Personal Agency and Recovery
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“I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. ”
I had this quote taped to my bathroom mirror when I was at the height of my illness. Western doctors were baffled by me and it wasn’t until I took charge of my own healing that things started to change. I accepted responsibility for where I was and quit looking for someone or something to blame. Only then did I align with the right practitioners. Only then did the right teachers appear.
The worst is behind me, gratefully. But sometimes the weather changes quickly, or I workout too hard, or any number of other stressors show up and I feel like hell for a while.
That’s my cue to come back to this idea of personal agency: I determine my quality of life, regardless of what my body feels like.
I have memories of being ill that are flat out traumatizing, and I have memories that are unbelievably sweet. There was no difference in my physical state in either scenario, but my perception was different.
I can’t control what my body does or doesn’t do. I can’t control external events.
But I can get very quiet and tune into how I perceive what’s happening. And then I can get even quieter and tune into truth.
It’s funny how, if you spend enough time working to shift your perspective, your circumstances start to shift too.