I got sick last week. And what happened next may sound crazy to some, yet for me was another confirmation of one of life’s most beautiful and important lessons.

But before we get to that, let’s zoom out a bit. I’ve always been taught as a kid - and I know this goes for many of you - that you solve illness or disease by attacking the symptoms. Take a paracetamol, throw some antibiotics at it, inject something into your arm, etc. Basically desensitizing the body with a anesthetic until it heals itself or putting a lot of chemicals to try to make the symptoms disappear. But what if we have it all wrong? Or even completely backwards? What if our symptoms are not in the way, but the way?

What if our symptoms are not in the way, but the way?

What if every 'symptom' of an 'illness' is actually a messenger, a teacher leading us to wholeness? Could these expressions of the body be manifesting in our lives to show us where we're living out of alignment with our true self, which choices are causing us harm, where we're going in the wrong direction?

This has been mostly my experience for the past few years. In trying to learn more about life and this human experience, I’ve gotten to know many different healing techniques like regression therapy, the Presence Process and the Unshaming Way that all have one thing in common: they treat 'symptoms' as an expression of the intelligence of the body. They ask you to go into the symptom. To feel it. Listen to it. Accept it, even just for now. Maybe even love it, if you can.

And in that state of loving awareness, something incredible happens: The messenger starts to speak. The true cause comes to the surface: Headache and a painful jaw originated in me not speaking out. A stuck neck originated in carrying other people’s responsibilities. Feeling sad and lonely originated in my inner child not being seen.

Seeing the pattern yet?

You got it - the causes are all emotional. Every. Single. Time.

When I got sick last week was no exception. And the beautiful thing is… emotions change when we put awareness on them. When we allow them to be there, they can take us on a journey into our inner world, revealing things about ourselves that we’d long forgotten. Things that still needed integration, which we can give them by being present with them from a state of loving awareness.

So by putting out loving awareness on our bodily feelings, emotions come and take us to a memory, the memory shows us where we can love ourselves more which we then do almost automatically, energy starts to move (e-motion / energy in motion), tension gets released from our body, and the symptoms disappear. Sure, often you’ll also need to make changes to your physical life that match what you just learned about yourself, like quitting the job that gave you a burnout. But summing it up like that, it actually makes so much sense.

And this whole process is such a beautiful experience, because it comes down to love. Loving myself more. Learning to act more out of love. Learning to love every aspect of life more because of the beauty that’s hidden within every experience. That’s the craziest part maybe. The thing I want to get rid of turns out to be something beautiful in disguise. It's this crazy beautiful paradox of life.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

So next time you’re uncomfortable or feeling sick, maybe don't try to escape the feeling. Go into it. Feel it. Listen to it. Accept it. And ask what it wants to tell you. You'll be surprised by the journey you’ll go on ✨