Motivation and the Healing Path

I have just been scrolling through my site here and considering my book ‘The Power of Illness to Change Your Life,’ and what it is actually about.

I have realized that it’s really a motivational book, and I am a motivational speaker and writer and coach. Not a conventional one by any means, but I am motivational by nature. It is who I am, and who I have always been. I bring hope, I bring some light and some love, not on the surface but to the heart and soul.

In that sense, and I explore this somewhat in the book, whether physical healing happens or not is not the point.

Healing is what actually happens in the heart and soul of each one of us. The physical body, and our lives, are set to perish anyway, sooner or later. It’s a sad truth but there it is. And of course we want to hold on to health, and remove disease, for as long as possible while we are here.

But finding acceptance, peace, love and a deep spiritual connection, is more important. Those are qualities that transcend the physical body, the ego self and all its fears and anxieties and open the door to something entirely new.

That’s the motivation I have. It’s the willingness to face all this, and open my heart and mind in the midst of it. I had to, when I was ill and suffering, I had to make peace with myself, with my past demons, with my family and with God.

You see, I have learned over a long period of time that this life I was graced with, is a voyage of discovery, an ongoing conversation and relationship between me and God. God is the entirety of existence, everything that I see, feel, experience, touch and know. The whole world I encounter is God. I believed myself to be separate from all of life, and life was somehow happening to me.

And over the course of a long healing journey that belief perished like an old ghost and I found myself to be in the world, the world in me, and all was one thing. I became existence and existence expresses itself through me.

Until that time I had a beef with God.

And I saw that each man and woman carries the same wound. We are all the same, but with our own stories. Me and you, we are the same, all struggling with existence itself, how to live, what to do about death, how to relate, the whole thing.

Now there is such a peace and love and acceptance. So there is a great motivation in me to support others as they walk the path of healing, however it appears for them. I don’t preach, I don’t tell and I don’t persuade. I motivate through a kind of holistic logic.

Each man and woman carries the same existential wound. We are all the same, but with our own stories.

Why I’m saying all this is not to sell you my book. It is because the path of life, like the path of healing, is pretty tough, challenging and mysterious. We are called to dive into the unknown. When the body is sick and we are called to the unknown it’s nigh on terrifying, because we desperately want to know what to do to heal the body. The body is a ruthless teacher. There is no simple answer.

There is the journey, the relationship, the inquiry, the awareness, the self love, the diligence, the persistence, the knowledge, the softness and the warrior-like ness that may transform us.

In the dark we are scared. That fear blocks our natural intelligence, our intuition. It creates cellular dehydration and shuts us off from the light, both inner and outer, and that is where some of our intelligence comes from.

My aim is to help people past fear, not avoiding it, but not giving it more power than it warrants. Fear is a powerful voice, but fear must be met with discernment. When discernment listens to fear it knows whether it’s worthy of taking action or not. That comes through experience.

I think my book was a rough attempt at this motivation. Some people have read it a few times and used it in the way it was intended. We need each other to say ‘Yes I did it, you can too.’ And then it gives us just enough encouragement to put the next foot forward. 

Does the body always heal?

No. 

Do it anyway, for the sake of your heart and soul. It is more important to find the depth of loving acceptance while you are here. The healing journey is an invitation to this depth of love.

That is what happened to me. Illness definitely changed my life. For the better. It allowed me to meet myself and transform fear into love.

I hope this speaks to you if you are on the path.