When you feel unwell and the doctors cannot find anything wrong with you

A friend of mine shared with me that she used to have a number of health problems. When she attempted to treat using Western medicine, the doctors could not find anything wrong with her. She later tried to take Chinese medicine- it helped a little to relief her condition.

Because I know her personally, and am aware of some deep personal issues that she is going through, I told her that her health problem could be related to her emotional well-being. As such, only healing her emotional health will help her overcome her outward health problems. Medicine is not so effective in this sense. And I asked her because I was sure that the Chinese sinseh should be able to detect her emotional imbalance when he felt her pulse (because in Chinese medicine, physicians do not only treat the physical symptoms, they also treat the emotional and spiritual aspects).

She laughed and said that it’s very true. The sinseh told her that her health problem was related to her emotional and therefore the medicine would not be totally effective. In fact, initially he asked her after feeling her pulse at the wrist: “how’s your work? Is it stressful? Do you go for holidays? Why not you go to walk around nature to relax yourself?”

The next round when my friend went back for follow-up, he felt her pulse and suggested why not she goes for bowling.

It is the sinseh’s way of asking my friend to cheer up, relax and let go. As he could not think of more sophisticated methods, he only know of walks in nature and bowling (probably because someone told him about bowling).

Therefore, sometimes we may feel sick and unwell- and have done our due diligence in going for medical check-ups. When nothing abnormal shows up in the test results, we may even be more obsessed about the ‘mysterious illness’. We may even spend more money going for second or third opinions- in the hope that one specialist would be able to tell us what’s wrong with us.

I remembered years ago, I used to feel generally unwell with chronic pains, sluggishness and tiredness all over my body. I spent tonnes of money buying very good shoes as my knees were painful when I walked (I was also overweight that time and could not control my intake of caffeine, which had aggravated the pain). When I went to see the specialists, no one found anything wrong with me.

Now, I realize that the fatigue had originated from the heart. That time I may not be aware of what I really want in life- I had been chasing and wanting things that were not what my heart wanted. I lied to myself and ignored messages that my mind was sending me. So the heart, body and spirit felt empty, tired and hollow- and symptoms of lethargy, sluggishness, insomnia and nightmares manifest.

When I took a break, step back and reevaluate my life, I realized that and took courageous steps to change. And with that, strange and mysterious problems that plagued me for years just vanish.

This life given to us is very precious. Yet, many people live their lives like they are victims of circumstances. No one can victimize or affect us unless we want them to. People always say, stop taking life for granted. But we will continue to take life for granted until something bad hits us on the head. Until we are faced with health problems or loses a loved one. These things are not curses- they are part and parcel of life. These are stuff that every human being have to face. If we take it personally and keep wallowing “why me? Why me?”, then we would just spiral into deep depression.

I hope that if you are feeling really down and depressed, you can find one little bit of strength to learn to slowly crawl out of that total abyss of darkness. Pray for guidance and help in accordance to your faith. The next time you ever seen someone who is in your shoes, you will have the type of empathy to understand what the poor thing is going through and would be in the position to help and make a difference to others.