Mission Impossible

This popular TV series, and Tom Cruise’s later movie trilogy, presents us with the idea that anything is possible and the team is challenged to show us how. During each nail-biting episode our heroes overcome the seemingly insurmountable, even making it look easy. These stories are captivating because of the extreme difficulty they seem to present to ordinary folk and they are far removed from the challenges of everyday life. What we fail to understand however, is that despite being well equipped to meet most challenges that come our way we often choose instead to accept a diagnosis, a label, that justifies the medications we take and absolves us of the personal effort required to heal naturally. Just as in the movie series, where the team show great ingenuity and courage, personal change requires effort to find out how best to resolve our health issues. Often the most beneficial approach is not what’s on offer from a time-pressured GP. Recovering one’s health and discarding a label is often possible however. It requires that we ‘Stop Getting Sick’; that we then ‘Remove the Toxins that are keeping us Sick’. And finally, when the preparation work is complete, we can ‘Use the Best Building Materials’ to restore our health. When we address the whole person in terms of Body, Mind and Spirit then we are rewarded with a sustainable lifestyle and resilience against relapse. It’s only to be expected that during challenging situations we require support. Illness can be very distressing and none of us alone have the resources to recover in every case. Perhaps the first thing to do is to seek help. Next we need judgement to discern the appropriateness of what’s on offer. A useful question to ask is ‘Who’s interests are being served here?’. Nowadays an important consideration to me is to know is – ‘Will this course of action lead to a cure of my ailment or will it merely manage my illness?’. The Serenity Prayer will keep us right – ‘Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change those I can and the wisdom to know the difference’ Good health is God’s gift. It’s generally available for the asking and when people want it enough to do the necessary work the mission usually is possible.