The Spiritual Meaning of Chronic Illness

I don’t always identify as someone with chronic illness. For years I normalized digestive issues, brain fog, anxiety as who I was. They had been there so long. I can’t remember a time of optimum functioning in all truth, if there is such a thing.

I do not have a formal diagnosis to share, but I have enough symptoms through out the years to realize my body wasn’t always operating from optimum health. You may wonder why I haven’t sought out medical help and I will chalk it up to upbringing, finances and learned experience through others that these weird chronic symptoms are often mistreated, made worse or extremely expensive.

I know there are great practitioners out there who truly help people and often I have wished to have one of those but there is a knowing in me, at this moment in time, that this is not an illness but a teacher, a guide, and one I need to work with.

The root of the word Illness, comes from Ill- wicked, evil or difficult and ness-state or condition. I can attest to difficult but what my body is doing is anything but wicked or evil. Maybe its loving.

I don’t believe my experience is one that is showing up to punish me for bad choices or actions. Its not a manifestation of incorrect thoughts about health.

Gosh, I ate organic before it was cool, I believed in homesteading in college while most people who are going natural now were still binge drinking four locos. (Thats not a brag, just an awareness that my sensitive body has been with me for a long time, keeping me from the “normal” experience).

I taught children about organic foods and gardens in my first job out of college, my degree was in health and wellness, I left that job to teach yoga and live on a community homestead. I was drinking fresh dairy and eating farm raised and wild harvested meat. I hand picked the organic produce I ate and made my own beauty products and cleaning products. I even made soap… like bar soap. I was all in.

I was physically active and a part of community. I worked a few days a week teaching kids movement classes and adult yoga, gathered eggs and milked goats. My anxiety, low energy and bloating continued. And I don’t mean like I was I felt a little full after eating, I mean eating the same food as a friend and them being shocked that I was not truly pregnant. Like they could not understand how a meal could do that. (They did not mean this as rude, we had a good rapor fyi)

After some time, I began my spiritual journey, meditated, explored psychedelic healing, learned about manifesting, woke up to my own spiritual gifts. I developed channeling and mediumship abilities. I studied reiki and energy work and learned about intuition.

Anxiety and digestion issues, were still having a huge impact on my life. I moved from the farm to a pleasant little house, got some space, covid hit, more symptoms ensued. My brain fog reached a new level, confusion, emotional distance, shortness of breath and fatigue picked up. My life has changed multiple times since even that season, and different symptoms have shown up.

It wasn’t until a few years ago, I even realized that these things weren’t actually an optimum functioning body ( I know absurd but clearly I loved to write off my experience). When a friend moved in who was having a more pronounced version of what I experienced and I wanted to help them, I realized people were seeking medical support for experiences milder than mine. As I researched I couldn’t believe I had never thought of it before. Now my symptoms were manageable enough for much of the time. They were not always serious and debilitating but they were limiting.

So in that time with my friend, I biohacked and did things to regulate the nervous system, did Wim Hof and Dr. Joe Dizpenza, I started to improve. But something would always set me back a bit. Years of deeper practice and my baseline would continue to improve but something sets me back again.

This last week a full set back, this last year multiple difficult symptoms have appeared for weeks or even months. My practices always help but at this point I began to feel betrayed by my body. I am one to make the most of things on the external and simultaneously be in doom in my mind. Like there isn’t a lot of in between. I do believe in the positive but when the brain inflammation strikes its doom and gloom until I can break it.

So all this for those of you still with me to explain how in the world my body was actually trying to help me. And how yours might be too. One major area not discussed in this history was my relationships. I was in constant unsteady and anxious states around relationships. I wont go in to long details but the emotions I was cultivating were continuing my symptoms, my body was trying to get my attention. It was trying to tell me something that my programing didn’t see. I was in emotional dynamics that didn’t match the kind of home environment my body needed. It’s not the others fault, as much as I tried to blame. It was just my patterning trying to work itself out.

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My body, my symptoms were asking something of me, they were asking me to follow a path my programmed mind alone wouldn’t. They still are.

Often I have felt that it’s a huge set back to have this many things in my way. And in truth I won’t deny that on the surface it is. Not being able to think clearly and being tired doesn’t do much for getting out in the world and making life happen. And letting myself feel that is good especially when I compare myself to others.

But lately this concept of illness as a teacher, introduced by the mystic wonder that is Asia Suler (asiasuler.com), has been front in center for me. In my work with Joe Dizpenza the signs of this were there in the testimonies saying how grateful they were for the illnesses that lead them to this healing point because they discovered something much more. It has always been my belief that there is meaning in any situation in our lives. I believe that opportunity lies in all things.

However, I was focusing more on calling in physical health through my practice than changing with the symptoms. I would see my symptoms as something to heal from not as something leading me to healing.

As I was writing the first part of this I reflected on all the situations I was in and things I learned because of those symptoms. I learned them because I couldn’t operate like others. Would I have lived on a farm, would I have left my normal job and life, would I have studied so much spirituality, would my intuitive gifts have shown up? I honestly don’t think they would have so rapidly (or at all?).

Now I won’t claim that I need to be sick to expand. That is not my my mantra. But I claim maybe its not sickness, not really, its something much deeper. Its medicine for the parts of my soul stuck behind the limitations of my programs.

Now I must still hold compassion for the hard. I find that grace for doing things differently softens things. And there are physical components that are very real. This journey doesn’t only lead me to “spiritual” healings but “physical” ones too. A change in diet, or a supplement or wellness practice. But I see these not only as physical but energetic exchanges that stand to launch something new in me.

The most recent set back came after an emotionally challenging time. I had lost my balance and was living in others dramas (again). So my rug pulls out from under me, so I can just stop and lay on the floor. This is not a punishment. It’s an advantage.

I am allergic to living life out of balance with my truth and my own wellbeing. Its a poison to my spirit and my body lets me know.

I often wonder where my business or mission would be in the external had I felt well all this time. Well, the truth is my skillset is better for it. I am honed and sharpened and I spent years learning and reading and expanding before putting so much out there. I was working but I didn’t launch a big presence in the world with fledgling understanding. I got to curate more wisdom with a small audience. And that is so fortunate. Maybe I am not behind at all. Is it possible I may in fact be in a better position to give in the ways my soul longs to because of it? I think yes.

I was always surprised by interactions where people were shocked by how much thought I had put in to spiritual subjects, how much insight and time I had cultivated on that original perspective. I was surprised because naively I thought everyone who had the audacity to make an online presence had also. And this is not judgement to the ones who just put themselves out there, I could learn from you. But maybe my lack of energy to think strategically allowed me not to fall in to the trap of spitting out others ideas in my own words without real thought. I am not kidding when I say I really didn’t think people were doing that. haha I blame brain fog?…

I am not here to say I am so much better than others for all this, I am not. I am here to say that I have been led on a unique journey because of this. And if you are going through something similar or relatable, you are too. Your body is not against you. It is desperately communicating with you.

You are not failing your body and your not failing because of it. If you have been chosen (or have chosen depending on your perspective) to experience chronic illness or physical and mental difficulty in this life, you may have signed up for the experience of creating rapid change and healing for the world through the vehicle of your own life and body.

I invite you to look at what your “illness” is inviting you to do. What does it force you to change or where is it pushing you to grow and embrace it? Don’t believe you are stuck with it or that there is no healing for you, but follow it to the road towards wellbeing. Courageously show up for the journey it leads you down. Most importantly surrender don’t fight it’s current but keep your head towards the idea of wellness in any form.

Now sometimes my surrendering looks like absolute doom and feeling so left out of life but in that I surrender a little more, I ask my body what it needs and I try to feel in to what I can do to support it. Because while I am sweating in the bath to remove the mold I used to live in I am also expanding in my awareness and becoming more in tune with water. While I am drinking my vitamin c water I am connecting with the energy of the dried fruit used to make it. I am taking in the consciousness of all these healing allies.

My body and your body is the birth place of the new earth. It is also the ending of the old one. We are the test ground for whats possible for the whole, please follow it. Because the other side may be the world you always longed for but didn’t know existed. Now I don’t know if the others side will be a place of arrival or a place of continued expansion but I do know there will be gifts and newness born because we journeyed with the wise body.

And if you are particularly struggling, physically, mentally and emotionally, know that you are so valid. And it is hard. And this is not about saying that it isn’t. But know that you, in your unique expression, are still a gift to life even if you can’t show up in the ways that you desire to.

If you are experiencing any physical symptoms or issues and you want extra clarity, support, and a witness, book a reading. Wellness readings are transformative and soul nourshing.