While not being able to name it, I had become aware of it and could bring it to the consciousness of my outer-self, or, in other words, expand my consciousness to include this part of my inner-self. The colds had been a perfect reflection of the inner sadness. Once I could address the sadness more directly, the colds occurred less frequently.

It was a powerful learning experience for me. Neither cold remedies, or the power of positive thinking could really combat those colds. Only by understanding the painful, suppressed part of me that was reflected in the colds did the colds begin to abate. Only through exposing the lie to myself, that everything was fine with my parents, did I become healthier.

I was in my mid-twenties at the time, at the age where one makes another of the steps toward selfhood independent of parents. The understanding of the inner sad connections made me more aware of myself independent of my parents. This too was part of the change.

It also made me wonder about my childhood. I had hay fever and allergies for all of it, with symptoms like cold symptoms, until around the age of 18. The doctors said it was common for children to "grow out" of allergies around that age, the same age that I, as many children, left home. Did I really grow out of the allergies or did I move away from a source of inner sadness?

Over the next decade there were other encounters with Reflection and diseases. They all mirrored some inner tensions that I would rather have kept hidden. For example, another common ailment with deeper meaning for me was backaches.

The backaches reflected a lack of self-confidence in a high pressure sales job. I had moved from the cerebral challenges of programming computers to the competitive job of selling computer software. Not the relatively inexpensive software for personal computers, but software for large corporate computers that cost between a quarter and a half a million dollars. It took months to make these deals and the competition amongst the various software vendors was fierce.

Coming from a technical, not a sales, background, I felt I was over my head. I portrayed an image of wanting to succeed in sales, but inside I didn't feel I could make it. This is where the backaches came in. They were a perfect reflection of the inner fears of success. Further, as with the colds, the symptoms of the back aches matched the inner fear. I could not hold myself up. It was extremely painful to try to move around and I had to lay flat on my back.

My Backaches

I didn't really under-stand at the time, and, as I recovered, I jumped back into my sales career and then the backaches came back and then I got better and jumped back in again. They recurred throughout my entire sales career. Once I finally got out of sales, the backaches left as well. If I'd learned from them earlier I might have saved myself a lot of pain.

Just as the colds did, the backaches exposed a lie I told myself. It was the lie that I felt confident I could succeed in sales. As I've moved amongst different jobs since, twinges of pain come and go in my back, almost always when I feel I've overextended myself.

This view of disease, that it is an indicator of some inner need, is an extremely uncomfortable one. The very nature of both my inner sadness with my parents, which couldn't be expressed, and my insecurity in my proclaimed sales ability, was such that I didn't want to admit either to myself, let alone anyone else.

Before understanding them I would continue the lies, both to myself and those around me. I would tell my parents how sad I was to be sick during the visit; I would tell my sales management how frustrated I was to be laid up when I could be out selling. Both of these were lies to help keep the inner secrets secret. Both of these were lies to myself more than anyone else because I didn't want to confront my sadness in one case or my inner insecurities in the other.

I don't mean to imply that everyone with colds is sad, or everyone with backaches is insecure, just that those were the reflections I saw in my life. I do mean to imply that if there is pain, then looking for some inner, hidden factors will probably lead to increased self awareness. The factors may be similar to mine, or they may not. The chances are good it might take several recurring incidents before the connections become clear.

It is important to understand, that even though our language uses the words "disease" and "illness", which imply something wrong, the state of having a cold or backache is not, from a Reflection point of view, anything wrong. It just is, and it reflects an inner need. In fact, one might even consider them good. The colds gave me the emotional release of my sadness that I could not give myself; the backaches let me lie down and rest, a rest I couldn't give myself.

The pain of both the colds and the backaches was not the pain of the disease, but the pain of having my wants thwarted. I wanted to be healthy and happy with my parents, but the sadness came through; I wanted to be a successful salesman but my insecurities came through. In either case, by dropping the want, the pain disappears, even if the facts remain the same. When I knew I was releasing sadness, the cold felt good; when I was avoiding selling, lying on my back reading a good book felt good.

Reflection is not a way of healing and it is certainly not a way of getting what you want; it is just a different way of looking at things. In these case, the colds and backaches were mirrors, revealing my inner-self.

The same connection between inner self and disease relates to sports injuries as well. Especially among those who take sports seriously, there is often a big difference between professed wants and inner needs. I've seen this myself in my involvement with bicycle racing.

While I tend to concentrate on the inner needs behind the unpleasant aspects of life, because these are the more difficult to see, Reflection holds true for the pleasant as well. Bike racing, for three years fulfilled a strong need in me to prove I could be a competitive athlete and, like most things, was not really planned. It just happened one day that a friend told me about an amateur bike race and asked if I wanted to try it. I soon became hooked, bought a good bike, trained hard, was racing in all the local races and even won a few trophies.

After the first successful years things stopped flowing for me in bike racing. The competition was getting tougher and I didn't do as well. The third year I trained still harder, and the competition got even tougher. (Bike racing was on an upswing in popularity in this country, and more and more talented athletes were being drawn to it.)

At the same time, I needed to spend more time with my family—the long training hours were getting to be too much. Bike racing had satisfied my original need, to be a competitive athlete, but by the third year my self image had become so identified with bike racing that I didn't know how to quit. This was the set up for a perfect, painful reflection.

My wants and ego were strongly tied to continuing in bike racing. My original needs that had gotten me into bike racing had been satisfied and new needs had developed that were pushing me on, but my wants were not in tune with my changing needs.

The result? A severe rash in my groin that made it extremely painful to sit on a bicycle seat. All sorts of doctor's cures didn't work. The only remedy was to get off the bike and stay off for a while.

Getting out of bike racing

My wants and needs were out of harmony. My self-image still wanted me to race, it felt I would lose face if I quit. But I needed to quit. The rash got me out of bike racing and let me move on to the next phase of my life. It exposed my lie of wanting to continue in bike racing.

Had I been as aware of Reflection at the time, it probably all would have been obvious to me, but it wasn't. I professed frustration at being forced off of my bike, but I definitely felt a sense of relief. This is often the clue for understanding, a feeling of relief, or release of some kind of pressure, when something which is supposedly "bad" happens to you. That feeling points at the inner needs being expressed.

An example of how perfect the reflection of sports injuries can be came about during Mary's involvement with women's rugby. She first got involved with rugby by responding to a notice in the paper from a woman's rugby club recruiting new players. She was interested because, while not particularly athletic, she enjoys team sports and was looking for one to get her in better shape. Unknown to Mary at the time, the team was the perennial national champions. These women were tough. They trained and played hard in the Fall and Spring seasons, looking forward to the national championships in late May. But in the Summer they relaxed, by just playing scrimmages at practice and having a fun tournament on Cape Cod involving seven players on a team, rather than the normal fifteen, and shorter periods.

Mary's first season with the club left her with mixed feelings. She really enjoyed the camaraderie of the team and the laid-back Summer practices and sevens tournament, but, not being as athletic as most of the team, she had hated the tough Spring and Fall practices. Further, the seriousness of the competition left her with few opportunities to play.

As the Winter break leading into her second year was ending, Mary found herself filled with inner conflict over what she liked and didn't like about rugby. She was forcing herself to run and get ready for the tough spring season, yet she dreaded it as well.

How could she escape the lie that she wanted to train hard, how could she miss the brutal spring practices, how could she maintain the camaraderie with the team, and how could she play the more laid-back summer season?

One week before the first practice she sprained her ankle. The injury was perfect. The sprain was just bad enough to limit spring training, but mild enough to be healed in time for the summer practices and games that she thoroughly enjoyed. She still enjoyed the camaraderie throughout by taking photographs of the team during the tough Spring season, and, when the ankle was better, went on to play for the winning team in the summer sevens tournament.

Sprained ankle and women's rugby