The Silver Lining of Illness
Photo by Ashley Rose, Flickr.com
My best friend and teacher, Devon White, had Strep throat this past weekend. He was very sick, and wrote a post on his blog Spiral Entrepreneurs about his experience:
“The silver lining of illness is the forced shutdown of all non-essential functions. Chronically tensed muscles relax, useless thoughts turn off, conversation lacks any appeal. What remains is the simple presence of me, being. Like this, still and aware, I know exactly what needs doing and I do it, one thing at a time, only what’s necessary. Sleep. Pee. Gargle with salt water. Sleep.
“Straying from germ theory I have strong evidence that much sickness is the result of personal imbalance. So when illness strikes, I take it as the body resetting itself – getting back in balance. I take these occasional resets as opportunities to find out what really matters, not just while I am sick, but in my everyday life. They are vacations from action. Forced dormancy in which my only job is to be, to access what is most essential in my life. In the unwavering primal awareness of this state I know what things need more attention and what things need to be cut out of my life entirely. As sickness fades and my abilities come online, I turn my new awareness into action creating deep congruency throughout my life – cutting what no longer suits and putting extra attention on what does.”
When I read this I thought it was a beautiful piece of writing and a poignant message. This feeling Devon talks about – the “just being” – is to me the unexpected magic of having a fever. It forces you to operate from a place where you just are…in the moment. With MS, strange and disturbing symptoms and loss of functions often create the opposite sort of being – rather than being in the moment, we often end up in the future, in the next ten minutes, or the next day, or ten years from now, worrying what our abilities will be and how we’ll make it through a simple trip to the grocery store or successfully raising our children. Or we attend to the abilities we once had in the past, how carefree and healthy we once felt.
If I could be so bold to say, I think all of us with MS would benefit from the occasional fever – a few extra degrees to singe our constant anxiety about the future, or fixation on the past, and instead be here, now, and ask ourselves questions like: What’s essential? What’s causing imbalance and needs to be cut? How does it feel to be in the simple presence of me, being?
How can you take the lessons learned from this way of being and put them into action so that your life is more deeply a fit for you and what you want?
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