by Angela Perin, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Up until a few years ago, I had been a strong supporter of alternative medicine and its various modalities, including ‘new age’ or ‘spiritual’ therapies and techniques. In fact, I considered alternative medicine to be the answer, or to hold the primary solutions and methods to healing illness and disease. When an illness or condition presented with myself or within my family, this is what I turned to, and actively pursued.

Although I grew up with some understanding and use of Western Medicine (to the extent that I did have occasional visits to the local community nurse and saw a doctor on a handful of occasions during my childhood), it was not a big part of my awareness or experience. In my late teens through to my early 20’s, and as a general outcome of my immediate family taking more of an interest in health, I began to become more interested in alternative medicine and therapies (which included general lifestyle changes such as the incorporation of organic food, supplements, regular exercise etc.).

By the time I was in my mid-late 20’s, I was moving more and more towards alternative medicine as the means of healing illness and disease – to the point where I began to discount Western Medicine as a means of support. In fact, to be honest, over the last 20 odd years this was with a large degree of defence and arrogance against Western Medicine, and I avoided it wherever possible. I took great pride in claiming my family and I never went to the doctor, and that we handled nearly every situation without this support. Of course, there were a handful of occasions where I could not avoid this, but even then I accepted the support with a large measure of reluctance and resistance (considering it something that was necessary and unavoidable, but never something that was embraced).

Since 2010 and my association with Universal Medicine, I have had the opportunity to re-look at my beliefs around alternative medicine and Western Medicine, in the context of how they are able to support dealing with illness and disease.

While I have held an understanding for a long time that illness and disease are not random events, and that they result from something else going on (i.e. emotions, lifestyle etc.), I had arrogantly held on to the belief that Western Medicine could not be a part of the healing process (unless of course ‘absolutely necessary’). I had held on to a belief that engaging the support of Western Medicine was considered a ‘failure’, a ‘step backward’ and even a ‘weakness’.

In the past 2 years I have come to an awareness and understanding that Western Medicine is not ‘the’ answer to illness and disease, but it is an important ‘part’ of ‘the’ answer. I have also come to an awareness and understanding that illness and disease come from the way (the quality and self-care) in which we live, and the way (the quality and self-care) we are with ourselves and others. And while it is an individual’s choice to consider and take responsibility for the cause of illness and disease, and to have the opportunity to connect to and be honest about the patterns, behaviours, ideals and beliefs that result in us living a certain way, Western Medicine can offer tremendous support in assisting the physical body as part of this process. Neither of these two is any more important than the other, but rather complements the other in addressing and healing illness and disease.

In the past 2 years, I have had the amazing opportunity to begin to embrace and accept the support of Western Medicine as an important part of a healing process, and to let go of the solid resistance and arrogance I have held for several decades.

And recently I had the amazing opportunity to put this into practice! I had a large abscess on my leg which was not healing, and had no hesitation or resistance in going to the doctors to get it checked out, which resulted in (emergency) minor surgery and a total of 3 days in hospital.

The amazing thing was that I accepted, and in fact, embraced, all of the support that was offered to me – without resistance, without avoidance, and without arrogance. I was able to accept responsibility for my body and my choices, accept the support that was offered – not with an attitude of ‘you (i.e. Western Medicine) fix it’ or ‘I’m totally helpless’ (i.e. giving away my power) – but with an understanding that Western Medicine was an equally important part of this healing process. I was amazed at how much I was supported simply by ‘allowing’ the support that was there, and how this assisted in the overall healing, and the support I received and felt as a result, was truly lovely.

From resisting Western Medicine to embracing it – now that to me was ‘true’ healing!