The spookiest thing you hear when you become chronically ill is the ignorant mutterings of victim blamers unable to cope with the reality that health is not within our control, no matter our age, size, “immune system strength” or any other personal factor.
People fear a lot of different things and for a gamut of different reasons, but if you boil down most fears, the issue almost always stems from a discomfort with not being in control. Nobody likes to think that they can do everything right (like eat well, exercise, have awesome genetics, etc.) and still become incapacitated due to an invisible force like a virus, or otherwise impacted by an external, at times invisible influence on our fragile, temporary bodies and ego (mind).
(That same fear is the root of fear in the metaphysical, and why so many people fear talk of the Spirit world and ultimately their own mortality, but I digress! 👻)
What’s ironic is that when you become negatively impacted by a source outside of your control (and after the trauma has been acknowledged and processed), you discover that the most fearful thing of all is the external, visible response. It’s the auditory, verbal and tangible (physical) reactions and actions of another *about* your experience that is the most bone-chilling, depleted of emotional intelligence and compassion, and lacking in true perspective. It’s the experience of experiencing the inhumanity in another human.
Spooky as hell, when you really boil it down. 😨
But fear not! The easiest way to not be a terrifying, heartless meat sack floating through life with unchecked privilege and ignorant biases is to *look in the mirror*. It’s to stand in your truth, honestly look at your life, your thoughts and your values and say: “I am temporary. This health, this mind, this body: all temporary. And I am not in control of what happens to me or it, but I am in control of how I respond to it and my responses to others. I can control my awareness, my compassion, and my ability to relate to another.”
And instantly the things that we fear the most become the things that we can cope with the most. But it starts with you. And me. And us working on it for one another.