Loss of Normalcy...

Today's post is a continuation of the stream of consciousness related to spiritual aspects of illness. In Norman Cousins' book "Anatomy of an Illness" (see earlier post) he describes those things which afflict us that are associated with disease (especially chronic disease) but are untreated and un-treatable by modern medicine. One of those untreated problems is the perceived loss of normalcy, or perfect health, or the feeling of invulnerability.

Certainly we all know that at some point we will die. Every person who ever lived has died - with the possible exception of the prophet Elijah. We deny our mortality however, and do everything possible to avoid aging and journeying towards death. We fear cancer and other terminal diagnoses, because we know that we will never be normal again. We spend time talking about what we used to be able to do in our "prime" rather than talking about how much we can still do today.

The diagnosis of a life-limiting disease is a difficult one to wrap our psyche's around. Suddenly we are not normal, we are diseased, we are vulnerable, we are mortal. We are now a statistic and we fit into some predicted disease progression based on our physiologic derrangement or not. We fear the future as we cling to our used-to-be's. Some never recover from this mind-set - they live out their days in the search for a cure and for a return to normalcy.

We live often from a sense of scarcity and this colors everything we do. Scarcity language says that the glass is only half-full, that our best days are behind us, that we have no further developmental potential. The reality however, is that we can live every day to the fullest extent, that we can live out of abundance knowing that we still have half a glass to go.

Abundance language returns us to our sense of self. While it can not return us to previous health, it can restore our wholeness and our ability to live fully and well. I ask you this week to speak from a place of abundance - looking on the positive side of life. You will find that it doesn't matter whether you're normal or not - you have abundant life if you choose to live it.

Peace,
Dan