The shadow-side of mind-body healing: Overcoming self-blame and shame

A shadow side of mind-body healing is self-blame and shame and an ableist idea that chronically ill people are still sick because they choose to be. Here’s my story.

When I became ill with what I didn’t realise at the time was ME/CFS, I was told by alternative practitioners, for many years, that I attracted my illness (doctors just said it was stress or nothing at all). Apparently, the illness in my body was there to show me that I wasn’t living according to my zone of genius or wasn't on the right path in life, that I had blocks in my emotional or spiritual energy bodies that needed unblocking, that I was repressing emotions, or that I wasn’t treating my body right by saying no. I needed fixing, in other words.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

 I read Louise Hay’s book Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them. I was promised it gave me a way to treat my illness. She writes (trigger warning: don’t read if you’ve been traumatised by mind-body healing): 

“I’ve learned that there are really just two mental patterns that contribute to dis-ease: fear and anger. Anger can show up as impatience, irritation, frustration, criticism, resentment, jealousy, or bitterness. These are all thoughts that poison the body. When we release this burden, all the organs in our body begin to function properly. Fear could be tension, anxiety, nervousness, worry, doubt, insecurity, feeling not good enough, or unworthiness. Do you relate to any of this stuff? We must learn to substitute faith for fear if we are to heal.”

There was a cure right there. I could fix my illness — I could fix me.

I looked up all my ailments in her book and learnt that the probable cause of my fatigue was “Resistance, boredom. Lack of love for what one does.” And the new thought pattern that would alleviate this fatigue: “I am enthusiastic about life and filled with energy and enthusiasm.”

I didn’t realise at the time that Hay’s theories were full of, what Susan Sontag calls, ‘metaphors’ for illness that contribute to stigma and misunderstandings about illness. Right there is one of the most damaging stigmas about ME/CFS patients (and other patients suffering from energy-limiting illnesses): The idea that we are fatigued because we are lost in life and don’t know how to live it and love it.

Susan Sontag writes in her book Illness as Metaphor: “Theories that diseases are caused by mental states and can be cured by will power are always an index of how much is not understood about a disease.” ME/CFS is one of the most under-funded and under-studied illnesses.

I found energy healers and life purpose coaches to work with (I spent all my savings). I looked for childhood traumas that I couldn’t find, I worked on my attachment issues, on inner child healing, I worked on stuff related to the Enneagram and Meyers Briggs, I meditated, tapped my emotions free, I rewired my brain, I healed and I healed and I healed. I found my zone of genius which was writing and songwriting, I wrote an entire album worth of songs. 

I kept thinking: “I’ve found my zone of genius, I’m healing. Now my body is getting better for sure!”

But I kept getting sicker and I didn’t understand why. I was doing all the stuff right according to mind-body healing, I was dedicated to my inner healing, I was dealing with repressed emotions and treating my body right. 

One day, after a healing and brain rewiring session I ran to the bathroom to throw up. My brain was on fire. Right there and then, lying on the bathroom floor I realised that I had a physical illness that I had no control over. I felt I had been psychologically raped trying to heal my inner world — trying to fix myself — so my body could be cured. I also felt like a failure, because I hadn’t been able to do what I had been taught was possible. 

I loved mind body philosophies, they gave me an alternative and more feminist way of thinking about the world, but what I didn’t realise at the time was that the wellness culture mind-body philosophies I were devouring were in fact ableist mind-cure philosophies that placed all the responsibility of recovering from physical chronic illness on the individual and blaming the patients’s character and inner world for their illness.

I had been a part of a community of yoga and holistic practitioners and I clearly remember how a lot of them spoke about their clients when they didn’t get better: “Urgh, she is just not doing the work. She is still holding on to her toxic stuff and just won’t let it go.”

What I had previously felt was a sense of control, now turned into self-blame and shame. Shame for not being able to heal and not being able to ‘let go of my stuff’, but also shame from having believed that I was physically ill because of a flaw in my character. And even more shame for having believed this of others. 

A lot of people — including myself — use mind-body techniques to manage our illness and stressful situation. I also know of people who have recovered (or in a very long remission) from illness and ailments by using healing modalities and I am elated for them and respect the work they’ve done on themselves — this post is not about whether mind-body techniques are useful or not. 

I am not elated, however, when I see some of these people shame chronically ill people for still being ill or not doing enough to get better. 

I came across a video on Youtube claiming they had a recovery plan for ME/CFS by learning about a hypersensitive nervous system and gradually increasing the stimulus you place on the body. It involves stress reduction, addressing deficiencies, emotions, diet and mindfulness. There are comments under the video such as:

“I tried to help someone recover. I was not fully recovered but I was already functioning again so I thought I’d share… but you won’t believe it the guy attacked me. Who am I to think I can help him with something doctors can’t heal. I was so confused. Why defend the illness against me.” 

And others chimed in with: “That’s the craziest part man. Some people aren’t ready to change yet.”, or “…there are two groups of people — those who are open to the possibility that the mind can play a major part of the illness and those who claim it is simply a physical illness with no connection to the mind. The first group usually recover, the second group does not,”, or “They don’t even care about recovering. They are more concerned about their beliefs being correct.”, or “You can’t help people who don’t even want to believe they can heal…”

I want to kindly ask those who’ve recovered or believe they can cure chronic physical illness with their mind to have the utmost respect and compassion for the millions (and majority) of people who are still sick, despite their valid efforts to recover. It’s not that we don’t want to recover or are stuck in a negative mindset — we are up against a pernicious biology and no amount of will power will change that.

Emotional work, inner healing and other mind-body techniques like meditation and breathwork are incredibly powerful tools for greater well-being and to help one manage and even improve some symptoms (especially those exacerbated by stress or other psychosomatic stressors), but it doesn’t work for everyone and it’s not an evidence-based cure for chronic physical illness, so please don’t push this onto others or disrespect us when we say no. A lot of us (especially ME/CFS and other patients with underfunded diseases) are already dealing with psychologisation from health authorities with detrimental consequences to our lives.

It took me a while, but eventually I found myself again, I remembered I was a feminist thinker and a political scientist and that there is a world full of systems that don’t serve me or my identity as a sick disabled woman. I discovered that medicine has neglected women’s bodies for decades and still does and has psychologised our bodies.

I realised that the stories I was being told about how you create your own illness or that you’re still sick because you choose to were in fact highly stigmatising. They told a demoralising story about how chronically ill people choose to be sick, and how we just haven’t worked hard enough on ourselves. 

But even as a person with access to resources and thereby access to alternative care, I was still sick and getting sicker. I finally understood that I wasn’t ill because of something within my mind. I was ill (and untreated) because western medicine has neglected women’s health.

Once I had named the systems that had shaped my life (sexism, ableism), I could begin self development without self blame. I could begin to see what kind of thinking was no longer authentic to me, what thought-forms had held me down and which thought forms I needed instead. 

I could move out of shame, because I could now identify it and move into compassion for myself and others in similar situations. I saw how I could take responsibility for my life where it was possible, but also recognise where I am up against systems that don’t serve me, or even shame me, and which areas I have to accept. 

I had felt like I had had a spiritual addiction, neglecting reality and indulging in magical thinking so I could live in a world where my body was fully functional by healing my insides. I still cite the serenity prayer to myself as a part of my healing: 

Grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 

I’ve added an extra line:

… and the compassion to soothe myself and others.

 Over to you:

What is your experience with mind body healing and how have you used it? (Good or bad, all is welcome)

Where, in your view, is the line between taking responsibility for your body and self-blame? Where is the line between feeling empowered to heal and acceptance of the state of your body?

How can we bring more compassion into discussions about chronic illness?

I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments below.

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