How Illness Can Change Us

The other night I was at 5 rhythms dance (a dance that is fun and also therapeutic and healing) - and at the end of the session, someone started to talk to me about her experience of being round me in the dance (nothing frightening! - only positive.)

I was really pleased she had spoken to me, as I had been struggling with feeling low emotionally and physically. So, I told her that, including that I had been "ill" - and she immediately said - "oh! Isn't it interesting with illness that you always feel a different person at the end of it?"

I then felt able to say that I was a healer, and that I was sure the physical symptoms or "illness" were to do with my emotional process. But the point I want to write more about is this idea that we are different after an illness.

It is nearly exactly nine years since I first became ill with chronic fatigue syndrome / ME (Myalgic Encephalopathy). At that point, I was working on an MA in Development Studies, thinking I would continue in that line of work, either in this country or overseas. I was an accountant, and I was a Buddhist - living in a Buddhist community in Manchester, with six other women, and in a relationship with a Buddhist man.

As a result of years of chronic illness, the outer circumstances of my life have changed beyond recognition: I am now, of course, practising as an energy healer. I am living out in Hebden Bridge on my own, my relationship has ended, and I am no longer a Buddhist - which means, I suppose, that my inner world has also changed hugely.

And I suppose this is common with what you might call "major" illness, such as chronic fatigue syndrome/ME. It's often the case that major illness means we re-evaluate our priorities and what we really want in life. But what about acute illness, such as a cold or the flu, which is what the woman at the dance was talking about?

I think it is true that acute illness also offers us the chance to look inside and see if there are things that we need to look at in our lives. Often, we can "keep down" the symptoms of acute illness with over the counter medication. But I think if we are willing to listen to our bodies, and take the time out of our busy routines to do that, we may find out that there are things in our lives we want or need to change.

In the past, I have been experiencing fatigue that was reminiscent of ME/chronic fatigue syndrome that had an emotional cause that I needed to go deeply into, which I have done. But how does that lead to change in my life?

Well, I think that going deeply into anger and hurt from the past that I hadn't been able to feel at the time, has freed up a lot of energy for me. I actually feel more vital and alive than before the "illness", and more committed to my life as an energy healer - partly because I feel even more well and balanced, but also partly because, yet again, I am given proof of how disease in the body often has an emotional root, and how working with that, through energy healing, and the Emotional Freedom Technique, can lead to profound healing.