Tuesday 05 | 09| 2017

Sick, Alone, Forgot

It has been only a little more than a week after the “miracle” blog where I ended that blog saying we often forget about our spiritual nature. The whole moving experience pushed me past exhaustion and this was followed by bronchitis on the edge of pneumonia. Bedridden, alone, and disconnected from everything that made me feel whole; I just wanted to get past this disease state. It became the focus of everything and all else was forgotten. The 2016 movie “Miracles from Heaven”, with Jennifer Garner and Kylie Rogers, paints a heartfelt representation of how illness taxes both faith and relationships. When illness becomes the focus the focal point is on the physical. As the focus, illness also leaves one feeling desperately alone as there is nothing to grasp onto when every day, every interaction, is consumed by illness. Trying to find a path of healing from the disease today is filled with discussions focused on the physical. “Get lots of rest and drink plenty of fluids”. With a gallon of fluids and bedridden I was disconnected from my social network, from my work, and from the hobbies that added pleasure. In addition, my partner left every morning for work and returned at the end of the day tired. I felt a deep loneliness that was frightening to look at and so, bedridden, I stared into the TV so I wouldn’t have to look at what I saw in the mirror. Facing this illness, in combination with Parkinson’s, led to a desperate desire to find relief - from anywhere possible. Alcohol is such an easily obtainable source of relief, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) my body hates it. Then there are painkillers. Yes, they do provide relief (a false one) but there is a heavy price to pay. One I just couldn’t afford. The fact that I was even contemplating using either one of these suggested that I had assumed the moniker of disease and forgotten who I was. I had labelled myself. The only college human service class I ever flunked had to do with diagnostic labels for mental health. Working in the ER, providers would say, “I’m going to see the schizophrenic and room 2” and on the television show “Homeland” the actors stated that the main character “is bipolar”. I didn’t believe in labels back then and over the course of my professional career I have never seen labels do more good than harm. Diligent symptomatic descriptions attached to positive focused well being treatment that is mutually discovered served those in need much better than labels. This holistic discovery process always involved the healing relationship, which is the antithesis of labels with the focus on disease. But, bedridden, muscles not working, breath not working, in pain, and disconnected from all that provided meaning to my existence, I simply forgot. Other Dr. C. blogs talk about getting lost, taking the wrong fork in the road. Life is filled with distractions that pull us down that other path, but disease is more than a distraction, more than just a fork in the road. It is a path that must be faced for wellness to occur. Wellness is more than “getting well”. It is a general state of being, a state where life has meaning, purpose, and connectedness to family and society. Wellness is also a sacred state of being, applying the word sacred within whatever context the individual would use the word sacred. Holding a life, each and every day, as something sacred is not easy to do. In the face of bedridden disease, physical focused treatment filling the discourse of all those around you, it is easy to feel desperately alone and to forget the sacred. So many people are struggling with disease and loneliness. There is research to support the holistic path of sacred wellness described here. There is also an ancient lineage of healer training. As I sit here bedridden, typing this blog, I am shifting from “sick, alone, and forgetting” with its disease label, shifting to the wellness path. It is a sacred one where everything in the path is viewed as having a sacred purpose. It’s not a heavy-handed view, filled with any sense of righteousness. It is a view light of step, and gentle of heart because applying any other view to self-healing is not wellness. In all honesty, I can be quite hard on myself. I forget sometimes and hear those “old parental voices” especially when alone and dealing with illness. I had forgotten that it is all, every day of it, a sacred journey. I had forgotten, my true self. .. .