Case study
Consciousness as medicine
Abstract
Alka*, a young girl in her late twenties, had been suffering from intractable headaches for more than 10 years, with no apparent relief from any established systems of medicine. This case study describes the journey of her inner healing, how she discovered the innate healing process of the body and overcame her chronic ailment within a few weeks. In the process of inner healing, she also discovered her confidence, a new zeal for life. Most of the healing techniques evolved intuitively during the healing process and revealed to the author the immense healing powers that lie dormant within the human consciousness. The case was a revelation for him, as it revealed how little we really know of body and healing.
One day I received a frantic call from the Course Director of Apollo, saying that she wanted me to see one of its students and her father immediately. The father had come from the north to take his daughter back home the next day and she requested me to see if I could do anything to stop him. Within a couple of hours, I had the father and daughter in my office. For almost an hour, the girl’s father narrated their travails of the past twelve years, how they had gone from one specialist to another, tried various systems of medicines, and the frustrations and suffering that resulted through it all. “Now, I cannot stand seeing my daughter suffering any more, so I want to take her back”, he sobbed.
First step to cure
After listening patiently to the entire story, I just said, “Yes, it is possible for her to get out of this suffering. But, what is she ready to do for it?” The father was taken aback. Perhaps he never expected such a response. He took a minute to recover from the shock, and then said, “Whatever you say, we shall do”. I questioned, “Are you ready to give one hour every day for one month at least?”
This is the first condition: “do you really want to get well, are you willing to work, willing to change from within?”. When the patient assumes responsibility for her life and health, a new relationship emerges with the doctor and the inner healing process starts.
The next day Alka came alone, her father had left and her return tickets had been cancelled. She recounted her story for more than an hour. It all started in the year 2000, at the age of 15, when during exams she suddenly felt an excruciating headache accompanied by vomiting and leg pains. And ever since those headaches, the leg pains had not left her. Over the last few years, she had not been able to eat solid foods and was mostly on liquid and semi-solid food. She had lost more than 4 years of her academic life, since she could not attend college and cope with her studies. For many years she remained confined to her home, with depression setting in. In the last twelve years, she had seen all the top specialists in her home town, as well as Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai and had undergone every possible investigation. Nothing showed up in the MRIs, CT scans, or blood reports. The doctors were clueless and eventually referred her to psychiatrists who also could not find anything wrong with her. She had tried homoeopathy for more than 6 months, also Āyurveda and yoga therapy with no apparent benefit. She had been to a tantric who predicted that she would not be able to come out of her medical problem. So she had resigned herself to lifelong suffering and pain, convinced that nothing could help her.
As she narrated her story, she dwelt on the frustration, the depression and the hopelessness of her journey. In the beginning, she was very restless and anxious. So I helped her to sit consciously and become aware of the different parts of her body, of the feet touching the ground and the movements in her breath. As she focused on the feet, she felt that the pain in her legs was moving and shifting directions and slowly she felt as if the pain and warmth was flowing out through her feet. As her awareness deepened, she felt a dark viscous fluid stuck in between her muscles and she felt very uneasy. After the session, she could resolve the pain around her calf muscles. “It is the first time I have felt my legs to be so soft and free of pain”, she remarked at the end of the first session. The response from her body to the healing process had now given her the confidence to work on her body. I asked her to maintain a journal, where she could record any changes in her body, her thoughts, beliefs and any other significant changes. I taught her a few simple exercises which she could do at home before the next meeting. I reinforced the fact that she was able to work out the pain on her own and that it was possible to bring her body back to harmony and health. I clarified that she was responsible for healing her body, and that it was possible to do so.
The moment a patient realises she is not so helpless, that she can do much to heal and recover her health, is a defining moment. It gives a new perspective to one’s problems and one’s life and helps that person make more conscious choices in her life.
“Trust in your inner feelings, your experiences and your body. Just allow your body to heal”, was a common refrain throughout the sessions. “There is no need to imagine or visualise. Just observe and feel things as they are. These are facts, realities, and there is no need to mentally imagine them as if they don’t exist.”
She came once a week for three consecutive weeks. At each session, I could notice a marked difference in her poise and composure. Now, she would come up and tell me which part of the body she wanted to work on, where she had been unable to work on her own. During the second session, we were working on the abdomen, where she was finding a lot of difficulty. As she was working there and looking at the formations, I instinctively asked her if she believed in God. She replied “Śiva”, and I asked her to offer the difficulty to Lord Śiva. And immediately, she replied that Lord Śiva had taken the formation away. Her belief in her God strengthened and became more living.
During the second session, she suddenly became very restless. She said that she was having a terrible headache and wanted to vomit. We were working on the head, and she said that she wanted to quit the process and go to the washroom. I responded, “That’s okay, relax. Just observe the sen-sations of the headache and your urge to vomit but don’t allow it to influence you. This sensation is caused by a certain energy formation and we can work out this energy form”. She managed to maintain her composure and soon the intensity of the headache lessened and the urge to vomit disappeared. This incident revealed a new perspective to her problem and changed her attitude towards it. Now the headache seemed much less real and overpowering, and, through observing, she now had the confidence that she could work it out. It was perhaps the first time she had not succumbed to the headache but rather had overcome it by herself.
An inner space
A novel healing approach was emerging now. We started with the body awareness and slowly deepened the awareness to the breath and then to that inner space where one experiences a very deep sense of Peace and Love. In that state, we shifted the awareness to those parts of the body that needed help. We followed different ways to deal with these body parts, using the power of prāṇa, Light or the mind.
After a week, her headaches had reduced drastically, but still there were occasional episodes. However, she said that she was now able to manage these episodes on her own with the methods she had learnt. After four weeks, she was able to eat normal solid food with no nausea. Her Course Director told me that she was surprised at her sudden transformation and how she had resumed her classes and was much more cheerful.
After a couple of sessions, Alka started feeling a sense of quietness and peace wherever she was. She said that even in a market place, she would feel the quietness inside. Whenever she felt like it, she could just close her eyes and go into that inner state. There was a remarkable change, no anxiety or stress, just a bubbly happiness.
After eight weeks, she stopped talking about her headaches, now she had another curious problem. She was seeing visions of God, of a bearded sādhu, and wished to know the significance of these visions. I assured her that the meaning of all these would slowly be revealed to her.
In eight weeks, Alka had transformed into a totally different person — from one resigned to a secluded life steeped in frustration and hopelessness to a young lady with immense self-confidence and a new zeal for life. A whole new world full of wonderful possibilities had opened up for her. “Thank you doctor, you have given me a new life”, she summed up.
* The patient’s name and various identifying details have been changed to protect her identity.
Dr. Yogesh, MD, PSM is presently working at Apollo Wellness Plus, Chennai.
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A young lady with immense self-confidence