5 min read

Last Updated on December 11, 2011

Life as medicine is something that has been brewing away in my awareness for some years now, and I’d like to share what I understand in this regard.
I am sure the Native people of America have a far clearer and deeper understanding of this than I do, yet I feel I have enough of my own appreciation of it that sharing it is worth while. I have not actually read anything on this—although I’d very much like to—so I can not really say how my view of ‘life as medicine’ compares with the Native American perspective on this—such as that held by the Hopi or the Lakota, of the Gogi, for instance.

So, what do I mean by “Life as medicine” ?
What I am referring to actually comes back to something else I have written about—that “Everything is happening for you and not to you”.
Everything that is happening for you is essentially medicine. I’ve just taken a look at what dictionary.com has to say about the word “medicine” and have been pleasantly surprised, for it actually makes reference to the Native American use of the word. Cool.
Let’s take a look:

– Something that serves as a remedy or corrective: medicine for rebuilding the economy; measures that were harsh medicine.
– Shamanistic practices or beliefs, especially among Native Americans.
– Something, such as a ritual practice or sacred object, believed to control natural or supernatural powers or serve as a preventive or remedy.

1. (a) Among the North American Indians, any object supposed to give control over natural or magical forces, to act as a protective charm, or to cause healing; also, magical power itself; the potency which a charm, token, or rite is supposed to exert.
The North American Indian boy usually took as his medicine the first animal of which he dreamed during the long and solitary fast that he observed at puberty. –F. H. Giddings.

So the meaning I am associating with the word “medicine” is “something that brings about healing or provides remedy to dis-ease”. I don’t limit the word dis-ease to physical ailment, but rather I see that it includes all ways in which a person is not-at-ease. Not at ease with them self, with life, with their body, etc.

What I wish to impress upon your mind is that everything in life is happening FOR you and that it is medicine—it comes to you as medicine to remedy disease… or an absence of health. Health is “the wholeness or soundness of body, mind, and soul”.

The people, the family members, the events, the situations, the accidents, the coincidences, the pain, etc. is all a form of medicine—perfectly orchestrated into your life to remedy that which is in a place of un-wholeness, disparity, and dis-ease.

To really get into the feeling of what I’ve just said, it is necessary—I think—to absolutely let go of being a victim. Victimitis is a dangerous plague that has passed through the human psyche and is pandemic all over the world. In fact much of the world as we know it is the product of and heavily relies upon Victimitis. I have not met many people that are not engaged in a victim mentality at some level. I watch how victim mentality crops up within me, and I’ve found that it gets more and more subtle and slippery the deeper I go within.

To make this concept of some practical use I’d like to suggest that as often as you can remember—and each morning set the intention to remember—when things come up in your day to day life that you are struggling with pass through the following steps in some way:

  1. Breath. Deeply and fully, using your whole body. In my experience breathing fully is crucial to engage with deep feelings
  2. Step back from the internal reaction that has come up. Being familiar with meditation and ‘the witness’ may be a prerequisit to know just what this means
  3. Remove all notions of ‘the other’. The ‘other’ being anything or anyone external to yourself. Hence if a person has done something that pisses you off then it is necessary to remove that person from your reaction. Stay with the reaction but drop the association that has been automatically been made between the emotions you are experiencing (your reaction) and the person “out there” that seemed to cause that reaction or emotional response
  4. With the “other” removed that leaves only you or “I” (in the first person, from within you). Now that there is only YOU / I in your relationship to these emotions, bring your awareness (within your feeling world) to the notion that “this is happening for me. I am infinite being and out of that infinity this is what I am co-creating for myself in order to wake up to who and what I am”
  5. It is also now important to release all judgement and opinion around what has happened and the emotions that have come up. This requires deep trust. To not judge rape or abuse, for instance, as good or bad requires deep trust. For the ego wants to make it bad and wrong. Then when you try to explore the notion that it is happening for you and not too you, the victim is going to jump up and start sabotaging your efforts to stay present with what is going on.
  6. From this place of no judgement and oneness (there is only YOU and no other) the next steps are going to have to arise from within you. Stay with your feelings. Stay with the emotions. Stay with the thoughts. Continue to breath. Feel the pause between two breaths—after each exhalation for about 4-10 seconds. Stay with that which is within you. When your awareness/attention projects out, gently bring it back to the feeling that is there within you. Bring your attention down to your belly and breath.
  7. I suspect you will find that the medicine will make itself known—one way or another—when you going through a process something like the one I have just outlined.

    That’s all I wish to write on this for now.

    With love and blessings,

    Jonathan

Spread the love