Help me deal with a health issue taking into account Steve's article on polarity.

[Holistic Star]

Help me deal with a health issue taking into account Steve's article on polarity.

I have had a chronic illness for the last 4 years. It causes mid-grade symptoms, which can flare up suddenly, it affects my sleep as I am in pain, which has a big knock-on effect on my energy during the day, and on bad days significantly affects my appearance and self-confidence.

Finding that conventional medicine didn't help me, I turned to alternative therapies and from the benefit I received from them my interest in them was reignited, consequently I trained as a coach and healer.

I expressed my interest in healing outwards. I offered my services to friends for free and did lots of treatments for them and to clients and mixed this with my day job which is managing training and development for a company. However I found that although my friends and clients were doing really well, I was getting drained and my health was getting worse. I was giving out all my energy and enthusiasm.

At the start of this year I turned my focus inwards. I've stopped treating others for the time being and am focusing on getting well (although I am still working as have mortgage to pay). I can see an improvement in my condition if I spend a lot of time ensuring that my diet is very good and importantly I get enough rest. While I am ok with having some focus on myself for a few months as it is really important to me to get well again, I can already feel myself getting restless and wanting to offer my services out again.

So what do I do? Steve mentioned that we have a basic polarity and if I look back at my life, mine is to offer service and support to others. However at the moment it is only by focusing inwards on getting health that I feel some improvement. Is there a way I can focus on getting my health back using an outwards polarity? I did start blogging my progress but I found that draining. If I focus back on building up my business as a service (outwards) will this cancel out the gains I make by focusing on my health in an inwards way?


All help / thoughts and advice gratefully received

[Cat Dancer]

I don't know if this would be helpful or not, but this is how I think about my life.

I want to dance, to perform, to create software useful for other people, to give helpful advice.

I can't do these things if I don't eat food, so I eat food.

I can't do these things if I don't sleep, so I sleep.

I can't do these things well if I'm stressed out and unhappy, so if I'm unhappy, I try different things until I'm not unhappy.

I can't do these things well if I'm sick, so when I get sick, I rest until I am well again.

I need money to buy food and to have a place to sleep and to rest when I get sick, so I work to make money, so that I can buy food and have a place to sleep, so that I can dance, perform, create software useful for other people, and to give helpful advice.

The physical direction may be inward instead of outward, receiving instead of giving, yet my intention remains one of an outward flow.

It need to care of myself when I'm sick to enable my giving in the world, in the same way that I need a working car to enable me to give in the world.

There is a dramatic difference though between an inward flow intention and an outward flow intention in that when I've had enough food, or enough rest, or my car will take me from point A to point B, I am content. It is enough. I don't desire more food, more rest, a bigger fancier more expensive car.

Sometimes people are shocked when they see me grab a slab of tofu and eat it.

How can I explain? I'm hungry, my body wants some protein, so I munch on some healthy source of protein. For them, of course, eating a slab of tofu would be yucky, a great sacrifice. But for me, it tastes fine. I enjoy eating tofu. I am no longer hungry. And every hour that I might spend preparing or obtaining some fancier food would be an hour that I'm not doing something that I want to do.

Another difference I notice with having an outward flow intention is that I take dramatically better care of myself than most people.

I may not always know what to do in a giving situation, but when I do know what to do, I often find it easy to do. For example, when I get a cold, I've found that for my body the fastest way to get well is to spend the day in bed sleeping as much as I can. So I do that.

With your chronic condition, it sounds like it probably would need a lot more care than just spending a day in bed like I do when I get a cold. But I wonder if the principle could be the same? Out in the physical world, you do whatever you need to do, for however long as you need to, in order to stay well given the chronic condition you have. Spiritually though, the flow of intention is still outwards: you know that the healthier you are, the better you're able to help people when you're working with them.

^_^

Cat