsciously) of our existence.
I have learnt from one of the greatest healers of contemporary times that there are three main causes of dis-ease. The first is poisoning, which for example includes ingesting poison, or eating unhealthy food that was grown with pesticides. This accounts for around 5% of dis-ease. Another 5% of dis-ease is caused by incidents such as a car accident or falling off a ladder or an injury during birth that nobody notices – where the incident happens suddenly and there are physical consequences.
The other 90% of dis-ease is caused by what we believe. These beliefs are expressed in our bodies.
Where do the beliefs come from?
During our first seven years on earth, we are like sponges. We take in everything that we are told and that we experience, without discrimination. If your mother believes that you will get a cold from wet hair, then you believe that, without questioning the logic. Then you oblige at times during your physical your life by associating your cold with wet hair rather than with a virus or stress taking its toll on your body.
If you believe that your grandmother and mother both had cancer at a certain age, you approach that age with trepidation because you believe that you are next and you will, like them, not survive it. The concept of me-age 40-cancer-death is firmly planted in you, and your body hears that and obliges. What if they got cancer because of their lifestyle, and they had no idea how to fix the problems? What if you are in a position to see the symptoms, deal with the cause and live a long and healthy life?
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” If you can get to the bottom of the reason for your physical dis-ease, then you can change the reason and there is no longer a need for the physical dis-ease.
I had a client who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The treatment went well but slow, and it reached a plateau. I asked him to imagine that he was a seven-year-old boy who came home from school, bursting with news of his achievement, and wanting to tell his dad the good news. In this imaginary situation I asked him to see his dad putting down his newspaper, listening attentively to him, and praising him for his achievement while looking at him with pride.
The client said it was hard to imagine that scenario, because his memories are the complete opposite.
We kept working on this during the session until the client accepted that the image was not a trip down memory lane, but pure imagination. He managed that.
This was the key to him recovering and regaining full health (which was proven by blood tests), as he put it, not to 100% but to 110%.
Can we now say his multiple sclerosis was self-inflicted? Nobody would do that to himself. He had a concept of being unloved – even though he has been in love with his wife since his teenage years, and happily married to her for most of his life.
On a metaphysical level “…It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity. For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen…”
Our bodily dis-ease is merely a means of expressing the concepts that we obtained somewhere on our path, and that makes us ill until we change the cause.
Once we have suffered from these thoughts (both conscious and unconscious) and we regain our health, we have so much reason for gratitude, and for eliminating the things that our bodies rebel against.
Isn’t this design an amazing reason for gratitude?
Namaste
