I Never Get Sick

I used to brag to my family and friends that I never get sick. The last time I had a real illness, until recently, was a case of pneumonia back in 1989. At that point, when the brag was made, I had a pretty good track record. Recently years have been a little different.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a "woe is me" story of how I have become bedridden, but I have had my share of health challenges in recent years. For example, 3 years ago, around this time, I was bitten by a black widow spider. We don't know when and we didn't even find the corpse until months later, I just noticed a bite area and figured it was some insect, like all the others that wake up in the spring. The bite area grew in size and got warmer and I went to the doctor. Until that point, I had the stereotypical black man's aversion to the doctors office. No real reason for it these days, but it was there.

When I found out that I was being admitted to the hospital, I began to worry about my obligations to work and family. In my head at the time, nothing would get done because I'd be in the hospital and I wouldn't be able to do it. I barked orders to anyone within earshot while the pain got worse. That is until my wife, to the joy of many, told me to shut up. I had great back up systems at work and she would take care of home. At that point, I gave in to the pain medication and let go of the control I fought so hard to maintain.

It took at week in the hospital and a week convalescing at home before I was ready to return to work. Since then I've had gout flare ups and the occasional flu, but I'm back to my original mantra, though I've adjusted it somewhat. Over the last week a wicked stomach virus took me down and an attack of gout right after that. Consequently updating my blogs hasn't been top most on my to do list. But now I notice a difference in how I'm handling things.

True to my spiritual journey, I took the ego out of my illness. Notice the descriptions above. I was acting all on ego when I had that serious illness 3 years ago. None of that was coming from an enlightened place. Nothing would get done without me? Really? Today, I realize that taking care of my body is much more important while I'm here. Not from the point of ego, but because my spirit resides here temporarily and I should do what it takes to make sure it works properly.

Also in my recent combined illnesses, I found myself sleeping a lot. I called into work Wednesday and slept most of that day and night. And on Saturday, while not sleeping as much, I was resting for quite a bit of the day. It occurred to me that what I was doing was manifesting health. I wanted to be healthy so my body slowed me down so it could work on the healing process. Those two days did wonders for me and, while my knee is still a bit tweaked from the lactic acid crystals that cause gout, I'm back to being the picture of health, with a redesigned credo. You see, if I continue with "I never get sick" I'm coming from a place of sickness and there's a negative in there, too. The Universe only hears the positive.

To have the Universe help me, the new motto is, "I'm always healthy."