Sickness, Presence & the Intelligence of the Body

Let me begin by saying this: what you are about to read cannot be perceived through the mind.

This isn’t a post to understand. It’s one to feel. To enter.

Because to truly see what sickness is and what it isn’t you must meet it from awareness, not thought. Not from the horizontal movement of story and time, but from the vertical stillness of presence.

Imagine life as two lines:

• The horizontal is the outer world—form, time, identity, stories, symptoms.

• The vertical is the inner world—presence, stillness, awareness.

The mind lives on the horizontal. It tries to solve, fix, protect, and control.

Awareness lives on the vertical. It sees, holds, and allows.

When we speak about sickness, most of society responds from the horizontal:

• “I need to fix this.”

• “This shouldn’t be happening.”

• “What if it gets worse?”

But presence doesn’t speak that way. Presence simply says:

“This too is allowed.”

Let’s pause here. Because even the word allowing has been misunderstood.

We think allowing means giving up.

We think it means doing nothing while the body falls apart.

But true allowing isn’t passivity. It’s meeting what is without resistance.

It’s not allowing the cold to take over.

It’s allowing the cold to be exactly what it is without the mind naming it as wrong.

Because when you resist a head cold, you fight with reality:

• You suppress symptoms.

• You resent how you feel.

• You try to rush it away.

But when you allow it in presence:

• It moves more gently.

• You can feel the intelligence behind it.

• There’s no added layer of suffering.

Sickness, in this space, is not a problem.

It’s a message.

A movement.

A clearing.

And because presence holds everything, even sickness is allowed here.

When you’re in union with the body, when you’re not living in the mind about it you begin to notice the subtle. The whispers before they become screams.

That’s why I can now sit with a head cold feel the snot, the subtle tension, the fatigue and not call it wrong. Not rush to fix it. Not tell a story about being unwell.

Because I’m listening. And when we listen deeply, the body doesn’t need to get loud.

But when we’re disconnected, unaware, suppressing?

That’s when the body might reach for bigger expressions.

And I say that from lived truth.

Listening doesn’t mean doing nothing. It doesn’t mean rejecting all forms of support.

True presence includes form.

It includes your response to the body’s needs, when done in resonance.

For example:

• I used a throat spray before bed. Not from fear. But from union a way of saying, “I see you. Let me ease this sting while you continue clearing.”

• I rested because the body asked.

• I hydrated because it felt needed.

This is not bypass. It’s not abandoning the horizontal.

It’s living in the vertical with the horizontal.

It’s when presence informs motion.

When the stillness guides the care.

So yes, sometimes that includes support.

Sometimes that includes medicine.

Sometimes it includes rest, herbal teas, warm baths, even a Panadol if guided.

The point is not what you do.

The point is where it comes from.

Is it coming from fear? Or from deep presence?

From panic? Or from union?

When you’re truly listening, your actions are no longer resistance.

They are resonance.

I’ve experienced what the world would call medical emergencies:

• A brain bleed

• Strokes

• A ruptured appendix

These weren’t random. They weren’t punishments.

They were my body screaming what I could not yet hear.

At the time, I wasn’t aware of what the body was trying to say.

I wasn’t listening to her.

And yes, medical intervention was needed.

Hospital. Tests. Surgery. I needed help to support the body to stabilise and clear what had ruptured within.

But even in that—there was awareness.

There was a knowing when it was time.

Not fear. Not panic. A voice within that said:

“Hospital. Now.”

That same inner voice said: “Appendix. Appendix.” before the doctors confirmed it.

This wasn’t bypass. This was union.

It was the body and awareness finally speaking the same language.

Most people fear sickness because they’ve forgotten how to listen.

They’ve seen people die.

They’ve watched loved ones “wait too long” and believe it was a mistake.

So they live in a panic:

“If I don’t fix this now, I might die.”

But here’s what presence knows:

Death is not a mistake.

Life is not random.

Even those moments are held.

When the body expresses something big, it isn’t always because something went wrong.

Sometimes, it’s just time.

And presence can meet even that.

That’s why this isn’t a truth you can grasp.

It must be felt. Remembered. Entered.

This is the vertical.

It’s what remains when the stories fall away.

It’s what holds both the snot and the silence. The rupture and the realignment.

It’s what guided me in and out of hospital. It’s what whispered: stay. Go. Rest.

And it’s always here.

You are not separate from this intelligence.

You are this intelligence.

And when you remember that—

even sickness becomes a doorway back into presence.

Not a problem.

Not a punishment.

But a call to return.