The problem with an incomplete teaching

abstractalmegan
May 9, 2023
5 min read

Updated: Sep 13, 2023

...and why the intention and reason behind us doing something is often more important than the action itself.

A story recently came to my attention recently about a passionate follower of self-help/diet advice who came to a bad medical outcome. These situations can shock a community and often erode into bitter arguments and hatred between followers of conventional and non-conventional medicine.

I see these stories as an issue of an incomplete teaching.

In the particular story on my mind today, a woman we'll call "Sarah" was inspired by a specific vegan health movements. She blended many non-conventional practices such as fasting, juicing, eating raw food, and other various forms of exercise with the outward stated goal of optimal health. However, when she found a physical indication of a major health challenge she did not go to a traditional medical doctor. Sarah decided she was having a "detox reaction" and continued on, perhaps being even more vigilant. When her symptoms became more pronounced and friends, family, and her vegan lifestyle mentors begged her to go to the doctor, she refused. When she developed severe symptoms and couldn't walk or get out of bed she continued to treat her condition with the hope that it would get better on its own. By the time Sarah finally went to seek conventional medical help, her condition was in an advanced and terminal stage. Sarah then accepted full conventional treatment before passing away within the year.

We all have a little bit of Sarah inside of us. Perhaps it is the part of us that is so scared of something that we'll do/believe anything, even extreme ideas to avoid it. We are so intent on avoiding this fear that we stop listening to our inner voice, those important messages from our bodies, and we plough ahead stubbornly until we have a wake-up call or completely fall over a cliff. I know this side of myself well and have run up against the dark side of this phenomena many times while following modern self help books and alternative health leaders. It wasn't until I discovered a complete teaching of self discovery and actualization (in the particular form of Zhineng Qigong) that I realized what was going on.

Most modern self-help, diet, alternative medicine, and spiritual guides are teaching only half truths. Their guidance usually comes from a pure inspiration or an idea of healing, but it is often one-sided and not balanced. The advice is usually based on rules that one's mind can latch onto and blindly follow. Most of these teachers do not help people do the hard work of clearing out their unconscious inherited and conditioned thought patterns to go inside themselves, listen to their bodies, and find their inner truth and guide from within. Most of these teachings have a right and wrong and are not open to infinite creativity. These teachings, dovetailed by our own personal imbalances of fear, perfection, and stubbornness, can lead to big unintended consequences.

I'll give an example of myself. Many years ago my business was expanding and I suddenly had a lot more work and still only 24 hours in the day. I heard a self-help efficiency expert on the radio and purchased her book. It was full of well-meant advice, based on the personal experiences of the well credentialed author, and I was inspired to put into practice her methods to increase my productivity. The book involved streamlining your life to reduce the number of choices you had to make in the day and to set aside particular time for creative endeavors, family life, chores, etc. It wasn't necessarily bad advice. However, it wasn't a complete teaching and since it wasn't balanced with teachings of de-conditioning unhealthy patterns, finding self love/worth that is decoupled with how much you work, listening to your inner authority over anything else, etc. it ended up being a negative influence on my life. I won't say this expert efficiency advice "caused" a subsequent health crisis in my life, but it certainly didn't help me avoid it. I have run into similar issues while following other popular diet, lifestyle, self-help, and professional advice trends. The advice seems logical and helps a little at first but can be quite damaging overall if taken to the extremes and dovetailed with latent negative unconscious tendencies particularly underlying currents of self loathing.

I will contrast the above with my experiences with Zhineng Qigong, which I consider to be a complete teaching on self actualization and healing by stepping into our most true and powerful selves. Many people come to this practice with the goal of healing a physical health issue, but most quickly realize that the work is far greater than that. Healing is a multi-faceted endeavor. It involves healing past trauma and reprogramming negative thought/action patterns. It involves bringing all of your parts back together to function together as a united whole. It is not about getting rid of the things you don't like or avoiding the things you fear. Healing naturally helps you become your most powerful, effective, and efficient self. You learn how to be guided by your body, which can process outward and inward data thousands of times faster that your well-intentioned brain. You don't waste your time on work/conversations/people that are not necessary to deal with at the time so your effectiveness at work skyrockets. You can see your next steps more clearly so you are able to take more decisive action and stop second guessing yourself. Your body has the energy it needs to stay healthy and avoid illness.

Complete spiritual realization teachings are not religions, though they very much resonate with the words of famous spiritual leaders like Jesus, Buddha, and Lao Tzu. They are in line with ancient indigenous teachings in cultures throughout the world that focus on self knowing and unconditional love.

In the case of Sarah, it appears that she may have held a lot of fear and mistrust of conventional medicine. Her obsession with self-healing through diet and exercise could have been a way for her to avoid facing this fear. The intention and reason behind us doing something is often more important than the action itself. It is a beautiful thing to love ourselves so much that we naturally want to care for our bodies, eat healthily and exercise. It is not a healing act to try to force our bodies to perform in a certain way by eating a diet we think is healthy so that we can avoid a challenging situation. In Sarah's situation, the most healing act from a more multi-faceted wholistic view could have been to face her fear of going to the doctor. Her fear would have been apparent to her when she first noticed her health issue. That fear could have actually been an invitation from the universe to uncover its roots and find peace within herself and any interactions with the conventional medical world. This exploration in itself could have lead to her complete healing.

It is common for people to be afraid of going to a conventional doctor. In many cases trust has been broken and/or there are memories of past traumatic experiences. This is especially true when it comes to illnesses like cancer treatment as the infancy of cancer medicine and the experimentation with cancer drugs/chemotherapy on patients lead to much pain and suffering. The images of our loved ones in the past generation undergoing conventional cancer treatment are still very real in our collective memory. I have walked with many people going down the path of facing their fear of conventional medical treatment. Often this exploration becomes just as important in their healing process as the physical treatment itself. Finding the strength and peace to interact with modern medicine and having the ability to weave this with more energetic inner healing can be a powerful and wondrous process.

It is a beautiful thing to believe that you can heal yourself, but that belief can't just be wishful thinking. A complete teaching can be invaluable in helping one discern what's going on in a situation to find the best steps toward healing.