WHAT THE WISE GUYS SAY

Many of my favourite wise guys express the same sentiments regarding health and healing. Here are some thought-provoking words.

Seneca said, in a letter to his friend Lucilius:

For what else are you busied with except improving yourself every day, laying aside some error, and coming to understand that the faults which you attribute to circumstances are in yourself? We are indeed apt to ascribe certain faults to the place or to the time; but those faults will follow us, no matter how we change our place.

Yet the blind ask for a guide, while we wander without one, saying: "I am not self-seeking; but one cannot live at Rome in any other way. I am not extravagant, but mere living in the city demands a great outlay. It is not my fault that I have a choleric disposition, or that I have not settled down to any definite scheme of life; it is due to my youth." Why do we deceive ourselves? The evil that afflicts us is not external, it is within us, situated in our very vitals; for that reason we attain soundness with all the more difficulty, because we do not know that we are diseased. undefined

Hippocrates said:

It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.

Thoreau said:

There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.

Recovering to a better state than you were ever in before? There it is again – the idea that, in order to overcome our dis-ease and truly heal, we need to change ourselves. We need transformation.  

Does this mean that we can cure anything in ourselves? I don’t know. It feels like a lack of humility to believe so. Steve Jobs tried it, and it didn’t go well for him. If anyone had power of focus, well, it’s him. Am I writing this as someone who’s always been well and can preach about it? No! I’m on my own health and transformation journey. Am I telling you to not visit doctors? No!  

What I can tell you is that taking responsibility is the most rewarding, empowering way of moving forward, and that by embracing change you have the opportunity to truly heal.

We have far more influence over our un-health and health than we’re told.  

If you’d like someone to accompany you on your healing journey, please reach out.  

Book a complimentary, obligation-free, 20-minute consultation with Sally here.

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