Ok, enough fluff, it’s time for me to tackle another “big one”. I’ve already told you how I made my peace with Religion. Now, it’s time to take on the medical establishment, or rather, tell you how I stopped wanting to take them on. No doctors or pharmaceutical reps were hurt during the writing of this blog post. It was all consensual. I promise.

Traditional Medicine failed me

There was a time when I hated doctors. Freaking hated them. I was ill, could barely get out of bed some days, kept passing out at work, and saw a slurry*of doctors over the course of several months. Many of these doctors came across as arrogant and uncaring. When they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, they decided that it must be psychosomatic and told me to go see a shrink. Some of them actually believed I was making it all up. I ended up sinking into a deep depression. I felt awful and no one seemed to be able to help me, and most weren’t even willing to try. Circumstances finally led me to a naturopath, who not only believed that my symptoms were possible, but could think of several causes. She patched me back up, by helping me to create a physical environment in which my body could heal. Much of what I know about nutrition today is a direct result of what I went through during this time.

Up to this point, I’d put my faith in the medical system, albeit reluctantly. I wasn’t a fan of running to the doctor for every little boo-boo or taking medication unless absolutely necessary. But after I ended up in the emergency room after having collapsed at work, again, I didn’t have much of a choice. I’d gone to these doctors and asked for help. And they’d come up empty. Zilch. Zero. Nada. I was scared, I felt powerless and abandoned, and these doctors, who had spent years studying this stuff and had dedicated their lives to helping others, refused to listen (they often cut me off half way into the first sentence), dismissed most of the information I gave them (what I felt was not important), and refused to consider that just because they couldn’t figure out what was wrong, that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything wrong. It was this “we know everything, so if we can’t figure it out, it doesn’t exist” mentality that got to me the most.

Of course, now I know that I attracted these types of doctors with my belief system, but at the time, I simply felt betrayed. I hated doctors and felt that they were useless (if you’re a doctor, I promise to bring this around to a better feeling place. Stay with me). All they did was study the physical body, when clearly there was so much more at play. Once I began to learn about energy and how resistance causes all imbalances within our bodies, I became convinced that doctors were a waste of time.

Who’re you gonna call? A doctor. That’s who.

Once I got over my anger (which resulted from the powerlessness and which I needed to move through in order to get to a better feeling place), however, that point of view didn’t really resonate with me anymore. Blind faith in the medical system didn’t work for me, but neither did a blanket condemnation of all doctors. After all, if I was to cut my arm off, I’d want a surgeon to sew it back on. An energy healer could shake their leaves all they’d want; I’d still get to the emergency room before I bled to death. So clearly, some kind of middle ground had to exist. There had to be a way for me to reconcile what I knew about energy with traditional medicine. There had to be a way for me to look at doctors and feel good about what they have to offer. And of course, there was.

When we first move away from traditional medicine and towards alternative therapies, we sometimes have the tendency to demonize doctors. We begin to think of traditional medicine as outdated, as irrelevant and unnecessary. If everyone just cleaned up their energy bodies, we think, there would be no need for doctors. We can heal the world by raising our vibration. And while those statements are true, I would present the argument again: I don’t care how tree-huggery you are. If you cut yourself, you’ll want a doctor to stop the bleeding. So even though doctors may not have all the answers, they clearly have a role to play.

The hidden cause of disease

Our physical well-being is, indeed, a consequence of our vibration. When we harbor resistance (thoughts and beliefs that do not serve us), we experience negative emotions. If we ignore these early warning signs, the resistance will manifest as something bigger – often, physical discomfort, pain or even illness. The manifestation will continue to get bigger and bigger until we finally stop ignoring it and do something about it. We may “give up” and let go of whatever we were holding on to. Or we may consciously change our perspective. The point is, everything that happens in our reality, including whatever happens to and within our physical bodies, has been drawn to us by our vibration, whether we know it or not.

And it’s this “not knowing” that makes things so tricky. If we knew exactly how we were creating an illness, we could just turn that off. But we generally don’t have a freaking clue. Let’s say you get a headache and it’s bad. Clearly, you’ve got some resistance going on. Now, you can try to hunt down the demon thought that brought this pain upon you, but if the headache is really nasty, you may barely be able to think. In that case, taking a pain killer to help you get rid of the pain may not be such a bad idea. Of course, you’ll want to figure out what caused the headache once you do feel better, or chances are it’ll come back. But this will be so much easier to do from a pain-free state.

When we’ve been ignoring a certain emotion for a long time, it begins to feel normal to us. It can grow, get bigger, nastier and even cause some horrific disease, but because this thought or belief has been a part of us for so long, it just blends into what we’ve always known to be true. It doesn’t stand out. If you’ve always had a pain in your hip, you don’t notice it when your hip hurts.

The symptom perpetuates the problem

The illness is an indicator that something is wrong. But it’s an indicator that can perpetuate the problem. When we begin to focus on the physical pain or condition, we add energy to it and it begins to take on more momentum – not only as a symptom, but as a condition all on its own. The indicator becomes part of the problem, making it more difficult for us to find and release the underlying cause.

This is where doctors come in. They can help us patch up our bodies when the resistance we harbor has manifested as physical harm. They can sew up the cut, take away the pain, bring us back from the brink of death, and buy us some time so we can fix the underlying cause. While they generally won’t fix whatever caused the illness, they can and often do play an important part in the healing process. Just like that intense headache kept you from thinking clearly and figuring out its cause, so could cancer or chronic back pain distract you from what’s really wrong.

Traditional medicine is changing

So, traditional doctors are not irrelevant. Clearly, we need them when we’ve created conditions within our bodies that threaten our lives, and for which we don’t yet know the cause. They can give us relief and buy us time. But without an understanding of energy, what they can’t really do is truly heal. They beat cancer, only to have it come back again and again. They clear up a nasty rash, only to have the patient return six months later with hay fever. A patient may present with chronic back pain, for which there doesn’t seem to be a cause and which is completely resistant to any and all treatment.

A lot of doctors are now waking up to the fact that true healing requires more than they were taught in medical school. There are a growing number of physicians who will patch you up, and then ask “So, what’s wrong? What’s going on in your life that could’ve caused this?” They recognize that the illness or condition was simply a symptom and they help guide their patients to true healing. They realize that although they have a deep understanding of the human body, that knowledge is not broad – the picture is simply much bigger than they ever thought it was. Doctors were never supposed to know everything. That’s a false expectation. They know a great deal about one part of the equation – the biological body. This is no small thing, it just isn’t everything. Alternative practitioners know another part of the equation. And energy healers know another part. What we ultimately want is for all of these disciplines to work together. They all have their place.

A true, holistic approach

When you have an emergency, and your life is in danger, or when you’re in a great deal of discomfort, you want a traditional doctor.  After you’re out of danger, however, you’ll want to get to the root of the problem. This is where an energy healer can help. Alternative therapists can also help bring relief. A Reiki healer, for example, makes energy of a very high vibration available to you, which can raise the frequency of your physical cells and bring healing. If the original cause of the imbalance – the resistance – is not eliminated, the issues will come back. This does not mean, however, that we should dismiss the relief that the Reiki healer can bring, just as we shouldn’t dismiss the relief that a doctor of traditional medicine can provide.

Depending on the needs of the patient, all healing disciplines have their place. And they are beginning to merge in interesting ways: Doctors are learning alternative therapies and energy healing techniques. Massage therapists are starting to coach their patients. Psychologists are streaming energy at their patients to help them release the belief that’s causing them pain. Many physicians are referring their patients to alternative therapists for follow up treatment. Cancer clinics are offering mediation, nutritional counseling and energy healing such as Reiki and acupuncture.  Physical, emotional and energy healing are all coming together for true, permanent and holistic healing.

There’s no need to push against traditional medicine. It may not be the all encompassing cure we (and doctors) were promised, but it does have its place in the healing process. Of course, as soon as I took a different view of doctors, I never manifested another rude or arrogant one again… They’ve all been brilliant, connected, and open to all kinds of alternative ideas since.

* = doctors come in a slurry now. A slurry is about 30. Yeah. Not kidding.