When Diagnosis Becomes Identity Since I deal with ill people every day, I realize how important it is for some people to get a diagnosis. It gives validity to their pain and also gives them something to "fight". I also realize the danger of this diagnosis becoming an identity. This identity then becomes imbedded into how they see themselves. We all have a story made up of things that have happened to us either today or perhaps 10 years ago. What we must realize is that the story is always, yes always, the same even though it may take on different forms. How much we believe our own story and how often we continue repeating that story will greatly effect our ability to move past the story and get well. By now most of us realize the emotional component to illness. There are many who believe that a strong emotion must be present at the time the illness manifests in the body or the illness would have nothing to adhere to. I also believe this to be true. After all, many people have proven "laughter is the best medicine" and have cured themselves through comedy without taking themselves or their illness too seriously. Why do we become ill in the first place? It is my belief that old patterns establish themselves very early on in our life and they become our default. A classic example would be an ignored child whose parents only acknowledged their existence if they were very ill. There is a pretty good chance they will carry this pattern forward into their adult life without even realizing it. As the years go on they genuinely think that they want to get well, but they have not yet come to realize how the illness serves them. So they resist and they become a victim. And they resist some more. This is where two very powerful tools come in. Modern science now knows that we become chemically addicted to our emotions (If you haven't seen the movie "What The Bleep Do We Know", you might want to). We actually have to retrain our brains to create different chemicals for different thoughts. For those of us who have tried to drop thoughts we know this is virtually impossible. According to Byron Katie in her book "Loving What Is" there is a portion of our brain, in the left hemisphere, which is called "the interpreter". One of the jobs of this portion of the brain is to keep us in our story. We become chemically addicted to certain life patterns and in order to satisfy these chemical addiction (yes, actual chemicals that our thoughts stimulate our brains and other organs to make), we re-create scenarios that will create the same chemicals to satisfy our addictions. The only way we can stop this pattern it to separate ourselves from our story. We must understand the difference between What Is and our story. There's a big difference. To really get into this and understand how easy it can be I would recommend Byron Katie's book mentioned above. I had the privilege of hearing Katie speak a couple of years ago and saw what she calls "The Work" in action. Her web site is www.thework.org for those who are interested. In her book she mentions the fact that it is not what happens to us in our lives that causes our suffering, but the story that we connect to it. It is our response to the story. Something may have happened to us 10 years ago and we still continue the story in our heads as if it is happening at this very moment. We have thousands of stories going on in our head at any given moment. It is these stories that cause us pain. When we are able to tell the difference between our story (I was abused as a child - true but at this point a story) and the truth (I survived, I am not being abused at this moment) then we begin to unravel and recognize our stories and are able to tell the difference. We start to get out lives back and it is immediate. I listened as Katie guided a man who had been plagued by some horror that had happened to him in the past, something that had been positively horrible, and within minutes helped him separate the truth from the story setting him free. He went from tears to joy in a matter of minutes. Now, whenever possible I try to separate the truth from the story. That is why her book is called "Loving What Is". She claims that we constantly suffer because we don't accept What Is. Another key point in Katie's book is that there are three types of business - God's business, other people's business, and our own business. Problems arise when we are trying to take care of God's business or someone else's business and not our own. For many people their time is spent in everyone else's business. Next time you catch yourself in a story that is causing you stress, see if you are caught up in your own story. Happy unraveling (or inquiring as Katie would say). Many Blessings! Sierra Have you joined the newsletter yet? © 2004, 2005 Trinity Healing Arts, LLC Copyright 2004-5 Sierra Lamanna - Some Rights Reserved: You are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work under the following conditions: You must give the author credit, you may not use this for commercial purposes, and you may not alter, transform or build upon this work. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Any other purpose of use must be granted permission by author. Visit http://www.TrinityHealingArts.com  and http://www.InfinityLightHealing.com for more of Sierra Lamanna's work.