Loving Support for Those Experiencing Chronic Illness - Part 1

written by Julie Dittmar on Wednesday, June 07, 2017

Chronic illness can feel like such a solo, arduous journey. From the moment you wake up, to the moment you have relief in sleep, for months, for years…it can feel like a cruel punishment for something you weren’t let in on by the Universe.

It can feel like an endless vision quest….alone in the woods, alone in the darkness, with unseen howling coyotes in the distance, but coming closer.

Every day, you take steps toward healing the emotional, the mental, the physical, the spiritual. Every day, you pray for the sweet relief of feeling perfect, whole, and well again in the physical form. Every day you ask for Divine intervention and a miracle to lift you up.

There may be some friends who walk the whole journey with you. They are the ones who ask you how you’re feeling and genuinely care about your response because they truly care about you and love you. They ask if they can do anything for you (day-to-day tasks, errands, make food, drive you places). They are part of your circle of support and team of cosmic healers.

There are other friends who may not make the journey with you. They grow weary, get bored with or disinterested in your seemingly same answer to the question, “How are you today?” All the while, they find other friends to play with when you are not well enough to do so, and it can feel like life is going on without you.

Even though you may honestly feel the same way as they do (bored with the “Groundhog Day” aspect of the story of your health), still, it’s your body, so you somehow keep going. You keep hope alive, and stay with the storyline to see how the hero emerges victorious.

Friends may even forget that you are still in the throes of a healing crisis when they see you because it has gone on so long. They may say “Well, you LOOK fine to me.” Or when you say that you aren’t feeling well they may respond with not saying anything supportive in reply, or ask you anything about it. In fact, they may just go back to talking about themselves, and continuing on with their stories about their lives, their passions, or dramas.

When they do this, it doesn’t have to mean they don’t care about you and your healing, or that they don’t love you. In Matt’s teachings, he says, “People are doing the best they can. If they could do better, they would.” They offer what they can, and don’t offer what they can’t. Illness is a great teacher of what you can and can’t offer, despite even the strongest personal will. You deeply know about “doing the best you can” in any given moment.

And the other relevant teaching here is “Everything is a gift. This is here to serve me.”

So when someone can’t or doesn’t give us what we would like to have from them or would feel the yummiest to our heart, can one of the gifts be that WE are the ones that then give that to ourselves? Can we say the words to ourselves that we long to hear from others; can we take the sweet, loving actions for ourselves that no one else could?

“Oh honey, I know this has been so incredibly hard. I’m here with you. I will never leave you. I love you. We are in this together.”

Can another gift be that our interactions of spirit in human form with ourselves and all the other characters in our movie are here to serve the waking up of our consciousness? We wake up out of the need for anyone or anything to fulfill us in any way.

Then we can give our love to the world with truly no strings attached. We offer love unconditionally whether or not it is returned. And if it is not, we know where to send the love next.

We all deserve more love, not less.

Peace, love, and compassion for all beings everywhere.

May you be blessed with perfect health in all ways now,




Julie