Our pain & discomfort always has a purpose - a client's story - Melanie O'Shea

I was reminded recently that our pain and discomfort always have a purpose. Sure, they can also be bloody inconvenient, but there is always a reason for the health experiences that challenge us.

Last year I held an initial Intuitive Medicine session via video call with a lovely client living on the other side of the world. Let’s call her Lucy (not her real name).

I don’t have a great recall of the health concerns Lucy was living with at the time, but this is quite usual for me – once I close off from the connection with an Intuitive Medicine client, I do some pretty hardcore cleansing with help from my team in Spirit, in order to protect my own energy, and this seems to wipe out most memories of the session as well.

I do remember that there were a number of complex, chronic, stubborn health problems going on for Lucy, some that she had been trying to treat for many years. I also remember that at the end of the session I felt somewhat dejected and disappointed with myself and for Lucy. I felt that I really hadn’t been of much help, and really hadn’t been able to give her loads of great advice and suggestions like I wanted to.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?), I don’t have a great deal of control over what is revealed during a session – Spirit will only reveal what is in the client’s best and highest interest to hear at that point in time.

Anyway, I identified that Lucy was suffering from some pretty nasty reflux, although it was very clear that that really wasn’t a major concern of hers at the time – hence my disappointment in myself. As we finished off the session though, Lucy seemed happy and grateful for what I’d been able to share with her.

I didn’t hear from Lucy for several months, until a couple of weeks ago, when she got in touch with me to tell me that because of the advice I had given her in her Intuitive Medicine session, regarding her reflux, she had experienced a kind of domino effect in terms of her health.

Having her doctor investigate the reflux led to discovering a H. pylori infection, getting sinus surgery that nobody had known she’d needed, and being prescribed medication that actually helped her – for the first time in a long time, she felt she was getting on top of her health concerns.

Lucy had kind of hit a stalemate though. We all know that, unfortunately, this can happen with modern medicine, where medication is prescribed to treat symptoms or a condition, not the person as a whole, and usually without taking into consideration the patient’s total symptom picture, including their social, emotional, mental and spiritual symptoms as well as the physical.

Anyway, I digress a little…

Lucy booked in a Follow-up Intuitive Medicine session video call with me and at one point during the session I very clearly heard the word ‘hookworm’ in my mind. It seemed a little ‘left-field’ and didn’t really seem to be relevant to what I had been discussing with Lucy at the time, but (as tends to happen when working with Spirit) I kept hearing the word until I mentioned it to Lucy.

I didn’t know a lot about hookworm, except that it’s not one of the more common gastrointestinal worms in the developed world, however, I just knew it was relevant. I told Lucy that I think she needed treatment for hookworm, and that I knew from personal experience of a homeopathic remedy that can be quite effective for worm infestations in people, and she was keen to try it.

I made sure Lucy knew that I am only a student of homeopathy (although I have been using it for a number of years for myself, my kids, my pets and even my plants), and I recommended that she also check in with her doctor, and to keep me updated on her symptoms if she choose to try the homeopathic remedy.

Within the first few hours of taking her first dose of the remedy, Lucy messaged me to let me know she had noticed a significant reaction in her body, and a flare up of her digestive and sinus symptoms (an aggravation of symptoms), followed by a significant improvement in symptoms the following day, and then a really big aggravation once again, after which she went to check in with her doctor.

I felt awful to hear Lucy was so unwell and in pain, when she had come to me desperately wanting to finally feel well once again. I questioned my decision to share the information about the homeopathy remedy with her, and that I had recommended a higher potency than I’d normally feel comfortable using.

Lucy told me that once her doctor saw her curled up in agony in the waiting room, her doctor couldn’t ignore the fact that something major was going on with Lucy’s digestive system, and she didn’t hesitate to prescribe Lucy medication to treat hookworm (after Lucy mentioned hookworm to her doctor).

Now, how often does this actually happen? How often have you gone to your doctor and said “I think I have….”, and your doctor has actually listened to you and treated you accordingly?

Lucy was quite sure that the reason her doctor was so open to prescribing her treatment for hookworm (again, not a terribly commonly treated gastro worm) was because she had seen her at the time when she was suffering an acute flare up of her chronic symptoms.

And, the reason she was seeing her doctor during a major flare up? Because of homeopathy remedy had aggravated her symptoms (such aggressive aggravations are rarely seen in homeopathy)… Because I had heard the word ‘hookworm’ (repeatedly!) during her Follow-up Intuitive Medicine session…

Despite being in pain and discomfort, Lucy could see that there was a reason for it – that it led to her getting the treatment that she needed, for chronic symptoms that had been unexplainable and therefore untreatable for many years.

It is an important reminder that we so often forget in our busy modern world, where we are so used to popping a pill to deal with pain and pesky symptoms, so that we can get on with our day-to-day busyness, with minimal disruption. Of course, we are blessed that to have these options – there are always times when we really just cannot stop and be comfortable with our discomfort. I’m certainly not ignorant of the way we live now.

I think we do tend to prioritise convenience and getting on with it over listening to our bodies though. Our bodies try so damn hard to let us know when we need something different or more or less of something, to keep all of our bits and pieces in happy harmony and all nice and balanced.

This is actually our natural physical state – balanced and harmonious – and the human body does a magnificent job of maintaining this balance mostly without us even being aware of the processes that are going on.

It’s when imbalance happens in a way, or to an extent, that the body cannot fix it with the regular strategies that we feel pain and discomfort, and it’s important to remember that we feel this pain and discomfort for a reason – something is being brought to our attention so that we can seek out what it is that we need in order to heal. Notice I said heal and not mask or placate.

So, let’s get curious about our pain and discomfort, and perhaps even trust that there is a good reason for it.

Let’s strive for long-term healing and only settle for short term relief when it’s really necessary to do so.

And let’s be open to healing coming to us in the ways and in the timeframe that is in our best interests.