Everyone has had the experience of being sick in their life. Did you get the spiritual awakening and the learnings that were presented to you?

Many of you who are on the path of becoming aware know about the metaphysical causes of illnesses. There are plenty of great books on that topic, among them my favourite from Louise Hay and Lise Bourbeau, which can be an excellent starting point in understanding your dis-ease.

Let’s look at it on a practical level: Take the example of the reoccurring bouts of flu. What are the benefits and potentials for spiritual awakenings in having the flu?

1. Prioritizing: When your body is weakened by fever and headache you only do what is really important or urgent, like cancelling appointments, calling work to let them know you are not well. You are not wasting time with or worrying about unimportant, trivial matters.
2. Focus on Health: You become more health conscious, you are mindful of what you eat, drink and what outside influences you expose yourself to.
3. Speaking the Truth: You might be telling people to stop talking when you’re physically, mentally or emotionally not able to take in more. How often does it happen that you are keeping your mouth shut, when you are well, because you want to be ‘nice’? When you are sick, you are being more honest with yourself and others.
4. Looking after Self: When you are feeling low, you have to take your own needs seriously. Looking after your body becomes a matter of self-preservation.
5. Less Ego Fixation: If you are seriously weakened by your illness you will no longer be bothered making a point. It becomes less important to ‘be right’ and more important to ‘be well’.
6. Sticking with the Essential: When you have throat pain, for example, you are only saying what is really necessary, leaving out all the fluff. Similarly to the previous point you are less attached to being right or being heard and trust that things will sort themselves out.
7. Allowing Help: This is a great chance for people who find it not so easy to accept help under normal circumstances. When you are ill and cannot do certain tasks, you have to learn to accept and welcome help. For the person helping you it is also much nicer to help you as they won’t hear: ‘Oh no, that’s not necessary, I can do it myself!’

So do you have to get sick to learn those lessons or can you do it while you are well?