This week's blog is on the power of the truth of the diagnosis

Truth versus Denial and Ignorance 

For the full truth we need both forms of knowledge; the mystical and the methodological, the intuitive and the intellectual, compassion and hard facts, shamanic and allopathic.

Without the Truth about the nature of the disease the patient has no idea of the extent of the challenge. There is something especially liberating about the Truth. The most important thing about illness may well be the lessons it brings about our attitudes and our lifestyles. Without knowledge of the Truth, it is unlikely we will learn what we need to know. Even if we are cured we may have to confront our deficiencies at a later date and never get to know who we truly are. We may be cured of a disease but not be healed. Our body may be healthy but still not know the Truth of the Self. A patient may have had his colon cancer successfully removed and return to a dysfunctional relationship and a miserable job. This dis-ease may lead to yet another illness down a road that has bypassed the Self.

Left Brained Allopathic Truth and the Diagnosis: Truth implies a correct diagnosis is made so that the remedy can match the condition. Just knowing the diagnosis can be reassuring and is therapy in itself. The Inner Healer can then come to grips with the challenge and do its job. Most conditions get better without the help of medical intervention. Confusion as to the diagnosis and treatment can increase Fear that inhibits the Inner Healer. Many patients are optimistic when they know what is wrong with them and they can do something tangible about it. Physicians often feel that unless something organic can be found that “nothing is wrong” and the symptoms are psychosomatic. Many patients travel from doctor to doctor with real symptoms only to be told that they have no pathology. Just taking the time to tell them that the condition is not serious and that stress can cause pain in an organ from muscle tension can be vital treatment in itself. The understanding that pain can lead to a vicious cycle of more stress, more tension in the muscle group and more pain, can break or improve the pain cycle. For instance the common complaints of tension headache, the pelvic pain syndrome and the irritable bowel syndrome. Once the patient has been reassured that a serious disease, or even cancer has been ruled out, this knowledge alone may be enough to cure the malady and make the patient feel better. With wise counseling the patient can come to regard the symptom as a barometer of stress rather than some insidious disease that for some reason the doctors are choosing to ignore or have missed. Treatment should include the recommendation of de-stressing techniques such as yoga, exercise, meditation etc. The fact that there is no organic pathological diagnosis does not mean there is nothing wrong. 
Stress can kill and needs to be addressed as real “pathology.”

The Truth is essential when planning a health strategy for a serious problem. Treatment is likely to be ineffective or unhelpful if the magnitude of the disease is trivialized or exaggerated. Trivializing the disease may be like telling a patient to train to climb Kilimanjaro when in fact he is tackling Everest. The energy required for the problem will fall short of the need. On the other hand, exaggeration of the problem will increase the fear factor and nocebo unnecessarily.

"You must accept truth from whatever source it comes." The Ancestors

Right Brained Shamanic Truth: The shaman, by being able to penetrate through the veil of this reality into the "Field," is privy to a more expansive truth than the patient or his doctor. Shamans, and I use the term broadly to include anyone with paranormal powers, have access to information that most of us do not. The medical profession has recognized these practitioners with the polite term, "medical intuitives." They can glean information from the Field or the spirit world that can broaden the perspective of Truth. This has the potential to go to the root cause of the problem and where it began at an energetic level. Physicians usually address only allopathic parameters and have no concept of medicine not localized in time and space. Doctors usually treat the physical but do not address the psycho-spiritual or the social aspects of the disease. Shamanic like healers have access to “soul-ular” technology that can be critical for health and healing, even if not curing. Without their client having to go through years of psychotherapy they are able to say things like; “you are unhappy in your marriage and you will not get better until you do something about it,” or “your job is killing you, you must do something else.” 
There are also spiritual diseases unrecognized by Western medicine that indigenous healers know to be very real. 
They are deriving this from a "non-local" spiritual or Field source that diagnoses and treats according to a less clumsy set of rules than the medical or psychotherapeutic professions. The shaman is the messenger and her job is to pass on the message. This is very efficient therapy. The patient still has the free will to do what they wish with the directive. This is not a mandate since free will is the cosmic law. The patient may choose a compromise such as undergoing marriage guidance therapy or negotiating other conditions of satisfaction with the boss. Whatever the choice, these are factors that need to be attended for more complete health, wholeness and healing.