The diverse Life

Getting sick of getting sick

I hate getting sick, despite what I understand in why do we get sick. I always feel that time getting sick is time wasted. And I would rather get sick on a weekday than on a weekend. A weekday, I can get a doctor’s certification and I don’t have to go to work. On a weekend, I wasted my weekend…

My western doctor gave me flu pills because i got the flu. She gave fever pills because i told her i had fever. That’s about it. I felt really tired after taking the flu pill. So i went to bed. I didn’t want to take anymore after that.

Somehow, the body knew how to heal itself. So I left the body to do its own thing, while I went about doing my own thing. Sure enough, the body broke down again.

I went to a Chinese doctor this time, and he listened to my pulse, I said “aaah..” and he measured my blood pressure. My blood pressure is on the low side, and he said since I exercise often, that’s normal. However, I have a condition he diagnosed as cold with inner heat (外寒内热).

I can’t tell you more what that means because I don’t understand it myself. What I can tell you is how the doctor listened to my body, and prescribed medicine based on what he knows. I believe all doctors try to do this, but apparently fails on more than half the time (some research I read somewhere, but this article is not about that research).

What I want to tell you is that with all the medical advances, we haven’t learnt to listen to ourselves intently. Of all the doctors in the world, no one is as close to your body as you yourself is. We might be the best diagnostic tool we have for ourselves, yet we haven’t capitalised on that fact.

With all my training in push hands trying to listen to the opponent, I don’t even listen to my own body. I haven’t done my body much justice by ignoring the signals its been trying to tell me. I let it do what it’s suppose to do, and I do what I want to do. I forgot that we (the body and I) have to work together in order to let the body do what the body do best, and let me do what I do best.

So talk to your body often. Listen to what it has to say before it’s too late. You only have one body. Treasure it as it allows you to experience life itself.

© 2008 shang lee . com.