To you, a disease is either physical or mental, and treatments involve medication or therapy. However, very few people are unaware of the fact that some conditions can be considered a spiritual disease.
Unfortunately, this concept is rarely spoken of, which is why not many people know about this.
However, spirituality, or lack of it, can make you experience disease-like symptoms. How? Keep on reading to find out.
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What’s a Spiritual Disease?
A spiritual disease can be described as having the sensation of a void in your chest or solar plexus, with the desire to fill it up with something. Many people try to fill that emptiness by buying material things or developing a romantic relationship with someone.
Yet, in time, you realize that that void continues to grow, and nothing seems to feel like that missing puzzle piece you need.
Everyone in their life experiences that sensation of emptiness, and it can drive you to question every aspect of your life and its purpose. And the longer this emptiness persists, the more it can manifest itself into disease-like symptoms.
How People Manifest Spiritual Asleepness
When you don’t understand why you feel empty inside, you try to find ways to cope with it rather than fill it, especially when you’ve gone through traumatic life experiences. It’s almost as you try to place a bandaid on a severe wound instead of healing it properly.
For example, people might begin to binge-eat, drink, take drugs, or adopt another unhealthy habit to temporarily fill that void. By doing so, it can cause a ripple effect and disrupt your physical and mental wellbeing.
Addictions develop when you start depending on certain hobbies or activities that give you that “high” or “feeling alive” sensation. Those sensations may feel like the perfect distraction and coping mechanism, but all it does is make you numb for a little while.
Treating Spiritual Disease
Treating a spiritual illness is like treating any other type of disease—seeking help from a health care professional, taking medication, and establishing healthy habits. It requires time, effort, and diligence.
The first step is accepting that you cannot fill that void on your own and acknowledge that you need to trust a higher power. A higher power doesn’t necessarily mean God or contacting the spirit world. Approaching a spiritual disease is different for each person and involves doing different things.
The idea is to find the treatment that works for you. For some, it can mean joining a religious community, and for others, it can be through therapy and self-searching.
It can mean becoming aware of their addictive habits and gaining the strength to abandon that path—here are the 12 principles of aa.
Yet, this effort is something that needs to be done daily. If this means having to read every day, practice spiritual or mindful habits, such as meditation, or going to support group meetings every week, then stick to them as strictly as possible. It’ll end up being worth it in the long run.
Fill Your Void
A spiritual disease can be hard to identify at first. But once you’ve decided to seek spiritual treatment and follow it, you’ll soon realize that your void will shrink, and your sensation of fulfillment will grow. Not only that, but you’ll relieve your symptoms of the disease.
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