A Quest for Wholeness: Illness as a Spiritual Path
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Authors
Joy, Pamela
Issue Date
2000
Type
Capstone
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
In this paper, I will explore what illness offers us as a path to spiritual growth. I discovered this through my own life-threatening illness to be true. I will discuss Allopathic vs. Alternative medicine models and propose the new Integrative medicine that is needed to heal us all, to be called Complementary Medicine. I will show how important it is to find meaning in one's illness. In doing so, one can find themselves on the path, that is a spiritual journey. I will give examples of other's journeys through the dark night of the soul, that can occur when one is faced with a life-changing event like illness and how that experience can be the opening up of the spiritual path. I will also discuss what I call The Tao of Illness. I am Buddhist and this is the most natural way to put into words the phenomena of illness and how this path changes us, if we allow it to, for the positive. I discuss that Illness can be a positive thing though we would like to avoid it, like all challenges to our belief systems and lives.
I also discuss how I plan on taking all of this into the world. I am moving across the country to get appropriate care from one of the top specialists in the field of Neurology. I hope to work with him and patients like myself using the knowledge and skills gleaned through my education at John F. Kennedy University's Holistic Studies programs, both the Counseling and Education tracts. I hope to become a facilitator, an educator, and a counselor. I am quite excited as I finish this step on this path of my life. It has been a longtime in coming and yet, has happened within the blink of an eye in the realm of existence.