Dear Ones, here is a story with no moral, at least not yet. I invite you to respond--your thoughts will increase my understanding.
A friend of mine told me (I truly do not remember which friend) that her therapist had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) at around the same time that she began therapy with him, a year or so ago. And then she said something that chilled me -- she said he had told her he didn't want to hear any stories of hope or reversal of the disease.
I found myself wanting to share Dr. Terry Wahl's story of recovery and reversal of all her symptoms, using a way of eating as well as quite a few lifestyle changes. I mean, strongly wanting to share. This is the kind of result from nutritional intervention that made me want to pursue my career as a dietitian as a young teen, and still fuels the fire of my professional purpose.
Dr Wahl's story can be found in her Ted Talk https://terrywahls.com/tedxiowacity-minding-your-mitochondria-with-dr-terry-wahls/ and in her book Wahls Protocol .
Her recovery is not only her unique personal story, but the result that many (in the hundreds or more, I believe) of her patients, research study participants and readers have also achieved.
Still, there is a part of me that seems to resonate, on some obscure level, with the resistance to having hope.
I have heard folks say things like "that diet is too hard" or "that might work for others but not for me". Of course, I have seen this resistance in other contexts than MS as well.
I have seen people jump in with extreme determination to follow a huge change and then fall off due to discouragement at setbacks and pitfalls. THIS is why I personally feel such as strong urge to "help", because in my work I have learned many techniques to ease the discomfort of change, to delve into and transform resistance, and in a very practical sense, overcome many of the obstacles that arise specifically when changing one's diet, such as techniques to overcome bowel issues, energy issues and palatability problems.
Does it boil down to wanting to spare oneself the pain of disappointment, in case we are the one person this treatment doesn't work for? Or possibly is it that the mind rebels against something it does not feel it has the bandwidth to take in?
We are all "terminal cases". We will all get sick and die, eventually. Unless we die of something that takes us quickly, we will all face the experience of feelig our Life Force drain away. There are indignities that go along with this process, and we feel a natural aversion to even thinking about them.
Is it that thinking of a "cure" requires us to face what we need the cure for?
I invite you to share your thoughts by commenting below.
During my time in prison I learned (and preferred) to live without hope. I saw it as being a flip side of fear. To hope is to experience the risk of not getting what you want. My goal was to be okay with whatever happened. It didn't stop me from moving forward in the best way possible, and because the situation was so extreme it helped me avoid burnout. I was committed to principled action without attachment to outcome (I mean that I tried to do this!) This strategy came from my study of Buddhism and stoicism.
ReplyDeleteThanks John. Well, I would be fine with that! If the person says to me, sure, I will try your approach to getting well, with the idea that I will be OK with whatever happens. That would be awesome!
ReplyDeleteI remember Charles Eisenstein speaking about hopelessness as part of a cycle that we go through repeatedly in our transition into a new paradigm. Its a phase when the obstacles seem insurmountable given the resources available to us, and we explain away or discount the miracles we've see glimpses of,.. We're prompted to give up, which creates an opening for us to perceive/receive things that were previously outside the scope of our paradigm.
ReplyDeleteHopelessness is well founded within the logic of our dominant paradigm, especially given that there are so many people who earn their living by giving false hope. We are typically let down and even exploited by the promises we hear and follow.
ReplyDeleteGood points....
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