There is No Cure for Life

Recently I stopped to talk to a neighbour who was working on his laptop outside in our shared garden. I realised as we were talking I didn’t actually know what he does for work, so I asked him. He told me he works in fashion, then looked down at his attire - winter coat over pink jumper and shorts, with loafers, and laughing slightly apologetically, said he takes it very seriously. My response was its ok, I’m a herbalist and I take pharmaceuticals.

And it really got me thinking about how we think we should or shouldn’t present ourselves or what we should or shouldn’t be doing within our chosen profession.

It is particularly rife within the health and wellness world - the polarity of what constitutes acceptable ways to be healthy, along with an undercurrent of competition and success. The flip side of this is a pharmaceutical medical industry that tells us to unquestionably do what they say and get on with it.

Of course everyone wants to live a long and happy life, but at what cost do we set our goals on striving to achieve wellness, or quietly take the medication at the expense of really being present living in to all that arises.

It is a hard fact that none of us are going to get out of here alive. It is also slightly ironic that this outward zenith of health elitism sits hand in hand and side by side an increasingly toxic world, which pollutes nature as much as it pollutes our bodies. Autoimmune disease are rife, along with increases in cancer and obesity. From this perspective it is then not surprising that there is a striving for health.

But what if we have totally missed the point, that ‘the wellness industry’ is the same product as the ill health in our culture?

I don’t hide the fact - nor do I shout about it, that I have lived most of my adult life with an autoimmune condition. In fact I do not believe that I would be on the path that I am on if this had not been my lived experience. However, despite knowing this, there is a level of tentativeness, of shame, of failure to speak of it. In part this is quite simply the self preservation of my private personal journey, and at the same time I know it is more than this.

When someone is seeking out support they are often seeking out an escape - a cure. With this, comes the expectation of judgement that I can’t offer them what it is they want - because within the framework of what the health world promotes I have ‘failed’. But the truth is there is no one out there who can cure you. I actively refrain from using the word healer, precisely because it comes with so many connotations and expectations of what it is I can do for you. It outsources YOU being the source of your power to heal.

But what I can do, and do precisely because of the journey I have been on, is meet you exactly where you are. I will not pity you, or feel sorry for you, or try to fix you. But I will see you; your vulnerability, the grief, the loneliness, and the immense courage and call to surrender that it takes to navigate ill health. I will not take responsibility for you, but I will unwaveringly walk by your side as you take responsibility for yourself. I will meet you with love and compassion, and I will see you.

When we realise we hold the key to what we need, it actually enables us to get the support that we seek, because we are no longer handing our power over to someone on the outside, but working in collaboration with those that hold wisdom, or knowledge and skills that we do not have ourselves. We are no longer victims to our situation.

And this is something that I have come to deeply appreciate and feel empowered by in myself with my own ongoing journey. It has taken years of seeking out the right support, of hours and hours of research, of trial and error, of periods of intense pain and grief and deep loneliness, and moments of utter blissful joy of the simple marvel of just being alive. And there has been a desire, a wish, a striving to find the answer the magic cure - because this too is a part of our humanity.

But really the search for a cure is to search for a way out of life. Life is bloody, and messy and painful and rich, and full of triggers. And if we didn’t have these I’m not sure we would also have the depth of beauty and magic and love that we also have access to.

And it is through living this, through recognising this, that I am able to do what I do as a herbalist. Because I get it, I’ve been there. I know the tension and the fear of suddenly having a body that feels out of control.  I know first hand the disconnect of being funnelled through the medical system, along with the relief that we have modern medicine available to us.  And I understand the need to decompress and return to a state of nature, to process the reality of illness in our modern world, and integrate this back into the bigger body of ourselves, and how to find a way back into day to day life.

The feedback I most commonly receive from clients is their appreciation of the absolute acceptance of them they feel from the space I hold. That all of them is welcome and I meet them exactly where they are.

And when we do meet ourselves exactly where we are, we give up the striving of wanting it or needing it to be another way. It is an honour to be able to reflect back to someone that where they are is absolutely ok. That it is more than ok, that it is real.

If we approach something  - whether it be pharmaceutical medication or a herb as being a solution for a problem, to shove back down what we do not want to see about ourselves, we continue to feed into the pattern of escaping life. But when we approach these things as the wholeness of who we are, it really doesn’t matter what we take or do to live in a way that nourishes us.

My way as an insight herbalist is to guide you back into reflection with nature; with your true nature, and within that all is welcome.