I’ve spent much of my life trying to avoid being sick. But why? It’s not any fun to get sick, which is one of the reasons I’ve done so much research on wellness and well-being.
And yet, I still got sick. Why?
Understanding why we get sick changes how you respond to illness entirely.
The Purpose of Sickness
We very seldom allow ourselves to really be sick. We tend to try and find something that will make us feel less sick so we can keep going, but not truly heal.
Sickness is really just your body telling you to take a break. It’s telling you to slow down and rest. Sometimes the best thing for you right now is to just sweat out or purge toxins.
Sickness can be an excellent way to purge old energy to make way for new energy that’s more valuable to you.
Your body isn’t betraying you when it gets sick. It’s communicating. It’s saying something needs to change.
Embrace the Rest
It’s okay to slow down, rest, and focus inwardly on your body. Sickness is just your body trying to communicate with you.
When you’re sick, if you’ll just focus on how much better you’re going to feel once you purge this old energy, then you’ll find that you pass sickness quickly and feel much better following your brief resting period.
Sickness is a great excuse to take a break. It’s one of the only times your boss will let you stay home and almost everyone around you is willing to serve you.
Sickness is an excuse to eat soup all day long and catch up on everything you’ve been putting off.
The Sabbath Principle
Sickness can be a great way to allow yourself time to think about your life: what’s working and what’s not.
When we try to cover sickness up, it just gets bigger and bigger, until it manifests as something much worse. By giving yourself a little time to rest every now and then, you can avoid sickness that keeps you down for longer than 24 hours.
In a lot of ways, when scripture tells us to keep the sabbath holy, what it’s really telling us is that we need to remember to take time for ourselves. By taking time to rest, our body is able to run at full efficiency, which means that synchronicity can work more in our favor.
The body that never rests eventually forces the rest upon you. Sickness is often that forced rest.
Embrace sickness. Purge old energy. Allow the new energy to come in. And maybe, just maybe, start resting before your body has to make you.
This is shadow work in action.
If you’re ready to process what’s been running your life, explore the Shadow Work practices.