“I think one must finally take one’s life in one’s arms”
– Arthur Miller, After the Fall
Every day, people from all parts of the world email me this question: “What is the one thing, the one treatment, the one clinic that gets people well?” One treatment? One clinic? Stumped, I don’t have an answer for them. Lyme Disease has the shady reputation of being the trendy-modern illness du-jour but it is by no means solved by today’s modern-quick-fix-get-right-to-it methods. NO WAY! It’s a journey with no end date for most.
But this “ONE thing” question sends me into my own philosophical tail spin. How do we help people that are long suffering to stay the course? How do we teach patients to borrow more time from their spirits when they have been sick longer than the world’s tolerance for sick days? What tools do I give to these clients and their families?
The questions from patients keep coming. I feel inadequate knowing that most mundane answers will only quell their desperation momentarily. My compassion for their circumstances comes from having been in their shoes; I fully grasp the torment of chasing wellness. It only makes sense that those who aren’t well want to know when they will be better; they want end-date, an exit strategy, a plan! But what if their need for the answer is part of the problem? What if the real way out is to not have a way out? I know what you’re thinking, “NO WAY OUT? ARE YOU CRAZY I’D RATHER DIE!”
But stay with me if you will. Correct me if I am wrong, but you might have 20+ doctors on rotation. You dart from one protocol to the next not knowing if one is working. You take pills, supplements, meds with no sense of order. You can’t organize it all. You are on 6 different protocols and you just went to see a special new doctor that gave you a special new protocol that’s really going to fix it. But you haven’t even started this yet, because you don’t have the energy to order anything on it and a few of the items kind of scare you. You need to research those new items but you’re too exhausted from doing the first 6 protocols and you have an appointment for an IV in 20 minutes that you aren’t even dressed for. Sound familiar? If so, you are like many of us. You’re wandering around in a gigantic kitchen acting like an exhausted Executive Chef with no Sous Chef to back you up. A health advocate/coach, a case manager, a family member can help you make order of it all, but making order is not the ultimate answer.
My observation is this–what gets us into this mess, is that we want the ONE magic solution that clicks us back to the way we were before this. This frantic search for getting better quickly creates a chaos that has us lost in a dark room. Don’t misunderstand me…you should continue to unpack your case, dedicate to the journey ahead. Commit to all of the things that you need in order to handle getting well: find the right care; make your supplement packs; learn how to muscle test; hire an advocate/a coach; find the next doctor that’s going to help you uncover the next puzzle piece and be your best detective. But, while you do all this, give up fixing yourself, throw away the cure, instead dedicate to your marathon of healing. Trust that the transformed you will be better than the way you were before.
I remember the day I made this silent pact with the universe. I fully accepted that there may never be a “cure” and fully gave way to the path ahead. I decided to give in to what being unwell meant for me. Instead of trying to get out of it, I dedicated to being IN IT fully. I agreed to nurture my illness like a sick child, with whatever it took. This allowed me the ability to surrender, to welcome in a paradigm shift and transform me into wellness. This is the only ONE thing that I can recommend from where I stand. I have observed, for myself and many others that the continued work toward getting well becomes the goal and fixing the problem becomes irrelevant.
So…do the work you need to do to set all this up, then turn it over to those you trust and sit back. Let the universe know that you’re ready for the ride… Give up the ONE thing, but rather surrender to one day, one month, one year, one lifetime, of true healing. I’ve seen it time and time again with clients when they finally connect to that moment of surrender, they begin to ride the tumultuous waves of wellness into their authentic lives…only then do they become fully well.
