There is no illness that could not be much helped by quiet relaxing
on the part of the patient, so as to allow nature and remedial
agencies to do their work more easily.
That which keeps relief away in the case of the cold, of pain, and
of many illnesses, is the contraction of the nerves and muscles of
the body, which impedes the curative power of its healing forces.
The contraction of the nerves and muscles of the body is caused by
resistance in the mind, and resistance in the mind is unwillingness:
unwillingness to endure the distress of the cold, the pain, or the
illness, whatever it may be; and the more unwilling we are to suffer
from illness, the more we are hindering nature from bringing about a
cure.
One of the greatest difficulties in life is illness when the hands
are full of work, and of business requiring attention. In many eases
the strain and anxiety, which causes resistance to the illness, is
even more severe, and makes more trouble than the illness itself.
Suppose, for instance, that a man is taken down with the measles,
when he feels that he ought to be at his office, and that his
absence may result in serious loss to himself and others. If he
begins by letting go, in his body and in his mind, and realizing
that the illness is beyond his own power, it will soon occur to him
that he might as well turn his illness to account by getting a good
rest out of it. In this frame of mind his chances of early recovery
will be increased, and he may even get up from his illness with so
much new life and with his mind so much refreshed as to make up, in
part, for his temporary absence from business. But, on the other
hand, if he resists, worries, complains and gets irritable, he
irritates his nervous system and, by so doing is likely to bring on
any one of the disagreeable troubles that are known to follow
measles; and thus he may keep himself housed for weeks, perhaps
months, instead of days.
Another advantage in dropping all resistance to illness, is that the
relaxation encourages a restful attitude of mind, which enables us
to take the right amount of time for recovery, and so prevents
either a possible relapse, or our feeling only half well for a long
time, when we might have felt wholly well from the time we first
began to take up our life again. Indeed the advantages of
nonresistance in such cases are innumerable, and there are no
advantages whatever in resistance and unwillingness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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