What is Healing? Addressing Common Myths about Healing

In my experience, many people have no idea what it looks or feels like to truly heal. Just what is healing? And what is wellness? Is healing a pill? Is wellness the mere absence of disease symptoms? Many of us are confused because the words healing and wellness are thrown around vaguely and interchangeably, often used to tout many different things--something you can google, something you can buy, something you can find, if you only dig deep enough to discover the latest and greatest, most amazing practitioner out there hidden deep in the crevasses of the web. Thus, we are often taken advantage of by clever marketing, roped into the trending "latest" medication or supplement some gram influencer is selling, or pulled by clickbait into some secret "hidden"explanation of our illness that no-one save this one daring practitioner has ever discovered. All we need do is purchase the glitzy, spa-like comprehensive wellness packages doled out by said practitioner and follow their protocol and we too shall be healed, no matter the condition we have. When these options inevitably fall short, we are left discouraged, sometimes more desperate to find the next best thing.

And while some of these treatments above might provide hints and glimpses of answers to some of our symptoms, one of the underlying problems, as I see it, is that culturally we have no idea what we are searching for. In short, we don't have a solid understanding of how true healing happens and what obstacles might get in the way of it happening. To add insult to our collective injury, we've often acquired myths about the healing process, itself, which sometimes harm our ability to embrace healing or worse yet, lead us away from true healing. In this blog post, we will begin to unpack some of the most common healing myths, then begin to lay a foundation for the principles that underlie a true healing journey. And while embarking on such a journey can be incredibly transformative and life changing, we cannot embark on such a journey without first learning to recognize the characteristics of what it looks like to truly heal. We need a road map--a set of principles that can guide us, so that we can take steps to foster it and recognize it when it shows up during the course of treatment and our lives. But first, what true healing is not:

Common Healing Myths

1. Myth #1: Healing is in a Pill or Wonder Drug. Just give me a pill, doc, I want to make my X, Y, or Z go away. True Healing is not found in some magic pill you take in spite of what the large, glossy advertisement or commercial may have promised you. Most of the time, conventional pharmaceuticals work by suppressing your symptoms. Thus, you take an anti-anxiety, an anti-depressant, an anti-psychotic, an antacid and while taking said medication your symptoms are suppressed. Kind of similar to how the damning of a river holds back the flow of water by creating a lake. Your disease is not gone, just as the water is not gone--it is merely masked and being held behind the pharmaceutical damn. When you remove the damn, the symptoms return.

   
   

   The emergence of this healing in a pill myth in the US largely stems from the genius marketing work of Arthur Sackler and his family's early foray into the largely unregulated pharmaceutical industry in the 1960s. He managed to net millions of dollars in the early development of pharmaceuticals in multiple companies while secretly and simultaneously controlling the continuing education of physicians in print publications, conferences, medical journals, and even government regulatory industries. (source: The Empire of Pain: the Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe)

   
   

2. Myth #2: Healing is the Same for Everyone. This myth shows up in more nuanced ways likely due to the fact that as human beings we have a thirst for easy solutions to our complex problems most especially our health concerns. We're human. We want the problem to be solvable. We want the outcome to be predictable and good with the Disney fairytale ending. And so to this end we find ways to situate our story within a healing context alongside the similar of other's anecdotes. Susie Jo's mother's neighbor's cousin tried Supplement X and then she was healed--all better. Her cancer disappeared miraculously.

   
   

   The problem with this approach is that healing itself is highly nuanced and not the same for all because we are all unique individuals, we have unique susceptibilities, and we all experience disease and healing differently. Additionally, chronic disease itself is almost always multi-factorial and highly complex.

   
   

3. Myth #3: Healing is the Absence of Symptoms. While we sometimes yearn for the absence of pain or symptoms, being pain free, does not actually connote healing. My mother was pain free for a bit of time before her death from metastatic gastric carcinoma. In this vein, many non-healing things can make you pain free, such as the morphine derivatives. Additionally, many cancers have no symptoms even whilest they wreak havoc on the body, destroying it from the inside out. In this case, these experiences merely demonstrate that the absence of symptoms shows good suppression rather than an actual cure of them.

   
   

4. Myth #4: Healing happens (merely) in an Individual. Our individual healing is better thought of within the context of a complicated, ecological system. On a microcytic level, our own cells are outnumbered by an estimated 39 trillion microbial cells (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and more) to our 30 trillion cells. This microbiome that we house holds tremendous influence upon our health. This influence extends well beyond the gastrointestinal tract and the skin of our body to every organ system. Our own immune systems are trained and empowered by gut bacteria, many of our B Vitamins are produced by the gut microbiome, and the quality of our digestion hinges upon a symbiotic relationship with all of these microbes--when they are troubled, we also are troubled. (see Fiber Fueled by Will Bulciewicz, MD)

   
   

   Additionally, our healing is impacted by our families of origin, our friend groups, and our communities that we inhabit. When other members of these groups suffer from imbalances or deficits or even illnesses, the health of all the members of the whole community is affected. Systemic evils such as racism and poverty affect all whether we are willing to admit it or not.

   
   

5. Myth #5: Healing is Static--a One Time Thing. When we are talking about addressing chronic illness, we do best to speak of it as a journey. Healing is not some kind of Harry Potter waving his magic wand moment, but rather healing is a series of subtle changes in our trajectory over time. Sometimes it entails two steps forward, followed by one step backward. Sometimes it means we zig zag our way towards feeling better.

   
   

6. Myth #6: Healing is Practitioner Driven. With some regularity people slip into my medical practice that have a kind of "fix me, doctor" mentality. They assume that healing is practitioner driven and since they have carefully chosen me, they expect some kind of miraculous, fairy tale result from our work together. Many of these same patients often seem to forget their own role and responsibility in the process. They also forget that I, as their doctor, am just another human being just like them. When our work together inevitably fails them, they can be quick to blame others (and myself) for all the things that went wrong rather than taking the right amount of responsibility for their own healing. The truth of the matter is this is how we all set ourselves up for failure--by leaning too heavily into the idea that all we need is some kind of magical practitioner(s) and all will be fixed.

   
   

   This could not be further from the truth--ultimately, true healing happens when we have the courage to walk the healing path ourselves. Good healers are just good observers and guides of the process--they don't control or initiate the healing process, they merely help a person understand and create the conditions under which true healing can proceed.

   
   

7. Myth #7: Healing (and disease) Originates (exclusively) from Outside Yourself. This myth is closely related to our collective understanding of the germ theory of disease. When humankind first learned of tiny organisms so small as to be undetectable to the naked eye the practice of medicine was revolutionized. Basic hygienic practices like the washing of hands dramatically reduced the spread of many germs by doctors from patient to patient. The invention of Penicillin further cemented this mentality of external invaders "causing" disease processes in the body. However, this origin theory of disease is incomplete as it is only part of the story.

   
   

   There is another variable at play in the story of health and disease origin. Let's call this variable the susceptibility factor. Becoming ill involves at least these two independent variables and their interplay. First of all, there is the instigating factor which might include exposure to a particular pathogen which functions as an external stressor on the human being. For example, the individual is coughed upon by a guy with COVID on the New York subway. This instigating factor variable has its own intensity rating--for example how close were you sitting to the guy? How long did you sit there? How many times did he cough? How much phlegm did he spew? Did he cover his mouth or wear a mask? How virulent was the COVID version he spewed, etc? Second, there is the susceptibility factor which might include: how robust was the function of your immune system that day? How much sleep did you get the previous few nights? How much stress were you under? What kind of diet do you consume?

   
   

   The point is that not everyone who is exposed to a particular pathogen, manifests illness in the same exact way or even at all. Some people appear to catch everything bug under the sun while other people seem to rarely get ill. This suggests that there are other internal factors at play involved in both the disease process and the healing process.

   
   

8. Myth #8: Physical and Mental/Emotional Healing are Separate Processes. Given the current climate of specialization in health care--it is easy to understand how it might seem that physical health appears completely unrelated to mental-emotional health. After all, if you are having problems with your gastrointestinal tract--you go see a gastroenterologist. If you are having issues with your moods--you go see a psychiatrist. The problem is we are all holistic beings. What affects us on one plane of existence doesn't necessarily stay contained to that one plane of existence but rather illness can and often does spill over into many planes of existence. Sometimes the solution to healing your GI lies in your brain. The two processes are often related. Truth is our bodies are brilliant and wise. Stressors that affect us on one plane or the other affect our whole being.

   
   

   Chew on these for a bit. Do you find your healthcare operating from these kinds of assumptions? More on all of this later. Don't forget to subscribe for updates.