Preparing to Die by Andrew Holecek

Author:Andrew Holecek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC (Publisher Services)

Spiritual Matrix

Lynn Weitzel’s comment, “The spirit does not get cancer or AIDS or Alzheimer’s,” warrants a brief return to the spiritual matrix of all experience. Understanding the spiritual context in which even the most difficult physical events take place can reframe an entire illness or death. This can instill ease into a difficult situation.

It’s easy for a person afflicted with a disease, and for those around them, to start to identify with it. While it’s important to know about an illness for obvious reasons (what to expect, how to treat it, etc.), if we start to identify with the disease we may contract around it. We may convince ourselves that the pathology is now who we are, or if we’re a caregiver, who the patient is. In a recent article on autism, a writer for the New York Times remarked that “the diagnosis [of autism] is in many ways central to their lives.” Selfcontraction, and the ensuing reification, is one of our most powerful habits. This is when a disease of the body spreads to infect the mind and spirit.10

I have seen many patients surrender, unintentionally or even willingly, to a diagnosis. They will tell me about their cancer, for example, and convey a sense of dangerous acquiescence: “What can I do about it? My doctor says the prognosis is bleak. This disease has taken control of my life.” I’m not blaming doctors, for there are many who deliver their diagnosis with empathy and compassion.11 There are also many patients who unconsciously enable their doctors, imbuing them with god-like powers of life and death. I’m also not saying that disease doesn’t have the ability to overwhelm and adversely transform a person, profoundly changing their physical life. There are diseases where death is virtually guaranteed.

What I am saying is that doctors, patients, and caregivers need to be careful when it comes to the promise and peril of diagnosis.12 It sometimes feels, for example, like some patients have the excuse they have been waiting for to finally get them off the hook of life. They may say to themselves: “I am no longer responsible for my life and my actions. This disease has taken over, can’t you see that this pathology is who I am!?” They have become the victim, and surrender in a damaging way.

Dr. Candace Pert, one of the most eloquent exponents of mind-body medicine, says, “Take responsibility for your own health—and illness. Delete phrases like ‘My doctor won’t let me . . .’ or ‘My doctor says I have [name of condition], and there’s really nothing I can do’ from your speech and thought patterns.”13 There’s a big difference between appreciating a diagnosis and identifying with it. When we talk about surrendering to reality, this is not the surrender we’re talking about.

Disease may be a temporary physical reality, and living in ignorance of it could lead to the other extreme of living in denial, but this disease is not who we are. Our spirit, who we really are, will never get cancer and it will never die.

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