The Benefits of Illness

Today’s post comes to you from a small, rainy, foggy patch of GA where I sit cocooned in the old green comforter my sister was going to toss out but I rescued because it’s soft and warm. Once again, just when I thought I was feeling better, whatever crud that had infested my body surged back with renewed vigor. Every muscle in my body aches and my brain is operating at low speed. As much as I hate being sick, I kinda like it when my brain does this.

Our brains are constantly barraged with information and were are an easily distracted and scattered generation, especially thanks to the internet. Meditation helps, but I often find that when I’m sick my mind actually goes to a place of mindfulness that is far more effortless and continual than when in meditation. My mind is fuzzy but it’s focused on one single thing at a time. It plods forward slowly and methodically, like water wearing on stone, until it’s goal is accomplished. In a strange way, simply because of this single-purpose mindfulness, I feel more mentally productive when I’m sick.

So as I sit wrapped in my fluffy, faded green floral blankie, I’m actually looking forward to getting things done. I feel like an ancient Druid in an incubatory trance, only without the ickyness of having to wear freshly butchered cow skin. That is, if I can stay awake and my stomach cooperates.

How about you? Do you find you enter a zone of intense mindfulness when you’re ill?

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