Blessings In Disguise

Dr. Rita Louise
copyright 2004, excepted from Avoiding the Cosmic 2x4

"Pain (any pain; emotional, physical, mental) has a message. The information it has about our life can be remarkably specific. Once we get the pain’s message, and follow its advice, the pain goes away.”

~ Peter McWilliams

When we think about creating and maintaining health, we typically only think about the physical part of our make-up. Little attention is paid to our thoughts, feelings and emotions even though they are intimately connected to the state of our health and well-being.

Western medicine has only recently begun to appreciate the impact our thoughts and emotions have on our health and has started to investigate the link between the mind and the manifestation of disease in the body. Their work has led them to identify a number of reasons why people get sick. For some, illness and disease is a way in which individuals express unresolved distress and trauma. For others, getting sick may actually provide the person some kind of benefit, even if the benefit is based on an unhealthy belief.

Other reasons people get sick: it may provide them with an excuse to not meet up to high expectations; it may provide them with a way of expressing inner mental or emotional conflicts; it may help them, in a roundabout way, to solve a problem. Disease may also be used to punish ourselves, receive attention from others or find incentive to manifest internal changes or modify unwanted habits.

There are a growing number of skilled observers who believe that issues such as diabetes, cancer or heart disease only represent a symptom of a larger pattern of disorder and disharmony within the body. Renee Weber, Ph.D., expressed the cause of disease in this way: “The primary cause of disease is the disconnectedness from the flow and rhythm of the whole, both within the single organism and also among groups of organisms.” 

Disease can be seen as the manifestation of some undesirable condition within us that has been brought into physical form so it can be dealt with and eliminated. It can be thought of as a reflection of the conflict between our inner state and outer existence or as our soul trying to get our attention. It works to let us know that our true self is being thwarted or that we are being pulled in two directions at once. It is also being brought about by our habitual or limiting thoughts as well as all our negative feelings and emotions.

When we experience physical, emotional and even mental discomfort, our bodies are saying to us “Excuse me, there is something wrong, I’m imbalanced and I want to move back into wholeness.” When we experience pain, illness and disease, on the other hand, it is our body’s way of saying to us, “HEY! I have something I want you to pay attention to. I’ve been trying to get you to notice me for months. Now you HAVE to acknowledge me.”