One of the things I love about road trips is the conversations that can occur. I just spent three hours in the car with my dear friend Donna who is as passionate about health as I am. We talk about all kinds of things but on this trip, we discussed how overly medicated people are at 60 and how meds are the third leading cause of death. She then proceeded to tell me the following story, which I had to share with you.
“A good friend of mine was diagnosed HIV positive in the early 90s when AIDS was killing people within two to three years of diagnosis. There wasn’t much doctors could do for their patients at the time so people just assumed and accepted that they would be dead within a few very short years.
My friend wasn’t like most of the others. He refused to accept the diagnosis. He still did what the doctors told him to do for the most part and got checked every 6-12 months. Every check up confirmed he had the virus but deep down inside, he just KNEW he didn’t have HIV.
At the time he was diagnosed, my friend had just watched one of his coworkers die of AIDs. He died within 1.5 years of diagnosis, which was quite common in the late 80’ s and early 90s.
The suffering and death of John’s coworker was still fresh in his mind. Most people would have panicked but not John. He just refused to believe he was sick and started taking yoga, feeding his mind with inspirational and positive-thinking books, and doing any mind-related activities he could find. He worked very hard on keeping his thoughts and attitude positive and just never believed he was sick.
After 10 years, much to the shock of the medical community, the HIV virus was gone. There was not a single trace of the virus. He was cured and thirty years later, he is alive and well.”
I share this story with you because of how prevalent disease is in this world. We can’t choose whether or not we have a disease (but we sure can do a lot to prevent disease) but we can choose how we handle the situation. We can choose to allow disease to become part of our identity.
I’m not saying we should be in denial but I hear so many people making their disease part of who they are. People too often accept their condition and identify with it vs fighting for better health and recovery.
You hear of so many miracles that if you fight and believe with every cell in your body that you’re going to be ok, you might just come out a winner, a survivor, a fighter.
I leave you with this. Believe in miracles. Believe that you are meant to live an extraordinary life and that you deserve it!