The Healing Power Of Illness

First it came from my gallbladder - a bitter resentment and anger, a sour taste from the past that left me queasy and worried enough to call the doctor. Then blood tests revealed glucose gone crazy - levels off the charts. Glucose, gleukos, the "sweet delightful wine," the sweet fuel of life was running rampant in my body with no place to go. The systems designed to receive it, to take it in for fuel and nourishment, wanted no part of it. They were rejecting it in stubborn defiance.

Conversations with my partner (using the couples dialogue, designed to allow hurt feelings to flow without shredding the other), revealed, I'm so angry. And the not voiced, less responsible version: You say you're there for me but you're really not. It's always been this way. And a 20-years-behind-us, Why didn't you marry me like you said you would and now here I am, alone, with little or no support when something like this happens? And feeling a hurt and an anger that I had not allowed myself to feel, turning away instead in stubborn I-don't-need-you independence.

And I remember the first time it happened - the prized pinto pony delivered to our house on my ninth birthday and a little girl's resistance to hugging her father. The details are foggy but the felt-sense is clear: I don't want to hug you because I'm mad. I'm mad at you. I don't like you. This doesn't fix everything. You're mean. I don't like you and I'll never, ever forgive you. Leave me alone.

So the shell of defiant protection was already in place and I shunted my hurt and my love to my pony and all the other horses who came after. They were my safe place - a safe place to put my longing - for connection, for merger, for love and mutual respect.

I know, I know, classic horsegirl story - horses good, men bad. Why didn't I see it before now, you might ask. Lots of reasons really. But the more insidious one is that lovely phenomenon we call spiritual bypassing. Post awakening experience(s), I still tend to reject, unconsciously, usually so quickly that I don't even notice, anything that smells like needing anything or anyone to make me feel happy and fulfilled. So when the surface level energy of I need love arises, I probably, still, tend to retract back into myself, without taking the time to listen and feel it. Old patterns die hard, like the grooves on an old record album entrenched with wear - even after you've "seen the light."

So the longing for love remains, encased in an encrusted shell of denial and protection. But I awoke this morning remembering a dream: My partner was in bed behind me, spooning me. He literally had my back. And in my less defended, still-dreamy state, I let myself feel it, let myself surrender to it, and let it soak in. And then my heart opened. The crusty encasement of hurt was gone and the power and beauty of my longing flowed through my body and my limbs and tissues and organs who said, Yes. Welcome home. 

Whiney, resisting-the-way-it-is, heart-detoured, head longing, is a trap. Full-bodied love longing is your true inheritance. You, we, long for love because love is who we are. And once the longing is set free, it doesn't need the right conditions or someone special to love, because it transcends personal love. And when it flows as Itself, It blesses everyone in Its path. But mostly It blesses the lover, who knows herself as the One love - lover and beloved. 

I am not symptom free. There are more tests scheduled and the bitter taste of anger and hate still hangs in the background, somewhat relieved but still twinging. But this morning I am open, open as love, open as longing, while writing the poem below. 

Thank you gallbladder, thank you insulin resistance, for the wake-up call, for the much-needed nudge. Thank you Life, for trying to heal me.


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Longing recognized,
is sweet.

Whole-body longing
for love and connection
aligns you with
your inescapable
humanness.

No matter where you go,
no matter what you do,
this longing follows you
like an obedient dog.

If you ignore it,
if, in your hurt
you turn away

its shadow
will drag you
into
itself

until you become
a calcified shell

dragging resentment
around
as your only
friend.

But if you can claim
your longing,
allowing the pain
of encasement
to break,

your body will open
your heart,
pouring its Light,
as a blessing,

releasing the Love
that you are

to fulfill Its Self.


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