The Capacity to Heal Lives Within Us

Overcoming the Fear of Death

I have spent many years working with different illnesses, supporting and helping people heal. I help them remember that the capacity to heal resides within us. This statement is, in fact, the truest there is. Yet, for some reason, we’ve forgotten it, and we’ve handed over our ability to listen to our organism to others who run tests and tell us what is “really” going on inside.

When present with ourselves, we can listen to our system, sense when something is out of balance, and understand that it’s time to pause and attend to what is arising. Homeostasis—the body’s ability to self-regulate—is one of the most fundamental processes that only requires us not to interfere, meaning that our mind should stay out of the process, allowing the body and its instincts to do what’s needed for self-regulation. When we allow this, the messages about what we should do to help are clear: whether to rest, stop eating, activate, deactivate, etc.

On one hand, there is a natural tendency towards health. From a purely biological standpoint, this should be enough. But human nature becomes more complex than that. So, why do we interrupt our processes of homeostasis?

Mainly due to our capacity for abstraction and reflection on what is happening. This is our greatest blessing and, at the same time, a problem if not used properly. The ability to think abstractly is part of personality development in a child, helping them adapt to social life. A child is pure essence at birth, with no limits or filters. Over time, this essence becomes layered with personality, comprised of various social learnings accumulated over the years. This essence becomes hidden without realizing it, and personality takes the lead.

There wouldn’t be much of a problem if we remained as pure essence. Essence simply exists and allows the body to self-regulate. You could say it accompanies natural processes. Interestingly, as personality structures itself, by the age of seven, we are almost “complete.” It becomes harder to listen to essence, as personality now has its own opinions, and we start functioning from there. Thus, we lose—or forget—the ability to listen to the body, and we develop a belief system that defines life, including concepts of health and illness.

As adults, it becomes complicated to understand innate internal processes. These adults, who have forgotten how to listen inwardly, teach children that the body is an unknown place and that only specialists know how to treat it. We’re taught to run to an expert to provide the solution whenever something goes wrong. In this way, we reinforce the belief that we cannot access the body’s innate wisdom.

Reversing this process isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s an intense inner journey, confronting many beliefs and ways of facing the world. But if we choose to embark on it, it can bring much clarity and change how we view illness and health. It can even transform how we live our lives if illness becomes a messenger rather than an enemy. If we view illness as an opportunity to reach deeper within ourselves, we may even go beyond the fear of death. Accepting death as part of an illness process can bring liberation, allowing us to delve deep enough to realize that what we indeed are—that Divine essence—never dies. From there, what grows and is nourished by the learning from an illness, even one that might lead to death, is that Divine essence, which fills itself with meaning.

From this perspective, life becomes more beautiful as our focus on what we consider essential shifts. The focus is no longer on “getting rid of the illness” or fleeing the possibility of death but instead on the opportunity for spiritual growth that opens through the illness we’re experiencing.

Each person experiences illness uniquely, which holds specific meaning for them. By delving into this meaning, we carry out our evolutionary work. If you want to know more about illness as a message for inner development, you can read about it in this other article.