Category: Healing From Chronic Pain And Illness

Have you ever struggled with maintaining blind faith? I am right now and am feeling quite down because of it. I know that’s completely attributed to the physical pain issues I continue to face on a daily basis. While some days fare slightly better than others, all in all I haven’t seen much in the way of physical improvement for over a year now. In fact, sometimes it seems like just the opposite has been happening, which has led me to question God quite a bit lately as to whether I’ll ever physically feel better again or not in this lifetime. The way my spiritual teacher guides me now when I’m feeling like this is to habitually remind me I need to hang in there, that’s it coming, and to keep on, keeping on. I always end up agreeing with her, but to be perfectly honest, I’ve also been wondering how much longer I can continue to withstand this without losing my blind faith in it actually happening?

The book of Job in the Bible is one story I reflect upon quite a bit a bit these days solely because Job was a man who had went through a huge testing of his own blind faith. Initially within his story, Job’s a good and righteous man who lives in great prosperity and holds an extremely deep faith and belief in the presence and protection of God. But eventually he struggles to maintain that when all his children, his livelihood, and his health are taken away. Sadly, Job’s friends only confuse him even more with their own interpretations of what he should do and why he’s suffering so much. After Job curses the day he was born and wishes his life to end, God directly speaks to him and then restores his health, his prosperity, and even brings him many new offspring.

While I know there are many vast differences between what Job went through and what I still am, it hasn’t stopped me from comparing the pain I feel daily to that which he felt. I’ve lost count of the number of times now where I’ve cried out in anger, frustration, anguish, and the like begging God for mercy and to just end my life altogether. Most people really just won’t understand what it feels like to be in a place such as this when they haven’t gone through it themselves. Unfortunately, I’m reminded of Job’s friends when any of my own suggests one medication after another thinking it’s going to help. I took that path for a time and sadly, it only landed me in a worse state physically, as well in a mental hospital with a nervous breakdown.

So I do my best now to get through each set of 24 hours hoping the next one might be better than the last. But on days like today when it’s definitely not, I find myself having a lot more doubt than that of blind faith. What I long for the most in moments such as this is for God to suddenly speak to me like He did with Job. While that hasn’t happened, as of yet, I’ve somehow been able to endure all of it for several years now. I know that can’t be due to something like my self-will, because that only ever led me into a life of addictions and on a path to destruction. So maybe it’s just God speaking to me in a different way, but regardless, something has definitely helped me all this time to not give up. Whatever it is, I know I must stay vigilant in my blind faith by doing as Job did and remain to pray.

“Dear God, I do not understand why I’m still suffering so greatly. My physical body aches and groans on most days like I’m 80 years old. Each day I wake up hoping it will be better than the last, but I have yet to feel any noticeable improvements. You asked me to clean up my life in plenty of ways and as far as I know I have done that and even then some. You asked me to immerse myself in recovery and start helping others and I have done that as often as I can too. You also asked me to show unconditional love and light to everyone on this planet because of how we’re all connected. I continue to do that as well but my blind faith has been waning due to how long I’ve been actually enduring these physical pains. God, I’m really just scared and confused like a little boy who’s lost sight of his parent and I’m not sure what to do other than keep praying for You to replenish my blind faith. I truly long for those days where I can run, jump, and play once again, but until then God, I remain devoted one day at a time seeking only your guidance and will no matter how great my pain and suffering is. Amen.”

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have you ever heard the story of The Great Tree of Sorrows? A friend of mine in recovery shared this Jewish story with me because of the context of a conversation we had about my ongoing health and healing frustrations in life. After reading it, I was reminded of another story that’s quite similar, but of Christian origin. Before commenting on the spiritual lesson I believe both are meant to teach, here are each of them:

The Great Tree of Sorrows

Once upon a time, people were complaining to their neighbors about their sorrows and sufferings. Each one kept affirming that theirs were the worst of all. The Rabbi responded to their complaining by telling this story: On judgment day when all people met before God. God allowed them to be free from their sufferings by hanging them on a branch of the ‘Great Tree of Sorrows” After that, for an entire day, everybody was free from all their pains and sorrows. Happily they enjoyed the whole day to their hearts content. By evening time, God asked each of the people to pick up from the sacred tree, any sorrows they would find best suited for them to bear. They paced around and around the tree trying to find the best choice. By sunset, when all had made them, God showed how each had reclaimed their original sorrows.

The Room Of Crosses To Bear

One day a man approaches Jesus wanting only to trade his cross in for a better one. He tells him how his cross is just too much of a burden to carry and how everyone else’s seems far more bearable. Jesus then leads the man into a large room full of many crosses of all shapes and sizes and instructs him to put down his own cross and go select a new one. The only stipulation is that once he makes his selection he can never complain or exchange it for another again. So he searches for hours and hours on end in the room noticing the big crosses were even larger and heavier than his own. He knew there was no way he was ever going to be able to carry any one of them. As for each of the smaller crosses he inspects, they all were excruciatingly painful in some way due to the way they were shaped and formed. Finally the man comes upon a cross that seems like it has the least amount of burden for him, as it rests quite nicely upon his shoulder and doesn’t irritate him while carrying it. The man then turns towards Jesus and cries out, “I’ve finally found the perfect cross!” Jesus then smiles and responds lovingly, “My child, don’t you see that is the same cross you carried in with you today?”

I truly believe both of these stories tell the same spiritual lesson in that the sorrows and burdens we each individually carry in life are the ones specifically meant for us to endure and work through. While it may often seem like someone else’s sorrows and burdens are far less cumbersome than the ones we are carrying, that’s only an illusion our ego likes to paint for us. I should know, as my own has frequently attempted to do so because of the physical pain issues I continue to endure.

For those who already know me, or are getting to know me through these writings, I’ve been dealing with this for the past four and a half years now. Sometimes it’s actually led me to look at various friends and loved ones with the thought that their life is much easier and far better than my own. But the more I’ve gotten to know each of them, the more I’ve seen the difficulties they face daily, none of which I hope to ever have to experience in life.

So I believe it really just goes to show that the sorrows and burdens we each carry in life at any given moment in time are the ones best suited for us. Although we may not know why that is when going through any of them, I’ve learned in the end with each of my own that it was always for my greatest highest good. While that may not be as comforting as I’d like it to be for the level of physical pain I feel as I type these words, I will continue to do my best today to trust that this specific sorrow and burden is one my Higher Power knows is best for me at the present time for my spiritual growth…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Sometimes I feel like the world is becoming a pill popping society. It seems as if there’s a medication for every type of ache and pain one may ever get. Advertisements for new wonder drugs are showing up everywhere these days staking claims how they help alleviate this symptom or that symptom. What I’m beginning to wonder though with the emergence of all these medicines is whether we are just training our minds and bodies to become reliant on a pill to fix us, rather than to do the work to heal ourselves from within.

Anytime I write or speak on this subject, it frequently can receive a lot of backlash, usually by those who regularly take prescriptions. So let me say immediately as I always say when dealing with this topic, I’m not against medicine. What I am against though is when a person refuses to look within themselves at how they’re living their life, which often can be the sole reason why they’re on some of their medicines in the first place.

The first image that comes to mind when I think of a person like this is the smoker who gets bronchitis or pneumonia. I have often seen complete denial of a cigarette addiction come from many smokers when this occurs. Instead of looking at their dependency, they choose to believe they randomly got sick and only need a little medicine to get better. But that type of unhealthiness is obvious. One that’s a little less obvious though and is a growing issue in this country is when a person feels some pain in their body and seeks a painkiller to make it go away.

There are so many people now who have chronic pain in their backs, shoulders, hips, and various other parts of their bodies. Sure doctors can generally find some reason why they believe the person may be feeling these pains, but they’re often never totally sure of their diagnosis either. While doctors may do random tests and conduct physical therapies, many patients never get the relief they’re seeking. Some end up getting surgery again and again in the same area and still they find little to no relief. Sadly, during this whole process, they are prescribed pain pills, which provide immediate relief. That in turn starts creating a mental dependency in the person that the only way they will feel better is through a pain relief pill. Some spend the rest of their lives in that constant cycle of taking these pills to cope and seeking doctors for more of it. But what many don’t ever do is look within to see if the pain is coming from something other than a physical condition.

There are so many factors that can cause a person to have pain besides a physical condition. Unhealthy eating habits, other addictions, and lack of exercise can cause some of these conditions but so can burying traumatic experiences. I once tried to completely forget about my father’s suicide after it happened. During that period of time, I developed serious left knee pain that landed me on those pain relief pills and in a surgery room where nothing was ever found or fixed. When I worked through my father’s death though, all of my left knee pain went away.

When I lost my mother in a tragic way, I tried to bury her death as well. That only led to me to go deep into a sex and love addiction, which in turn caused me to develop severe depression and anxiety. I then became dependent on medication to cope and I remained that way until I finally worked through my mother’s death. Once I did, and once I stopped the behaviors of that addiction, all of the anxiety and depression disappeared.

Through a lot of introspection, healthy changes in my life, and help from my Higher Power, I have been able to heal myself from many other health issues that have arisen over time as well. I continue to stay on a pill free path currently in life and I pray to remain that way because all the pills I ever took were no different than using a Band-Aid, as they only ever covered up my wounds.

The bottom line is that I don’t want to cover up my wounds anymore nor return to having a counter full of prescriptions again where the side effects of one only caused me to have to take another. The only solution I’ve ever found to successfully heal from any of my pains is to look at not only how I’m living my life, but also at what I may have buried deep within me long ago. Thankfully in continuing to do both, I seem to becoming more and more healthy each day, but more importantly, I’ve been able to stay away from that growing epidemic of the pill popping society.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson