I have written before about the impact that denial and hope can have on a family facing a serious illness or health challenge and it ha become clearer to me that denial is a powerful and unhelpful force.
I am remembering a lesson I learned as a father when it came to dealing with a stubborn child. Every tactic that I tried that had tinges of denial in it simply did not work. The determined child just kept up the behavior I wanted to stop and the behavior got bigger as my ‘denial’ pushed back.
When I realized what was necessary was to accept the fact that my determined child wanted something and I sat my ass down and listen and accepted what was true for them the drama ‘ all of a sudden diminished! The more I resisted the truth the more my child had to show up even bigger in their upset.
Energetically it is much the same with a serious health issue. If the family falls into denial the illness need to persist even more noticeably to get the ‘energetic’ attention it needs. Now this is not to say that healing will be immediate if denial is replaced with acceptance, however it will allow the energy and the love of family and friends to have an immediate and positive impact on the situation a hand by settling things down emotionally and spiritually.
Once we are all on the same page and have accepted the truth of the health challenge, (we don’t have to like it) then we can begin to collectively put our love and attention on the real challenge at hand and not waste precious energy on playing the denial game. We can focus our energy more clearly on making sure our loved one has the best quality of life no matter how much longer they have to live.
Using denial to fight the truth is an unwinnable battle we all come to regret
Warmly and with gratitudeStephen
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