Ivonne´s Homepage ueber Multiple Sklerose, Stilles Qi Gong und Psychosomatik

Krankheit als Sprache der Seele ("Illness as the language of the soul"), Rüdiger Dahlke

My own experience with that book and the meanings

This book unfortunately is not translated into English yet. It will be published soon by Bluestar California. The chapter about MS is from that book and I will translate that for you. I recommend though to read the whole book resp. in this case the book before that "The healing power of illness" to understand that kind of thinking about illness. Dr. Dahlke also has mediation-tapes, I suppose only in German too otherwise I always recommend them as they´re wonderful. It´s often possible to understand what he´s saying intellectually but to put this into action and to really comprehend it from deep inside is more difficult so meditation can help. Often it´s difficult to see the mentioned characteristics in oneself. Openess and honesty is needed towards oneself and also a good portion of humor (it´s sometimes not too nice what one reads...). Another possibility would be to watch the characteristics at other persons and then according to "life and environment and others as my mirror" look at oneself. My experience is, that the things Dr. Dahlke writes and which he has not made up himself are right, if I´m able and willing to see it or if I´m not. I´m able to watch that also with other illnesses and symptoms (my friends too are looking up things in his books). On one hand the whole thing is pretty uncomfortable but on the other hand, looked at in a positive sense, it´s also quite exciting and it can help one to start walking towards health. While doing this translation I realise that probably I cannot express what the book says adequately. I´ll be happy to receive e-mails to improve the translation and also for trying to explain what is meant closer.

MS has so many different faces and symptoms that often it is not diagnosed straight away or right. When the diagnosis is there, doctors like to keep it secret because it´s so hard and not treatable. This behaviour, being strange in itself already, is even stranger for the MS-patients themselves, as without the diagnosis they are in a quite helpless situation because of their mental pattern. As they expect themselves to work more than good and to do things 100 percent, the symtoms bring them into despaired situation, also because they tend to look for the guild in themselves. Sometimes this can result in feeling relieved when getting the diagnosis as it proves that they are not simulating and just being lazy. It also finally gives them a reason to let go at least a little bit of their perfectionism. Now they don´t need to be able to do everything anymore.
The tendency to clamp the teeth and to give themselves the guild together with a certain kind of stubborness, is also a danger with the meanings of this illness. Here I may point out again, that the point is never value, even though the language might sometimes seem like it, but it´s always only meaning.
Even though the many different symptoms, there is one basic pattern. The pain in the spine which often exists comes from the infectional processes in this area. They show a going-on conflict in regards of straightness, which shows, that straightness (being straigth up inside and outside) + facing things is connected with pain. Also other sensations of pain belong to this connection. Many MS-patients have pain in their feet, which shows, how hard it is to walk the way they walk as it´s often not their own way. Pain in feet and legs can really get them off their legs and show clearly, how painful it is to hang on to the chosen way, to walk and stand through it. They force to get down, to accept the own painful weakness. As often it´s said, MS would have no pain, this must be unbelievable in the ears of the persons who have it.
Problems with sensibility show, that the person does not feel or realize anymore certain areas of the body and the soul. Even when the doctor gets to them with a needle, they do not realise it anymore. Even things, that touch them directly and dangerously, which might even hurt them, they do not realize anymore, they have shut them off. In fact one can speak of a shut-off towards the outer world and its actions. This shutting off can been also seen in other symptoms like weaker reflexes which can result in complete loss of reflexes. Reflexes are the most simply answers of the nerval system to outer sensations. People without reflexes have lost resp. given up the oldest natural possibilities of reaction. They are literally reflex-less. No matter how upset they are, they keep quiet and do not answer, in the deepest sense, to life and it´s demands. This corresponds with the apathy which happens periodically. The word "apathy" goes one step further in it´s literal meaning, as it means "Not-suffering" (greece: a=not and pathos=suffering). Therefor it shows the typical weakness and also the refusal of taking part in life and taking part in suffering. Even though the patients try to do everything for others the way they want them to, they do not have inner sympathy. How can they take part in others lifes, when not even feel in the own life properly which show the problems in physical sensibility. Numbness is often one of the first symptoms and it can start so slowly that the person sometimes realises his situation quite late.

Canal Grande Venice, Easter 2004

Together with it there´s often loss of power. The patients slowly realise how everything exhausts them and even day-to-day tasks can hardly be done anymore. Life has gotten too exhausting in the true sense of the word. Finally often even the legs can´t be lifted anymore. This can be transfered to the psychological sense where too they can´t get their feet up anymore. The overwhelming weakness blocks all progress and rise in life even though there´s often ambition. With the legs that do not carry anymore, the body signalises, that the base of life has lost it´s capablity to carry. The outer physical paralisation is a mirror of the inner one. First the patients often try to get themselves through life by gripping every hold and straw. Even when in transfered sense, they are already using a cane, they refuse, as long as possible, to make use of that third leg, which would widen their life-basis again. Like the cane even the wheelchair can bring an enormous help if the patients get themselves as far as making use of that help.

Lack of power up to paralisation in fingers and hands shows, that the power is missing, to grip the own life. In both levels it´s not possible to grip anymore. According to the paralisation there is the inner situation which feels like paralised.

Often there´s fatigue which goes with that picture. Some patients sleep up to 16 hours and therefor oversleep more than half of their lifes. The feeling after waking up late they often describe as "narcotic". Deafness towards the demands of the own life and it´s needs is characteristic. The felt fatigue demonstrates, that one is already beaten in life´s course and that reaching the target by own power can hardly be expected anymore. Even though it´s said that fatigue is no illness, this kind of fatigue which takes up the whole life, is far more that the natural tiredness which results from powering oneself out physically. It seems that here quite a good portion of defence towards a wide awake life has been pushed into the body. Patients often say that they would like to sleep over their misery. On the other hand often a lot of power is used. It´s so exhausting for the patients, that even little things make them tired. Even a knife can be to heavy when already the arm is felt as a burden. Those heavy weights show the burden, which gets the patient down also in transferred sight. (Not only physically but also mentally.) There´s the suspicion that somewhere must be a leak where the energy gets lost. This hole has been probably found by medicine: Research in immune-system makes the MS be seen as a auto-aggression-illness. All power is used in the fight against oneself. Therefor there´s not much left for the outer life.

Further symptoms regard the bladder - the organ with which we let go but also can pressurise. For most MS-patients it´s weakness in that respect. They cannot hold their water anymore, which means the bladder flows over easily. The symptom forces one back into the situation of early childhood with its disability to control the body functions and the own life. The tears that are not cried on the top, which MS-patients in their lack of responce and blockade in feelings cannot let happen, flow down there, where nobody can see it. This shifted crying can return to real crying when the illness gets so bad, that the defence actions tend to break down due to the suffering. In that case it often gets tearful which the person himself is quite embarrassed off. Even little things like a moving filmscene or such, can free the blocked up flood in the soul into rivers of tears. Another possibility is, that the tears trickle away constantly and show the patient, how close he should build to the (soul)water. A life dry off feelings obviously is not their destination and the wet eyes show, how moved they are deep inside. This is also the case generelly concerning the shown lack of feelings and hardness. When the dam breaks down, sentimentalism can break out which shows a complete different person. Bladder infections show the conflict about letting go. It´s a burning desire. The symptoms forces constantly without giving too much of oneself or his soul. It does not just demonstrate, how necessary letting go is, but also, how hard it is and how painful it´s felt.

On the other hand there can be holding back the ureter, almost the opposite of bladder-weakness, shows the extreme holding back concerning matters of the soul. How independent the whole action is from the mere physical, shows the fact, that the tearful flowing-over of the bladder can change with the complete holding back of the water. Rentention of the own flood of the soul is a characteristic symptom for the basic mental situation. Problems of speech illustrate the same drama. They show that the patient lost speech. They are speechless. Their selfexpression is heavily disturbed, when it gets a problem to get out a whole sentence. Another characteristic of the disturbance of the complete coherence is found in the difficulty to keep a coherence and to build a whole senseful sentence. Coordination of parts which need each other is disturbed. The lived life cannot be matched with the own essence (nature). Problems with coordination are also important in other areas. Even before paralisation they disable the patients and lead to the typical unsafe walk which looks like being drunk. These persons totter through life and cannot control their muscles properly. This indertimination can be found in general. The illness comes in unpredictable highs and lows so that the patients can only trust the single moment.

The point of weakness is on the physical level the connection between nerve and muscle. According to medicine the MS is a degenerative nerve-muscle-infection, a chronic conflict at the connection between the information-resource and the motion organs. The information transfer is not safe and working properly. In the case of speech problems, the patients cannot pass on their informations anymore to others and therefor loose an important possibility to influence their surroundings. As much, as they cannot influence it with words anymore they also loose the ability to control them. The verbal loss of control is for people, for whom inner control is extremely important, a terrible threat. If the way of influending is done by writing, it will be extremely scary when the arms get weak. This tendency to control and influence is also an explanation for the high organisation level of single MS-patients or whole groups. In their basic doing they even help other patients too. Particularly patients that have overcome their own problems, can find a field here for their inner pattern. As long as it is not used, to distract from the own tasks, but just the opposite, to see oneself in the mirror of other patients, this can be a wonderulf solution.

The same direction can be found in the problems with the memory. The patients cannot remember things and cannot participate in talks anymore. The are not responsible anymore, they are not even able to answer properly anymore, neither to their talk-partners nor to life. It´s obvious that, someone who cannot respond, cannot have responsibility anymore. What the illness shows them so clearly, active and ambitious patients do not want to realise and they often refuse to accept disability, which frees them even legally from the obligation of selfresponsibility

Canal Grande

Loss of concentration shows that the person is not able to stick to one thing. MS-patients in general have the tendency, to stick to point of views rigidly, even if they are seldom able to defend them towards others leave alone pressing them through. They are rigid and sticking to principles which often leads to rigidity and stubborness. Just like the overflow of the bladder, loss of concentration is self-help-attempt of the body. Without concentration it will be impossible to stick to the old used ways. Just the opposite happens: Constantly they get thrown out of their way, forget the topic and have to orientate new.

Also they loose the reality concretely, as often the senses in the face are concerned. Strange lightning sensations like bright lights can bee seen as an attempt of the organism, to give a light to the patients concerning their realisation. The obviously see things, that don´t exist. Often there is haze before the eyes and sometimes blindness. When exactly half of the face is concerned the interpretation gets easy: One sees only one half of (the own) reality. Double-vision shows a dangerous equivocalness. Expressions like "double-grounded" (there is a German word for this but I don´t know the English one) or "double-morality" express the included quality. In this connection it can be said, that the morality and ethic is often so strict, that there simply cannot be, what there is. This also the double-vision can mean. The reality is measured - unnoticed - with two different measurements.

The double vision shows that one tries to life in two worlds at the same time which don´t go together. The world of the own needs and the world of the demands of the environment cannot be matched, so that most patients unconciously decide, to weaken their own feelings and realisations drastically or even to not take them inside at all anymore. The double-vision shows, that the own conception keeps on existing in the shadow, from where they compete with the ourside world. MS-patients so to say are children of two (fighting) worlds. They cannot live either world completely and are sitting between the chairs. Two realisations which cannot be matched also can lead to dizziness. The mechanism is the same as feeling sick on a ship. There is a swindle.

The problems with the balance also belong here. They show how little the patients are in harmony. They walk on moving ground. Often it´s said that the base (base of life?) is taken away underneath, one is walking through sands or balances on a rope. The feeling of loosing ground underneath the feet like being drunk shows, how instabil and relyable the contact towards the own base and the roots into the base of the soul lis. The fear, to fall off small bridges, shows the threat of life and the closeness of the abyss. Indeed the danger of an abyss gets closer, the worse the illness gets. The not-lived shadow threatens to get hold of the patients. It´s even more dangerous when except for the vaccilation there´s also sensations in the legs like numbness or heaviness.

The resulting structure of personality is on one hand a wish to control and plan everything, on the other hand a lack of adequate reaction towards demands. As soon as something does not go accordingly their rigid and strong imagination, the patients experience fear and resistance. Fear of failing and a lack of self-confidence block them from showing their uneasiness and upset-ness. This mix can easily be felt from outsiders like stubborness.

Window in Venice

Suppressing all own lively impulses, reactions and responses to life is hardly seen by these patients. If, a little bit, sometimes over-compensation happens and a demonstrative hunger for life. The rigidity and strict opinions stand in contrast to the tendency to do everything right for others. The patients neglect their own needs, which inside upsets them. Almost unable to express aggression or to enforce themselves, the aggression goes inside. The medical explanation of MS as an auto-aggressive illness explains where the energy goes to. Typical sentences in therapy are: "I have been lived", "My marriage was a sacrifice", "I was always truckling", "I never allowed myself weakness" or "I have distanced myself from myself too far".

Another role is the sexual problematic nature, which is more obvious for the males. The difficulty is that, as the attitude is more orientated outside, they cannot stand a comparison in their self-estimation anymore. All behaviour with ambition and competion, which will always be a problem in the sexual area, is therapeutically treated drastically and therefor, the general tendency of this illness-characteristics to force into weakness, will be pushed further.

The symptomes on one hand show honesty, on the other hand express the learning task and show the way. Sclerosis and rigidity request, to become consequent in enforcing the own lively needs and to find strength within. A strong self-confidence should be the base of inner life and replace the sclerosis of the physical nerves. To have nerves like steel-ropes is only good in a figurative sense. MS-patients with their fear to see themselves leave alone to come true, tend to make themselves small, helpless and insensible.

The redeem of the weakness in the end is found in devotion, acceptation of the letting go which the body forces. Giving up the fight will be the task. The not openly shown need of MS-patients to control and plan everything according to their outlook and wish, gets therapy by fate. Only when breaking away of the demands of the environment is done, the topic will be to change the won and at first healing egoism into a higher will. "Not my will, but yours may happen!". But before high spiritual ideals have a chance, it is necessary, to get upon the own legs inside. The need for enforcement leads a life in the shadow and is almost only lived in the symptoms of the illness. With the diagnosis MS it´s possible to demonstrate power, which often will not be seen and is denied. The task cannot be more devotion to the demands of the environment, but first devotion to the own needs and in the end to God resp. the one-ness according to "Your will may happen!". Devotion to the environment can only be redeeming, when the reluctant obedience due to weakness will turn into voluntary taking part carried upon inner will, as it often happens when patients work for other patients. With the extensive need for sleep and the narcotic tiredness the night-side and therefor the female side is emphasized an enjoins that topic to the patients. The own feelings, dreams and phantasies and the space they need are the task of life.

Pain in the spine show the fight for the own direction and to the topic of being up-straight, just like other symptoms show. The tendency for dizziness also demands to turn with the world, to make dubious the appearance of safety and the appearance-world of the own principles and moral point of views and to bring motion into the resulting rigidity of point of views. Worn out and stuck ways and points of view, which stand before one and therefor in the way need to be shaken.

Double-vision also shows, that there is another reality next to the used one and that life indeed has a double-ground. Only when trusting this second level, the heavenly plan, which includes all the plans of manhood, self-confidence can grow, which the MS-patient lacks.

The over-flowing bladder wants to show the necessity of letting flow the tears as a result of the pressure of the blockade in the soul. There also is the topic of "letting go". The opposite symptom wants to show the necessity of looking inside oneself and of using the inner energies: instead of holding back and turning away outside, one should look inside and take care of oneself.

In this direction also the sensations show: With the feeling of the own body and the ability to feel the outer world, the outer world with all its demands obviously needs to be taken out of the patient´s conciousness. Left as a task will be to feel and realise the own inner world which has been neglected. This hint can also be seen in the paralisations. When the legs do not carry anymore, obviously one should not go into the outer world anymore, all the rush for the others and for the appreciation of the others is ended. To walk inside is the only possibility left. When the hands get weak, it´s not their destiny anymore to grip the outer world and impress the own thinking on it. It´s still possible to grip the own inner life and therefor this will be the priority task.

The reflection leads to archetypical pictures like myth and religion knows them. Therefor the final task which at the will arise on the horizon in every illness will be to reflect into the mental/soul original home of man. Symptoms which will end life or drastically restrict it show, that this task is priority. This topic is emphazised in particular in an illness like MS which forces the reflection into oneself by the symptoms so strongly. Therefor the topic of religio, the return to the early grounds in a spiritual sense is shown. And the big questions of mankind return from the shadow into the light of conciousness:

"Where do I come from?" - "Where do I go to?" - "Who I am?"

Questions