4 minute read
Pathways to Conscious Health
Pathways to Conscious Health From Victimhood to Empowerment
By Dr Catherine Fyans
Well, it has been a tough last couple of years. Speaking for myself - dizzying change on one hand, and stuck in the mire of excruciating non-movement on the other.
Letting go of my forty-plus year career was a big one. Bitter-sweet. Attempting to create a new focus, identity, lifestyle and, hopefully, a source of income at my notso-tender age was another one. Definitely still is a work in progress. This, along with some significant people leaving my life and an illness, has presented some struggles.
I am all for embracing change and new challenges, ‘taking the leap’ and all that until I found myself in the midst of it. Suddenly those shiny ideals lose their glitter when reality hits. It is sobering indeed to realise that those ideals do not pay the bills or compensate for the human warmth of acceptance and companionship. That ivory tower of moral high ground and seemingly ethical decisions come tumbling down when the basic supports of life appear to be elusive.
I have noticed that no one has come knocking at the front door to offer me exhilarating new life experiences and work opportunities. Risk is risk, and sacrifice is sacrifice, with absolutely no guarantee of any sort of universal compensation for choices made. This means I need to get off my butt and create my future myself and, hopefully, with some inspiration and guidance beyond the limited confines of my own ego-mind.
The ‘victim’ archetype that we all share, at least to some degree, is the dominant archetype for me to work through in this lifetime. Oh joy! Because of this, it comes up in spades and is very persistent in teaching me; very clever in coming through the back door when I feel that I am out of its grasp. The journey however, is from victimhood to self-responsibility and self-empowerment. Whether this is our dominant archetype or not, we are currently, individually and collectively, presented with various opportunities to propel us to embrace that odyssey.
We learn and grow the most when we are stretched a little when we have to push beyond what we already knew and who we thought we were. The ‘who-we-thought-wewere’ part does not willingly give up its hold; it has to be coached along with promises of an adventure like no other. And what could be more exhilarating than facing all our fears rolled into one at the same time?
From need come solutions, and the choice is to either create and find new ways or chuck in the towel and lapse back into dependency. Life doesn’t muck around; rather, it has an uncompromising, tough-love attitude, and
self-pity does not get a look-in as we navigate much needed changes that are ultimately for our growth and greater good.
Sometimes people are hurt and suffer beyond what most of us can imagine. Of course, they need to be met with the utmost compassion and care, as that reflects our basic humanity. We all need trusted people to bear witness to our pain and hold the space while we process our distress as we are nurtured back to health. Clearly, people who are particularly struggling need appropriate professional help.
I am all for compassion. It has a very different quality to pity and a very different visceral feel to it. Compassion is solution-oriented, whereas pity looks down upon and holds down the subject of its gaze. I am all for kindness directed to self and others. ‘Cos life
can be tough. Would we have it any other way? Apparently, we volunteered with glee to come here at this time.
However, there comes a time when we need to turn those lemons into lemonade, as the gifts of wisdom that those experiences engendered unfold. The choice is to move beyond and above our difficult experiences while mining the gems or stay licking our wounds as we project all responsibility onto others and life itself.
We will all be victimised at times, sometimes in horrific ways. Some maintain the victim stance as an unconscious survival maladaptation and way of being. Unfortunately, the victim stance has long been applied to health care; and no more so than over the last couple of years. Many of us have long been trained to trade personal power and choice for the illusion of safety and security as we seek the rescuer to save us from our woes. We tend to look at life through the pain or pleasure lens, however all life experiences are the opportunity for growth and the development of qualities and skills that we might not have thought we had. So, milk every life experience, especially the difficult ones, for all the positive that you can get out of them because the rewards are well worth it.
Dr Catherine is a retired medical practitioner and author of The Wounding of Health Care.
Image Credit: Pixabay
