Question: I’ve been using natural healing practices, including acupuncture and herbs, for over six years. It took years to start to feel some relief from the chronic health issues, like fibromyalgia, that I’ve had for most of my adult life. In the past few months I have been sick a lot, and now I’m wondering why I can’t just feel better once and for all.   

Answer: First, it’s important to understand that your body is the image of unconditional love. At the deepest level, there are no mistakes.

When you wake up in the morning, you don’t say, “I wish there was only night.” When it snows, you don’t hope for only sunny days. Why? We realize that each has its own special purpose. Together, they make a whole. Without daytime, there is no night; without winter, nothing can grow in spring and summer. They are opposite in some way yet totally interdependent. And they are relative: the essential nature of anything is understood only in relation to something else. This is natural law; this is how reality works at a very deep level. Everything is always balancing and rebalancing to create a state of harmony. Harmony is when complementary things move beyond a state of balance and blend seamlessly into one—a perfect whole. This is the deeper meaning of Yin and Yang.

When we apply this understanding to health and healing, we realize that the whole picture is illness and health, not illness or health. Without illness there can be no true healing. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) always seeks to mirror natural law: to create a state of balance in the person, so his or her own body can achieve harmony within itself—body, mind and spirit—and then with nature and the Universe around it.

TCM is a system of connections at all levels between all things. Your organs and their meridians (invisible energy pathways) create an interconnected and intercommunicating system with all the structures and other systems in your body. Your body, mind and spirit are linked. You are part of nature and completely connected to it, so changes in nature are reflected in your body. Modern physics has shown us that everything is connected to everything else; nothing exists in isolation.

Energy, or Qi, is what makes this miracle of connection and intercommunication work. When you break physical matter down to its most essential form, it’s nothing but invisible energy! Energy is power, but this, too, is only one side of the whole. Energy also has intelligence and function. It has the ability to pass a message that informs and guides all things to achieve balance and maintain harmony.

The mind is based on knowledge from past experiences, but your body is built on all the codes of DNA from all your lives—you are not here on Earth for the first time; you have been here for many lifetimes. If you agree that we are energy beings, and that energy cannot die or disappear—only transform—then we can say we never die. So your body and its DNA contain the genetic code to thousands and thousands of programs. These programs are based on the soul’s decision to choose these two particular parents at the moment of conception. Once the soul makes the decision to enter this life, you automatically carry two codes: one spiritual, one physical. Remember, the body has an agreement with spirit. What is the DNA, or genetic code that you pick? That’s the physical code, but the most important one is the spiritual code. Once you pick the spiritual code, the body has to fulfill it; the body is in the service of the spirit. Therefore, you download not only illnesses, but also the cures for them.

The body does its best to help you achieve your goal. But when you go too far, the soul will give you an adjustment, even when it comes in the form of illness. Every health issue has a purpose. If you can see the purpose of the illness, then you don’t need it anymore. If you don’t understand the purpose, it will repeat itself in some form.

So when dealing with this kind of problem you have asked about, you have to look at it in a deep way. Some health problems reappear many times or even appear to be untreatable. This does not mean that they cannot be fixed, but just that the timing is not right. You might need to meet the right person, at the right time, in the right place. Or maybe instead of focusing on the condition itself, you need to focus on how to change your body in a deep way, how to change not just small things but your whole life.

Because you have been taking positive actions to work on your health, you have made your condition better, even though you still might get sick from time to time. It’s possible that without the efforts you have made already, your condition could have been much worse. So you should be proud of yourself for searching for something. You just have to search a little bit deeper!

And don’t concentrate only on outside things for help. All the answers are inside you. Remember, for every challenge we have, we also have the answer—within. The more peaceful you are, the more information you will learn and the more answers you will receive. So never doubt your body. It has genetic and spiritual wisdom; both visible and invisible wisdom blend to make your own unique body, which is an image of unconditional love.