What on earth is the matter with me?!
I want to ask you Sweet Friend, what matters most to you?
Yet before I can ask you this hallowed question, you have a question that you want to ask of me first: “What on earth is the matter with me?!” Before you came to me you cried this question into the lonely dark-night of your google medical-blog search. You eventually uncovered that you actually have a rare combination of IBS, ADHD, PCOS and mild PTSD or “IBSADHDPCOSPTSD”. ‘Alphabetitis’ is what we call it behind the scenes, which is something akin to what mechanics call ‘broken car syndrome’. The thing is, to actually get better you’re going to have to ask a different question entirely.
The entire edifice of the medical industry is based upon the repeated enquiry into a single question: ‘What’s the matter with you?’
You have chest pain, but is it indigestion, a muscle sprain, psychosis or something the matter with your heart? Let’s be clear, the differential diagnosis of orthodox medicine is based upon thousands of years of trial and error and is what is likely to save your life if you’re admitted to the Intensive Care Unit some fateful day. Ironically however, our inability to ask any other questions in medicine may itself land you and your failing fatty heart in the same ICU if you’re not careful.
This is because as the WHO clearly states, “health is not simply the absence of disease” and asking ‘what’s the matter’ is merely to ask ‘what alphabet disease label do you belong to’. The role of health care practitioners however is to promote, protect and restore ‘Health’ – but how can we navigate towards something we can’t even define? Yes I know the WHO goes on to define health as physical, mental and social ‘wellbeing’ – but truth be told, swapping synonyms is only so helpful. How the hell are we supposed to define ‘wellbeing’?!
Define it we must however, if we are to achieve it.
The trick I have slowly come to realise, is that ultimately it actually can never be achieved or defined collectively. That’s right, each and every single one of us must define what health and wellbeing means to us personally if we hope to achieve it. Fortunately, this is not as overwhelming as it may seem at first blush.
The question I am constantly asking my clients therefore isn’t simply ‘what’s the matter with you?’ it’s actually ‘what matters most to you?’
You see, a ‘complete state of physical, mental and social wellbeing’ as the WHO puts it entails that we live a life that is meaningful and purposeful - pursuing what matters most to us.
Not to our parents, not to our spouses, not to our government – but to us. It may not always be joyful, and it most definitely will involve hardship, privation and challenge – but ‘wellbeing’ or ‘being well’ if you prefer, is dependent upon having or striving towards that which matters most to us personally.
“How is this going to keep me out of the ICU at my local hospital?” I hear you ask?
Well the thing is, it’s highly, HIGHLY likely that where-ever you live, no matter your genes, you are going to die from a chronic disease. That chronic disease is overwhelmingly preventable – your genes don’t doom you to that heart attack, that stroke, that diabetic coma. Right now you are living and breathing and eating and drinking and smoking your way to the grave. Every single day.
But why would you do this my dear sweet human?
You do it because you are no longer a ‘well-being’, you do it because you are deficient in ‘Vitamin Why’ or meaning, you do it because you are not steeping deeply enough in what matters most to you. It is to cope with a lack of wellbeing that we live our way into a state of disease – and I mean this in a very technical public-health way – this is not a mystical thing. Health certainly isn’t the absence of disease (despite the way we practice medicine), but disease most certainly is the absence of wellbeing.
So whatever form of ‘broken car syndrome’ you may have, no matter how many letters have been applied to your diagnosis of ‘alphabetitis’ – underlying it all is a background of WDD ‘Wellbeing Deficiency Disorder’. Yes, we healthcare providers can help you lose a few of the letters after your name, but ultimately you must find your own deep source of Vitamin Why.
The purpose of your life beloved friend, is to discover the purpose of your life and then to give yourself to it deeply. Then and only then can you be a truly well-being.
With Heart,
Jimi
