Illness may become part of our identity. The process of illness often starts with an inherited predisposition to be ill. Each family constellation (lineage) brings with it myriad possibilities of illness; those attributed to patterns inherited (miasmic and genetic) and those that we contract from outside influences.
The voices of illness
Within us, we have several inner parts–they all have a voice and are part of who we are. The gradual build-up of an illness from vague aches and pains goes unnoticed until there is a full-fledged pathology–this is often heralded by how we speak and what we say. Those around us may recall the gradual development of the complaint over time, but the victim often not.
If we are able to change these parts of us and place them in their correct order within our being, we then begin the process of psychoneuroimmunology. That is, by changing our state (pathophysiology – unease with our chemistry) through changing our consciousness; by being mindful (H), attentive (A), aware (V), and able to notice (M) the subtle almost imperceptible clues. The body always displays information for us.
From bottom to top, we are a hierarchical system. We create illness from a seed – a tiny moment, a drop in time, and then grow the seed into full bloom. Looking at the root cause can ‘dig up’ the original seed and change the outcome.
We may inherit the ‘seed’ material from our ancestors, and this may influence us, even if this is a vague notion that you come from a sickly lot on one side of the family. This seed is an inherited pattern of discontent, although it may be played out in many differing forms.
If we use the metaphor of our body as if it were a house, we can get to the heart of the matter, and describe metaphorically something that physiologically is difficult to describe. Your physical body can be looked at as if it were a house, within which you live. In this house are floors or levels, which represent your memory, physiology, actions, and thoughts.
The being of illness
We contain our inherited tendencies, or ‘seed’ material down in the unconscious; the base(ment) of us. These are often hidden away but can germinate, with the right triggers–the epigenesis of negative code. We also store our neurological, psychic history in the fabric (material self) of our tissues; again unseen.
These seeds of discontent begin to grow–they resonate. Given time they germinate, altering our physiology and sense of wellbeing. Our biochemistry becomes the second part of our system to be affected.
Altered physiology changes the instinctual or mammalian part of us, altering how we move and act in our lives. Altered chemistry alters our neurotransmitters and the way we feel and initiate movement. When we feel good, we act well. When feeling bad, we lack the dynamic of positive action. Our habits, behaviour, and speech start to look as if we are ill.
“I can’t do this. I can’t walk, swim, go out, as I am sick. .”
When unable to change or act with competency due to the pains of our joints and muscles, we begin to form and create beliefs. ‘I believe I have so and so.” When we name something, we create a belief. Beliefs may mark or create limitations in our human consciousness and dictate down into the hierarchy of ourselves, like a closed loop system. This is an endless loop that we may become held in.
As we live a life such as this, we end up with an identity of “I AM sick.” If we added all of this together it would go something like this:
“I am sick, as others believe that I have fibromyalgia (or chronic fatigue syndrome), and I certainly move and act as if, for I feel ill and actually, this is similar to how some of my ancestors were.”
In any illness, there is always a root problem. We need to use the illness as the gift, to enable us to see why we have inherited such a tendency. The Chinese would tell us that our ‘soil’ or material foundation was ripe for this seed to begin to grow. Indeed something triggered it off. By finding the root cause–the ontology of your state–we can help to unravel and reorganize the parts that have colluded in keeping us ill. They–that is some bigger or more essential part of you have kept our illness so that in our journey through it, we may grow and develop. In this way, we become larger than the code or DNA that we are made of. This is evolution.
The silver lining of all of this is that whilst in the throes of a chronic and horrible illness, we can begin to look at the components of us–the elements that create and influence us. If we can look at the familial patterns that we have inherited, and see how we may be compromised in our physiology, or in our ambition, sexuality, or drive, or that we carry similar beliefs; we can start to dismantle and alter the patterns that inhabit us.