I had been studying various holistic healing modalities; muscle testing (a form of kinesiology) whole brain concepts, brain gym, structural neurology. These studies demonstrated how blocked energy kept us from accessing our truth, our power and prevented us from moving forward into wellness and wholeness.
My family, for the most part didn’t mind being my case studies so I could practice. Not sure if you can refer to anyone as your “guinea pig” anymore without falling into the politically incorrect arena.
My brother, Richard, chose not to be one of my guinea pigs. He hovered outside my room, pacing the hallway. He did this when he wanted to declare something, but hadn’t worked up enough of the necessary emotion in order to pounce. Eventually he would, you knew this, so his attack was not a surprise, but it would be ferocious. There was no excuse to be ill prepared.
“Don’t you realize what you’re doing? What you’re studying, could give someone like me answers. It could help me. Do you know what this would do to me? It would be like cutting off my right arm. My whole life is who I am, what I’ve had to live with, and now all of this could change that.”
He stormed off.
There was no defending, no rebuttal. I just sat there hearing his retort over and over in my head.
Richard had invested all his energy in his struggles. All he knew. His challenge; many years later, as an adult, would be diagnosed as Autism. Being born in 1958, he got ‘retarded, troubled, different, difficult’ and he belonged no where, with no one knowing what to do with him.
I didn’t have an answer for him – I never would. I did listen and I did come to understand and respect why many of us remain stuck, hang on to hardship and sabotage health along with any chance for success or joy.
We invest in our pain. It gets into us and becomes part of our identity, our story. It holds status, provides us with conversation, gets us attention, offers us a scapegoat for getting out of everything from domestic duties to attending a family event, to taking leave of our jobs. As we get older, it can even be our whole social calendar of appointments for this test and that, the review from the latest specialist, comparing treatments and medications with others of like syndrome or disease. It excuses us for poor behaviour. No one can have the audacity to expect anything from us — that would be cruel.
Many years ago I met a woman with chronic back pain. She confided in me that from being ill she finally had help around the house; perhaps her husband might finally have to go back to work. Being well meant going back into overwhelm where she had to be the sole provider and do all the household chores as well.
To heal we have to identify, what has been termed the pain-off’s of our illness; what we gain from it and what we will have to give up when we heal.
I don’t believe Richard wanted life to be so hard, so full of fear and anger; where every moment was a struggle. I feel he just didn’t know anything else. He was so far away from joy and ease. From believing that anyone could possibly understand and care. The good in life he could have embraced, felt so alien to him. Change was his enemy. What he had, he knew; his misery was his companion. A companion that consumed him, keeping him apart from everything and everyone.
Richard’s hostility towards my studies and practice that had given me improved health and heightened my awareness, brought me respect for people who held tight to their pain and poor health. I now knew to wish them well and allow them their choice. I understood that not everyone would climb out of the depths of life and move forward on the road of their journey.
I needed to trust and have courage that I would know how to live without my own constant pain and agony. Without forcing myself to walk straight and true and not letting on how I really felt. With my new knee I would have to let go of this.
Thank you Richard for your bravery — for allowing me to hear and see your fear. I did not know what to do with it then, I did not understand. I do now.
To Be Continued.
Photo by; Sharon Cooke