Control & Chronic Illness

Why have I been talking so much about control?

Control was one of the biggest hurdles in my own personal path of cultivation.

And control is one of the biggest hurdles for people with chronic illness.

Why do I say that?

Control is something I’ve studied in myself and others almost full time for the last 2.5 years under intensive mentorship. And it’s one of the biggest patterns contributing to long term illness that I’ve seen in my 10+ year, hands-on Eastern Medicine practice.

In communities of people with chronic illness, and with individuals who have a chronic illness as well, there is this almost always a specific underlying tone. The vibe is like, “how unfortunate I am to have been plagued with this horrible thing that I have no control over - my body is working against me!” It’s this emoji: 😩

No shade - I know how physically and emotionally taxing it is to have a condition that feels like it’s taken over your whole life. There is room to be angry and grief-stricken about it for sure. In fact, it’s a crucial part of the recovery process.

And also, the whole subconscious message of that vibe is - "I don’t have control and if I only had more control my life would be so much better and easier."

This is a lie.

For several reasons.

First of all - your body is NEVER working against you. That’s not a thing. It never was and it never will be.

Our bodies entire existence is to keep us physically and emotionally alive - it will always be working exactly FOR you.

It just may communicate in ways that feel foreign or unreasonable or illogical - based on how you CURRENTLY understand your identity and the way you think you need to live your life.

The idea that it’s against you is just a belief. It’s a thought you’ve practiced over and over until you started to believe it. It’s a part of a mental control mechanism that your MIND has created in order to keep your self-identity in tact.

It’s an idea that’s not rooted in the truth of who you are and what your body is communicating, it’s rooted in control.

And this brings us to the second reason that specific chronic illness vibe is a lie:

Because while you think that you lack control - over your body, your lifestyle, etc., what’s actually happening is that you’re unconsciously exerting way too much control.

Let me explain…

When you’re chronically in pain, fatigued, itchy, foggy, frustrated, devastated - sometimes the only way you feel relief and the only way you feel like yourself is when you feel a sense of control over what you’re experiencing in life.

“I know who I am - I am chronically ill.”

“I know who I am - my body just doesn’t agree.”

“I know who I am - I just can’t figure out how to get back to myself.”

“I know who I am - a person whose body is, for some unknown reason, against me.”

Like living in a bell jar or a cage, you feel like the real you is trapped inside of a container that just won’t allow you to really live.

But what if that “real you” is something outdated, or something you thought you were based on what others expected of you, or who you think you need to be in order to get love or feel safe?

What if the key to your freedom is releasing the idea of who you think you are or what your life needs to be?

What if getting out of the bell jar means releasing mental control over your identity?

The entire existence of your mind is to keep your identity safe AT ALL COSTS

...which means that your ideas and thoughts and beliefs may NOT be working for your literal, physical survival, let alone your ability to thrive.

Your mind and your identity can sometimes be horribly off course in terms of carrying you forward into a life where you’re well and thriving.

Listen, control is a protection mechanism

A brilliant one. It’s worked for you all your life - right up until your body reached its threshold and it couldn’t keep up anymore.

It’s there for a reason, and taking it down will feel like death to your mind. Most people aren’t willing to go through this, and so they stay stuck inside a sickness that the body designed specifically to allow you to break free of an identity or a way of thinking or living that has been holding you back from a deeper truth.

And now we’re in the territory of ego-death. Releasing mental control and allowing your identity to shed, much like how a snake molts its skin every so often - so that the body can come into a state of real alignment with who you truly are.

With chronic illness, the thing I see most often

- even when it’s chronic depression, chronic pain, chronic indigestion, or chronic insomnia, and not a whole complex syndrome that devastates multiple bodily systems - is a mental and behavioral pattern of extreme control.

Absolute refusal of the mind to let go of what it thinks you are and what it thinks it knows.

Refusal that has dug its heels in so deep it’s now embedded in the deepest layers of your body.

Refusal so hardened it has convinced you that the chaos of your body is your enemy.

But it’s not your enemy.

It’s your greatest teacher.

And you will only understand its lessons once you allow yourself to loosen your controlling grip on what you think you know about who you are.

This is one of the main things we work with in Yin Medicine, my 6 month program that combines the ingenuity of Eastern Medicine with the pattern-breaking freedom of transformational coaching for full-spectrum healing.

Click here to apply for 1:1 work on your control mechanisms & chronic illness