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Symptoms feel terrible, but they are a gift.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t ask for it (nor should we), but they knock on our doors. Psychological and emotional suffering such as anxiety, fears, depression, flashbacks, rumination,\u00a0 compulsions, and voice hearing tell us something is happening to us. They are the sirens that tell us there’s a fire inside.<\/p>\n
The signal is not the problem. The fire is.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n For example, a woman who has been depressed for three years says that her problem is chronic low mood and lack of motivation. When in fact her symptoms of depression are a signal reflecting back to her a real problem of being in a domestic violent relationship.<\/p>\n Or a man in his forties who has been anxious all of his adult life. He was beginning to think that this was what\u00a0normal modern day living was meant to be, only to find out once he began to listen to his symptoms, he realised that\u00a0this was part of an unaddressed traumatic experience of being molested as a child by his uncle that he had burdened in him due to fear and shame. All these years, he had done his best not to talk about it, as he didn\u2019t want to bring shame to his family members (including his Uncle).<\/p>\n Physical illness is easier to imagine than the metaphorical world of our emotions. Think of a person afflicted with leprosy. Renowned British surgeon Dr Paul Brand<\/a><\/strong>, who spent his life working in this area was the first to observe that leprosy did not cause the rotting away of tissues, but that it was the loss of the sensation of pain which made sufferers susceptible to injury. In other words,\u00a0 the problem with\u00a0 leprosy is the absence of the ability to feel pain. (See his book with co-author Philip Yancey, The Gift of Pain<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n