Dear Jessica Brennan,
Recently, I heard a 60 Minutes podcast that talked about how researchers use the HIV virus (minus the parts that make it lethal) to introduce modified DNA into people who are suffering with Sickle Cell disease.
It made me think back to when we first heard about HIV in the 1980s, and how we would never have thought that it would bring anything other than death. We were collectively terrified by what seemed to be a brand new explosively contagious poison and the urban folklore about this fiery toxin ran rampant.
As I considered this positive use of HIV, it made me wonder about other things in life that might follow the same pattern. Often leaving a bad relationship is terrifying, or cutting negative friendships loose or sticking up for yourself to a bully. The toxic quality of this behaviour being used against you may in fact though be the catalyst to bring about positive change in your life.
If you can use the accelerant of toxicity, minus the parts that make it lethal, to inject new positive behaviour into your life, healing can come. It could be that without experiencing the fiery toxicity, you wouldn’t take action. Without action there is no change. Without change there is no relief from pain. So, in a great irony, the poison that brings pain is also part of the cure.
This largely scientific podcast actually made me look at pain more philosophically. The key to any experience in life is to learn, and part of the learning is to see that everything that happens; good or bad, contains within it a lesson, or two or three. Often an unexpected lesson from an unpredictable source. Watch out for these nuggets, because THAT is the most exciting experiment in which to participate.
Love,
Mum xo
