The Misperception Around Physical Health and Spiritual Growth

There’s a widely held misconception that if you are involved in spiritual growth, you should always be healthy. That if you get sick or get any sort of major disease, you somehow failed or were not good enough. I used to think that. I totally did. In my 20s I’d wonder why my teachers who did all sorts of healing work, got sick. “They must not be very good,” I thought. Hahaha, ahhhh naïveté.
 
That could not be farther from the truth. Helloooo! Human bodies: fallible, susceptible to viruses and bacteria, no matter how “spiritual” you are or how much healing work you do or how evolved or metaphysical you are. You can clear your chakras, chant, meditate daily etc. and you still might get sick. 
You. Are. Human. 
 
Physical Bodies vibrate differently than spiritual ones and sometimes they need to stop. Sometimes they get overburdened. It does not mean anything about you, it means you got sick. You need rest. 
 
I am brilliant at sussing out why something happens for me. I can usually pinpoint the exact emotional trauma that allowed in the physical expression. And sometimes, even knowing that and working on it, I still get sick. 
 
At this point I’ve had the flu for well over a week. I’ve worked on myself, I’ve had others work on me, and ultimately, my body said, it just needs rest and to sleep. So without judgment, that is what I have been, and am, giving it. Rest. 
 
Is that hard sometimes? Oh you bet! Especially after a week of doing nothing. But as I write this, I made the mistake of leaving the house and going to the grocery store after being home and in bed for 8 days, and it was too much. So, back in bed now. And I’ve made sure my week is minimal. Because ultimately, my health comes first: self-love and self-care are priorities. 
 
When the healing you seek and the answers and the whys aren’t coming, surrender to it. Because really, what else can you do? Keep fighting what is? Easier said than done, I know. I surrendered for a week, then got bored and kept trying to “fix” it, only to find that I had to surrender again, without judgment or my timeline of what I wanted. Not easy, but necessary. 
 
Remember, the thing itself doesn’t cause suffering, it’s our reaction to it that does. And ok, yes, I was pretty miserable so the thing, in this case the flu, did cause physical misery, but when I didn’t fight it and slept, read, and binge watched TV shows, I wasn’t emotionally suffering. 
 
So if you’re reading this and you too feel under the weather and you’re wondering what’s wrong with you that you got sick, stop it. Absolutely nothing is wrong with you. May I remind you that Wayne Dyer, who was brilliant and definitely did all of his inner work, had leukemia. Sometimes things happen to bodies, so don’t make a judgment on it. Let it be what it is. And when you don’t feel well, give yourself the time and space to actually heal. See what your body needs and respond accordingly. 
 
As for me, I’m going back to bed to read and relax because that is exactly what I need.

​