Why Are You Sick?

In November 2021 I participated in my first Ayahuasca ceremony. As part of the ritual we had a meeting outside of this yurt where we were holding the ceremony to state our intentions. There were 6 of us that had committed to this sacred event. At this time I felt very jaded towards the healthcare system because of what we had gone through with Theo. When this man next to me said that he was an ER doctor it caught my attention right away. The reason he was participating in this ceremony was because he was receiving a lot of people in the ER in a lot of pain but he could not find a physical ailment. His intention was to find the deeper reason as to why these people were feeling so much pain. I was taken back. I was surprised to find a conventional medicine doctor searching for answers that could not be found in an American Medical Association textbook. It was as though I received further permission to continue to seek answers from other traditions.

I was later introduced to Alan Watts who was known for interpreting and popularizing Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience.

https://alanwatts.org/

I then was introduced to Peter Gorman. Peter Gorman has spent parts of the last 30 years in the Amazon jungle in Peru, where he has been a collector of artifacts for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, herpetological specimens for the FIDIA Research Institute of the University of Rome, and medicinal plants for Shaman Pharmaceuticals.

https://pgorman.com/

And my personal favorite has been Dr. Joe Tafur. Joe Tafur, MD is an integrative Family Physician, curandero, author and speaker. His acclaimed book, The Fellowship of the River, explores the role of spiritual healing in modern healthcare.

https://www.drjoetafur.com/

In my next ayahuasca ceremony in October of 2022, I had this phrase that kept coming up.

“Why are you sick?”

According to Dr. Mark Hyman, Only about 12% of Americans are considered “metabolically healthy.” That means the other 88% of us aren’t meeting basic medical guidelines for things like blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol, and other markers of metabolic health.

You can learn more about what he said here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ai/podcast/real-reason-for-americas-obesity-crisis-chronic-disease/id1382804627?i=1000470177902

When I listened to this podcast it really made me think about the people that showed no physical ailment. What was making them feel sick and in pain? Sure we can look at biometric measurements but like the Doc experienced from my first ayahuasca ceremony, sometimes there is no scientific evidence showing a physical ailment.

The next thought came to me:

What if our thoughts are making us sick?

I read a book called One Truth, One Law: I AM, I Create by Erin Werley and she lays the claim that when we don’t meet our calling and our purpose in this life we feel negative emotions.

In 2020 when I was completing my Functional Medicine Coaching Certification from the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, we focused a lot on Positive Psychology. Positive Psychology is a new age approach to psychology. From Freud to modern day traditional psychology has been focusing on what is wrong with people. What are your weaknesses and maladies?

Positive Psychology flips that thought on its head and focuses on what is right with you? What are your strengths and your gifts? Martin Seligman shined the light on this thought process in 1998 as the president of the American Psychological Association and later created the first graduate level program called the Master of Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

https://www.lps.upenn.edu/degree-programs/mapp

Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi define positive psychology as "the scientific study of positive human functioning and flourishing on multiple levels that include the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions of life."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi

Christopher Peterson Ph.D. said:

“Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-good-life/200805/what-is-positive-psychology-and-what-is-it-not

What thoughts and what thought processes are making you sick?