Where is the dignity for the vessel and the intelligence that moves it. Somewhere along the line we started believing that this body knows nothing and we have to intervene with all our might. Find out what is wrong with it, fear it, make every attempt to fix it while silencing its wisdom. Instead of working with it, we started treating as something that needs to be tamed into routines, submitted into certain parameters and controlled into what now we know as normal.
How did we reach here?
“we end up almost with this arrogant belief that illness means something is wrong with our body. As if our body doesn’t know what its doing”- Tiziano Sguerso
In systemic medicine (the medicine of the systemic field of interconnection), arrogance is less of a comment on behavioral status and more about the positioning of the soul. Arrogance is when on a soul level we position ourselves above that, which came before us. Arrogance is placing oneself above the intelligence that came before us and in turn announcing, consciously or unconsciously, our superiority over it.
This arrogant belief that life is wrong, it is a problem and that we can fix it to mold into our boxes of normal has led humanity astray from trust in life and towards fear of life. This fear in turn presents as fear of death and the consequent underlying anxiety enables us to do everything in our power to police the physical body into what we call health.
This fear has led to some great advancements in the ways we can support the body from threats that we didn’t have earlier in our era.
It has also led to a pandemic of fear of the physical body and disconnect from what makes us, keeps us here and moves us; the essence of life that dances in all of us, pumping life through us, expanding and contracting.
We learn it is something to be cautious of, that somehow it is the body that threatens the continuation of life. This fear distanced us from the intelligence of life.
Instead of seeing our body as a guardian, a guide and a facilitator of life, we started seeing it as a threat to life.
When we are in trust of this intelligence we know what is happening and we can provide appropriate support to create an environment to allow this intelligence to work, beyond our human control of what “shoulds” and parameters.
When we are not in trust, when we are in fear, we are distant from this intelligence. In that case, intervention becomes an act of mistrust and control.
On the surface it looks like we are trying to help the body heal, but the undercurrents are flowing with fear of losing control. Such acts, however come from a place of wanting to help, have an effect opposite of that.
True support starts with trust, and is based on foundation of dignity.
What is support? Trusting in the intelligence of the body and supporting it in the process that life has started through the body, creating the right environment for it to move through that process.
So, how to even begin to implement this perspective practically? Stop monitoring? Stop prescribing? Let it be? That is not what I suggest through this.
I spent years exploring different form of medicine and support that exist for humans. I was on a journey of finding the one that actually works. The journey humbled me and I landed on this statement, “everything works and nothing works”.
The meaning of that statement landed a while later. Everything works when the body is approached with dignity. Nothing works when body is feared, mistrusted and treated with disregard for the the intelligence of life.
With due respect for the ways of past, I speak only for the present-
Nothing is better than other today. Everything has its gift and everything needs to also look at the shadow or disparity it brings into what we call support.
Moving past the fight of “my modality is better than yours”, we are able to take what serves with dignity and leave the rest behind.
We humans have been marvelous at understanding the structure and function of what makes us up, of the connection between all in existence, of the elements, of the interconnection of what brings us here and keeps us here and of that which continues to move beyond us.
We all have much to learn from each other. When we move past the arrogance of being better, we are able to meet what we for so long have been wanting to support, THE ESSENCE OF LIFE.
That is where it starts. To continue support as it is needed where it is needed, and also, starting to feel into essence of life, of what we serve and support. To re-connect and reach a pace where treating body with trust and dignity becomes a norm. Where the arrogance of I know better dissolves and where body becomes an ally rather than something to be feared. And maybe one day we will allow us to be held by life like a mother houses a baby in her womb, receive life.