Chronic Illness and The Spiritual Path

Philip is the Sheik for the ‘Turning’ group at Colet House in West London. He studied with Dr Francis Roles for many years. In this interview he talks about the challenges he faced when he became seriously ill with lime disease.

‘I had always previously thought that it was possible to change my attitude to any situation. With the illness, I realised that there was a stage where you couldn’t. You could have a good attitude either side of the experience, but not while you were in it. This was when the illness was deep in the brain, there was no way out until it passed and you just had to allow the experience to be what it was and if it was darkness then it was just darkness.’

I was having to assimilate the idea of illness and suffering as a gift – what looked like suffering on the physical and psychological levels could often have a transforming effect on the deeper spiritual levels, that may not be apparent to the casual observer.’

Ah! Yes.

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This video is very much like my experience with chronic illness. I’m not well yet but I’m practicing surrender just as the guy speaks about and my life is becoming lovely even while I’m still struggling and sometimes still quite ill. I’m also getting better faster than ever before. It’s an adventure this life. It really is. This man has a nuanced and lovely perspective and deeply understands the nature of illness and suffering.

Bottom line, we all have our own path. Trust yourself.

And I want to share this again:

A sacred illness is one that educates us and alters us from the inside out, provides experiences and therefore knowledge that we could not possibly achieve in any other way, and aligns us with a life path that is, ultimately, of benefit to ourselves and those around us. – Deena Metzger

Below I’m cutting and pasting the Chronic Illness page for reference. It’s always in the navigation menu at the top of the page:

Information and inspiration for the chronically ill

I added another tab for the navigation menu. Thought I’d call attention to it. This one is for folks living with chronic illnesses of all kinds. I was struck physically ill from the brain-injury and systemic insult incurred by long-term and excessive (prescribed) psychiatric drug use and the subsequent withdrawal from the drugs (iatrogenesis). Many of my symptoms are like that of all sorts of auto-immune and other long-term chronic illness. (CFS, fibromyalgia, etc)

These are articles about learning to cope with being seriously ill and also learning to heal from such illness.

This is general information and/or personal information that has been helpful to me and may or may not apply at all to any particular given individual with whatever illness you may be coping with.

The tab and the drop down menu will be permanently at the top of the page, but for ease of use for the reader I share it below as well.

These two pieces are new and link a lot of everything else together in many ways although not explicitly

This page will be updated when appropriate posts are published on the blog.

Chronic Illness

● Protracted psychiatric drug withdrawal syndrome, chronic illness, CFS, Fibromyalgia. Yeah, they all have things in common.  (NEW)

●   Living well while being sick

●   Adventures in natural pain relief

● Life as a meditation: my contemplative adventure

● Toolbox: coping with withdrawal syndrome & chronic illness…a collection of suggestions and links

● Yoga for rehab

● Multiple drug sensitivity

● Coping with and healing body pain of withdrawal & withdrawal syndromes

● Isolation when ill: collection of links and commentary dealing with the distinctive loneliness and feelings of abandonment one experiences when ill

● This is what it’s like

● What does it mean to heal?

● Karma and chronic illness

● The descent experience: metaphor for serious illness

● Challenges of Living with Invisible Pain or Illness

● Asking for help when you’re ill

● Reality is the full spectrum

● Can’t get no satisfaction

● Medical compliance? Adherence? Screw that. My MDs are my PARTNERS

● More info that may pertain to the chronically ill (diet and nutrition)

● Vulnerability and the Illusion of Control

●   Encouraging people to make healthy life supporting choices is not the same as blaming them for illness

● Yoga victory: recovery continues

see also: This is what it’s like to be chronically ill: Ken Wilber shares his experience

Being seriously physically ill can also incur trauma and lead to PTSD like issues. Having been traumatized can also make someone more likely to develop chronic illness. If you scroll down on this page the following link you will find a section on trauma and the body: Trauma infographic and links to more info too

These are additional articles that may be helpful to people with various chronic illnesses. This is general information that has been helpful to me and may or may not apply at all to any particular given individual.