My credo: three healing tenets to assist in the overcoming of ulcerative colitis
I have been recently asked to select and consolidate my main approach to healing and overcoming ulcerative colitis. Though I would not describe my journey as simple and direct, I have sometimes likened it to a labyrinth, sometimes to an ever shifting-spiral staircase where progress meets with crisis before crisis is overcome and the thread of progress can be picked up again.
Still, I would suggest to myself that there have been three aspects or tenets that I have relied upon, that have assisted me in my journey.
1st tenet: The healing question and answering the questions that can change your life
“Es handelt sich darum, alles zu leben. Wenn man die Fragen lebt, lebt man vielleicht allmählich ohne es zu merken, eines fremden Tages in die Antworten hinein. (It is a question of living everything. If you live the questions, you may live gradually, without even realizing it, one day into the answers.)”
The German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in his Letters to a Young Poet that one ‘must live the questions’.
For me, illnesses are not forms of punishment but rather our body’s way of warning us, of questioning us, querying us, of indicating a deeper hurt or buried emotional misinterpretation.
To overcome an illness, one must ask for the reason of the illness. Our bodies are built up of organs but I believe each organ not only functions to support the maintenance of our physical well-being but our emotional and psychological as well as spiritual ones as well. The body gives us cues to our emotional and psychical imbalances.
Though I cannot speak for sufferers of other diseases, I learned early on about the colon in the map of the abdominal brain of Traditional Chinese Medicine and how it represents the negative emotions of ‘worry’ and ‘anger’ along with ‘fear’ and ‘sadness’.
While in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, I worked with an allopathic doctor who delved into further alternative approaches. Upon his wall, there hung an interesting poster. It showed the abdominal brain but there, upon this poster were words I had not yet encountered at the time, words associated with the colon. Things like ‘mercy’, ‘compassion’, ‘self-worth’ and ‘self-mercy’.
This added a new dimension to my healing approach, one where I had to asked myself not only if I was angry but was I also not kind enough to myself. Do I lack compassion? Do I lack self-worth?
Additionally, one must question the circumstances surrounding the evolution of the illness. What was going on at the time when the illness appeared? Were there warning signs? How do I benefit from the illness? What does it offer my life? What is it telling me about myself?
Again, we are not victims of illnesses; the illness is an indication of our ignored depths and buried hurts. We become ill and turn to medicine. In a sense, we all-too-often become oblivious bystanders of our own bodies, as well as our own emotional well-being, being rarely involved with ourselves.
Even when ill, people treat themselves like distant objects. We must arrive inside our bodies and this means questioning absolutely everything and arriving at the hardest and harshest answers for the sake of healing. The illness makes our lives naked and we must embrace this self-nudity, self-revelation in order to truly see ourselves.
We must examine ourselves and this means questioning everything. To see the falsehoods we have fabricated and deluded ourselves with, the truths in need of being unearthed through our ever kind and patient handling of ourselves… this is what we must strive for. Taken together this means also revealing things we may not like. For the sake of wholeness, the questions will reveal darker and uglier shadows and our egos will be offended. But questions are essential. One must put the ego aside for the sake of the self.
2nd Tenet: Retrieving the Self by shifting our attitudes
“The formula that describes the states of the self when despair is completely rooted out is this: in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it.”
The right healing questions can often motivate a shift in perspective or attitude. When we ask questions like Why am I angry? How do I benefit from the illness? Do I want to suffer? What happened at the time of the illness’ emergence? and so forth we are presented with opportunities to see ourselves.
This shift typically includes a revaluation of who we are.
Identity, unfortunately becomes a large part of being sick. The sick person forgets their life before the illness and to a certain extent, accepts their lot because the illness is considered ‘hereditary’ or ‘without a known cause’.
The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote about the concept of mauvaise foi (translated into English as ‘bad faith’). This idea describes the state of an individual living in self-deception due to their adoption of foreign and false values to avoid their true freedom and become authentic.
In his book, Being and Nothingness, Sartre describes a man who when working as a waiter adopts the persona of the waiter instead of acknowledging his existences as someone free, especially of a role.
Often times I read about ulcerative colitis sufferers being ‘proud’ of their condition. This means their identity has been consumed by the illness and their own self is weak and yet to reconcile with itself.
For shamans, to heal an invalid, they had to retrieve the lost self of the suffering soul.
I believe ulcerative colitis sufferers not only endure the pain of their illness but the pain of their lost identity. Reclaiming the self includes therapy work, hypnotherapy, and past life regression therapy. I understand many people do not believe in reincarnation but the idea behind such therapy is treat the narratives within us as healing ones, as offering perspective on our own self. To heal, we must be open to all possibilities.
The more we explore who we are and understand that the disease manifested itself under our watch, that we are responsible for our bodies, the more likely we will correct our perceptions.
The change in attitude stems from this exploration as much as the questioning leads to a retrieving. I know that I myself presided over my being through periods of a lost self. But living through the healing questions I retrieved myself yet this retrieval would not have been successful without a change in attitude, in other words, providing an emotional and mental venue within my own being in which to welcome this change.
When sick, part of healing involves this need for the homecoming of the self, the whole psyche that embodies and helps inspire wholeness in the body.
3rd Tenet: Forgiveness and letting go
“‘If you think someone has done you wrong, you must forgive and forget. We have no right to punish others. And you will know the joy of forgiveness.’”
I personally find the word ‘forgiveness’ an overused word. It belongs in such platitudes as ‘forgive and forget’, in a multitude of pop songs while at the same time being seemingly difficult to penetrate if we break down the two basic parts of its makeup: ‘for’ and ‘give’. Both parts alone offer little meaning. One wonders how our language managed to plop these two words down together.
This is why I find the Greek word aphiemi (ἀφίημι) from the New Testament more approachable. In addition to meaning ‘forgive’ the word has depths suggesting ‘to let go’, ‘to abandon’, ‘to keep no longer’, among other definitions that arrives closer at my personal philosophy of forgiveness.
The breakdown of the word also makes far more sense to me. ‘Apo’ — the prefix for separation, ‘of putting distance between something and another’ while ‘hiemi’ means ‘to put in motion.’
From the perspective of the Greek translation of forgiveness, there is the idea of lifting the burden of something, and placing distance between one’s self and this thing or person.
Forgiveness, however, provides an example of what philosopher Andrew Morton calls a ‘linkage.’ There is a link between two individuals. The forgiver is the one who has long held and harbored the emotions of resentment while the one-to-be-forgiven will be typically the type to possess ‘abasement- or repentance-like emotions.’ When both individuals strive to replace such emotions with those of a reconciliatory nature, a state of forgiveness will ensue.
The forgiver is also typically the sufferer. The sufferer must let go and ‘forgive’, send away the negative emotions but this means understanding the perspective of the individual who abases and abuses.
I have found that by trying to under the mindset of another can yield compassion and compassion provides the emotional and mental state of the body with strength. When we forgive we give ourselves permission to understand the other and to see that we are never innocent, we are never victims of others, that we participate in roles in our lives and to be closer to our true selves is a gift and forgiving, in the Anglo-Saxon sense is a gift of letting go.
The tenets in summary
The path to overcoming is about self-awareness and body-awareness and how the body mirrors the self, the self the body.
I admit, it would be easier to believe we live our lives and the body is a mere vehicle. Once, I wanted to believe this.
But no, the body literally embodies the self and guides our essence through existence. To be ill, one must know they are living in a place of disconnect. To connect with our self allows for the further connection with our body.
Questionings ourselves, our histories, discovering the self and forgiving have contributed to my overall well being to the point I don’t rely on medication.
However, for those that intend to explore to my tenets, I advise that they be executed under a supportive doctor’s watch (and I would like to stress this here, this applies to all my entries on Medium).
Looking back, I realize the path, the labyrinth that I took has been fraught with frightening experiences. To achieve health and well-being one must find support. This too is essential and should not be forsaken. The care of the body is the care of the self.
“Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering.”