September 11, 2009 | 
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Health and denial
Last Sunday was my birthday. As regular readers know, I almost didn’t make it. Last March I came within hours of dying. While we knew before surgery my condition was serious, nobody knew it was that bad. My surgeon said it was a miracle I survived. Now I am healthy. I am cancer free, and in the best shape I’ve been for many years. At times, I feel completely normal, and forget about all I’ve been through. It is so easy to fall back into the usual human mode of taking my health for granted, but I have also learned just how dangerous that assumption can be.
Every living creature exists under the threat of illness and death. What makes humans different is we are aware of those possibilities. We can imagine a future which involves unknown sickness, and even our own death. We remember times of pain in the past, and worry about it happening again. For many people these imaginings and memories lead to a life lived in fear. For some, the fear of pain or death is so great they barely engage in life. For many more, the fear of losing a loved one makes it impossible to love fully. While it is our ability to imagine, remember, and learn which has allowed humans to scale the evolutionary heights; it is those same abilities that drive us crazy and limit our enjoyment of the opportunities we’ve created.
So as not to be constantly haunted by the specter of our own pain and death, our minds have come up with a marvelous defense mechanism: denial. While denial sometimes gets a bad rap, without it we would be unable to function. The awareness of all the things that could kill, harm or make us sick would leave us paralyzed with fear. We couldn’t eat for fear of choking or poisoning. We couldn’t sleep for fear something bad might happen that we could have prevented had we stayed awake. As for leaving the house, who knows what horrors might await us out there?
In our most enlightened moments we realize nothing exists but the present, the past is just a memory, and the future merely a collection of infinite possibilities. In the present, we are OK, and there is nothing to fear. However, most of us are not able to live in that enlightened state much of the time. Our minds chatter away about past hurts, failures and regrets, or worry about what will occur in the future. The most ironic part is all this worry about the past and future is the thing that is most likely to make us sick in the present.
Here is where denial comes in. It is important to recognize there are two kinds of denial. In the first, which we can call suppressive denial, we simply try and repress or deny that our fears or pain exist. We use drugs and alcohol, distractive behaviors, or simply suppress our emotions, so as to not feel our discomfort. This is the denial that makes us sick. In enlightened denial we acknowledge, experience and accept all of our dark feelings, and then make the choice not to wallow in them. When we allow ourselves to feel our feelings, rather than act out in an attempt to get away from them, the feelings lose the power to terrify us. In fact, eventually, we begin to see all of our feelings as a natural, healthy part of being alive. While it may take many years of conscious work to truly master one’s feelings, the benefits begin immediately. When we stop resisting our fears, we can make the choice to put them aside at a given time. If fear arises, start by simply acknowledging you are feeling afraid. Check to see if the fear is appropriate and useful to the situation: if you really are in the woods being chased by a bear fear is a useful part of the response, and if it’s not – make a commitment to yourself to deal with it later. Then choose to put it aside, and deal with the situation at hand from a place of strength. Don’t forget to take time later to feel your feelings.
When we suppress our fear of illness, we are limited in our ability to take steps to prevent the very illnesses we fear, and that increases the likelihood we will get sick. When we face our fears, and choose to live, it becomes much easier to stay with a healthy lifestyle of nutritious food, regular exercise, healthful medical care, and joyful living. That is my birthday present to myself this year.
My guest on the radio this week is local Chiropractic Neurologist Robert Adams.
Dr Jeffrey Low hosts “The Relationship Show” every Friday at 2 p.m. on KSVY-FM 91.3
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