Healing

I would love to say that I have the magic cure and then try to sell you that cure. But I’m not that kind of person and I’m not that kind of teacher.

The truth is, there was no magic bullet. No simple answer. The medical treatments in Germany and elsewhere helped. Alternative treatments helped. Detoxes helped. And sometimes they didn’t help at all. Meeting my deepest feelings, facing unprocessed trauma, bringing all emotions – sorrow, anger, fear, powerlessness – into the fore, into the light of awareness to be felt, digested, expressed, celebrated, healed. That helped. Time helped. Getting through the damn days helped. Facing what I had to face helped. Doing the next possible thing. Taking the next step. Getting through the long days that I had to get through, the long days I didn’t think I could get through. Finding just enough strength to make it to the next afternoon. The next evening. The next morning. The next hour. Falling into despair sometimes. That helped. Touching a tiny chink of light, of hope, of reprieve, sometimes, that helped, that gave me just enough strength to carry on. Kind words and gestures from friends helped. Financial help. That helped. Practical help. That helped. Emotional help. That helped. Friends and strangers praying for me, or being able to be present with me even though I wasn’t my usual self at all, and was hardly able to be present with them. That helped. Losing all faith that anything could help. That helped, in ways I will probably never understand. Finding faith, sometimes. Losing it again. Remembering the Unbreakable Self that I am. Remembering the deeply sensitive, vulnerable, authentic human being that I am, too. Remembering that vulnerability is not weakness and sickness is not failure and even Jesus cried out for his daddy on the cross and difficulties can befall any of us at any time. Some days wanting it all to end. Other days believing that healing was possible after all. All of that must have helped. Surrendering the mind into utter Not Knowing, falling prostrate onto the good earth, praying, begging, crying to the heavens for help, for an ounce of relief, for a little reduction in the symptoms. That helped, some days. Not knowing what would help next. Asking for help. Feeling beyond help. Others not knowing how to help. Receiving the opposite of help, being told it was all in my head, or that it was all „just emotional“, or all „just trauma“, or that Lyme disease „doesn’t exist“, or that I was „playing helpless“. People trying to help and not helping at all. Perhaps it all helped.

The truth is, I don’t know what helped. I am spinning a narrative in hindsight. I think it all helped.

For I think I was in God’s hands the whole time – helped by God, held by God, some days breathed by God, and I think we all are, and if you don’t like the word God then drop the word God and surrender into the vast Mystery of life, beyond all comprehension.

Healing is messy, non-linear, often utterly surprising, frequently ugly and shattering and embarrassing, sometimes seemingly out of reach, and always utterly mysterious in essence.

I could have died but I am alive, more alive than ever, more free and in love with life than ever, and I am unspeakably grateful for this extra time on this beautiful planet.

Thank you, all of you.

– Jeff Foster