Before I had found an explanation for my rheumatoid arthritis, I felt stuck in a body that did whatever it did without me having any influence over it. It was like manoeuvring a half-broken car through dense traffic, with all shifting and steering yielding only the minimal result. And no workshop to fix the car, but only to patch it up somewhat to ease its restricted functions. I could have gotten out of such a car. I could not get out of my body.
Being confident that whatever ails one — be it pain, inflammation, or an injury — can be treated and healed is very helpful for anyone going through health troubles. So, when we’re, for example, suffering from a cold, a broken limb, a temporary allergic reaction or even just a cut, the confidence that we can heal, or in the case of an allergy, recover from the outbreak, makes it natural to look for the cause, eliminate it and get to recovery. We can create a plan, we can be optimistic and have faith in what we do.
In contrast, when something is burdening us without the prospect of or confidence in relief, it can cause anxiety and worry, as in a chronically inflammatory process in one’s body. When I observed the damage and pain my RA caused me, and figured that there was something very much wrong with my health, I naturally went looking for aid in healing. What I got was a diagnosis and medication, not to explain the cause of or heal my condition, but rather to suppress symptoms. My life became a mere management of my condition instead of a path to healing. I couldn’t predict what my rheumatoid arthritis would “do” next; it was unpredictable to me, impossible to influence with the means I had at my disposal. Concerning recovery or healing, I had concluded: “I can’t do it. Other people can’t do it. No one can do it.”
The strongest beliefs arise from our own observations and experiences. That’s the kind of belief that feels like a certain fact. And if that belief tells us that healing is impossible from then on forward, we’ve got one more big problem:
Now, trying to heal seems futile for “good reasons”.
Not letting that be the end of the line was crucial for me in orienting toward the desired healing. Then, for as long as I wasn’t yet healthy again, I took that as still being on the way there, and the sadness and uncertainty as part of the burden I had to carry along with me for now. My main question that I asked myself again and again was: “Does what I know or what others know yet suffice to help me heal? “.
“Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get.”
George Bernard Shaw¹
From people affected by RA, I often hear: “Rheumatoid arthritis isn’t healable!”
Especially not by the affected person themselves, for:
“If not even physicians (as gods in white) can provide a solution, then, how should I (a simple mortal) know what to do?”
The underlying reasoning behind this is the more-and-less principle: “If a predicate, which is more probably affirmable of one thing, does not belong to it, it is clear that it does not belong to another of which it is less probably affirmable.”²
Those who are more likely to achieve this something – in this case, the effective strategy to help heal the patient affected by rheumatoid arthritis – are, due to their extensive knowledge, usually considered to be the physicians: “The doctor, of course!”
Many then no longer trust their bodies and lose confidence in their self-efficacy.
Self-related beliefs play a crucial role in how one manages their rheumatoid arthritis.
A negative self-related belief could look like this: “I don’t want to be ill, and yet my body attacks itself: My body is beyond my control. I can’t work on the root cause of my illness, as I am unable to influence its biochemical processes / the hereditary factors. So, healing myself isn’t possible.”
Such beliefs can act as self-fulfilling prophecies³: the result will correspond to and confirm the inner conviction. And with an autoimmune disease, the unstated implication is clear: “I am continuously hurting myself! “, and transports the notion of guilt. Confidence in one’s own body and self-efficacy is shaken. And that, of course, doesn’t exactly help with mustering motivation, so the search for the actual causes and solutions dries up.
The affected person can then become emotionally reliant on conventional medicine. As such, they are willing to let drugs suppress symptoms and, due to this suppression of symptoms, get even more damaged by the side effects of aggressive medication that doesn’t hold even a chance of healing.
But how can one heal anyway if RA is an “autoimmune disease” caused by “hereditary factors” or “biochemical processes” that “can’t be ended” and are “destroying one’s joints”?
When correct medical terms become meaningless phrases to the patient, they become empty formulas or fragmented knowledge, and the patient sees them as a dead end for their own influence and insight. This hinders understanding and motivation, making it difficult to pursue self-healing efforts and thus preventing potential positive outcomes.
Petermann et al. describe this obstructive use of emptied phrases. “The use […] can also be assumed in explanations such as “that’s genetic,” “that’s psychosomatic “, or” it works electrically.” A proven antidote is the question, “Yes, fine, but how exactly?”⁴ By questioning as a way of understanding facts, they can empower instead of discourage.
My diagnosis with rheumatoid arthritis wasn’t followed by help against the cause of pain, inflammation or the restriction of my movement by the disease. My doctor’s clear statement that rheumatoid arthritis was definitely not curable added to the overall tone of impossibility hindering my search for healing, and restricted my possibilities by the recovery and healing I craved so much. But I didn’t want to resign myself to the disease; I refused to integrate it into my life, and didn’t want to learn to accept it as part of me, for it wasn’t; I didn’t want to stay a patient.
So my approach first took shape in my reflections: “The student is closest to the pure theory,” I read. It immediately dawned on me because the student, growing, is directly in the process of being and becoming. In this sense, I took rheumatoid arthritis as a challenge that I had to master on my way, from which I could learn.
As the one suffering from RA, I was also the one closest to it, the most concerned with it. To me, there is no greater physical and mental closeness than being directly affected.
Therefore, to me, the one affected is always the one with the highest motivation to be more enduring and relentless than anyone else in fighting for their health. It is their innermost interest.
That meant the first one up to do something was me! Healing was my very own interest! And over time, I became my coach!⁵ So I formulated my own more-and-less-sentence: “If it doesn’t cause the one whom it concerns to immediately and existentially mobilise all possible powers (including the further development and further learning), then how should it cause the one less concerned (indirectly due to professional and/or other interests) to do the same?”
From then on, I stood up for my goals more effectively than others could have ever done for me.
As very useful for healing, fundamental questions that I kept persistently asking myself turned out to be: “How? And when? And where?” With their help, I’ve found the answers and insights that interweave my HeilÜben exercises.
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¹,²,³,⁴,⁵ List of references, “Is my rheumatoid arthritis healable?”