The Foundation of Medicine is Love

What do you think of when you hear the word medicine?

Perhaps it includes doctors, nurses, pills, prescriptions, operations, surgery, wounds, illness and disease, curing and healing, science, study, university?

But whatever your picture of medicine – does it include Love?

I’m not a betting person, but I reckon for most who work within the profession that love is not top of the list, or even near the top….in fact it probably doesn’t feature on the list at all!

Indeed, the word love is more a taboo in medicine than it is a presence. If you talk about love as a doctor you risk being mocked, laughed at, not taken seriously and perhaps even ostracised, for it is deemed unscientific, too ‘touchy-feely’, woo-woo and not something that is real, visible and measurable. Because it cannot be measured, then science relegates it to the dustbin, dismissing it before considering what it is and its role in medicine. It is often solely consigned to the ‘personal’ or ‘private’ aspect of our lives, for partners, family and friends but dare not enter the serious scientific business and practice of medicine.  

Understanding that The Foundation of Medicine is Love was certainly never part of my medical school training or post-graduate surgical training and like many, I too would have poo-pooed and dismissed it as twaddle and deemed it to have no place in the scientific training of medicine. So, is this just an out of date ancient saying from a time when doctors had little else to offer or is it a fundamental truth about medicine that we have long ago forgotten?

Certainly, modern medicine does not have love as its foundation or indeed anywhere in its curriculum and the hidden curriculum reveals a culture of medicine that is far from loving and which undoubtedly takes its toll.

Not just in society and the high rates of illness and disease and multi-morbidity, but what if it is also crucial to understanding the high levels of addiction, suicide and burnout in the medical profession. What if all of these ills are due to the fact that we have lost touch with the fact that The Foundation of Medicine is Love?

A medicine without true foundations is a medicine in trouble – and so perhaps it is little wonder that we are where we are in terms of the escalating levels of dis-ease, dis-content, demotivation, demoralisation and more within the profession, as the false pillars crack and crumble before us.

It is why we seek love through relationship, we are hard wired to do so, for love is what we are. I am not here referring to the many misinterpretations of what love is and is not, and this has nothing to do with romance or sex or pink fluffy clouds or flowers – it is about the truth of what love is as an energy: the essence and ground of our being, an energy and a quality that is equal for all, that has universal wisdom and enables us to observe all, behold all, without judgement or condemnation, and to bring understanding, acceptance and compassion to all.  

This love is ever-present and unaffected by any trauma, hurt, abuse or condition whatsoever. Yet we often do not even know it is there – and we end up due to life experiences growing up, living in ways that are completely at odds with the love that we are. In simple terms, we live in ways that are not loving – we eat foods that are not healthy, we move and act in ways that can be rough or aggressive, we can express with anger/frustration or a whole host of emotions that are not loving, we go to bed late and end up exhausted, we drive and push ourselves to work in ways that are not respectful of our bodies and so much more.

The end result of all of this, is often an illness or suffering of some kind as our bodies eventually say ‘enough, no more, look at what you are doing to me’? In this we have an opportunity to re-evaluate and re-prioritise our choices – to consider the possibility that if how I have lived has contributed to this condition, then I too can contribute to my healing by changing how I live, how I express and how I see and understand myself. We move from victimhood to active healer in our own lives. 

By reconnecting to this essence of love we can learn to make choices that are honouring, respectful and loving of the body and to say no to that which is not loving. Our sense of self is no longer dependent upon outer achievements but comes from within. The key to healing is to know you are love, and that all that happens in our lives is endeavouring to waken us up to this fact, so that we then live the love we are, instead of all the beliefs and ideals we are not.

The quality of the relationship we have with ourselves informs and feeds the quality of choices we make regarding our lifestyle and behaviours – knowing we are love, it becomes natural to want to make choices that are aligned with and of the same quality as that love, even though there will be thoughts and distractions all too eager to keep us away from doing so.

So, for anyone interested in healing – there is work to be done – but that work is only to cease all the ways we have learned to live and express that are not truly loving and to listen to the innate wisdom that resides in every heart and soul and which knows there is a way to live life that is harmonious, healthy and loving and which is reflected in our bodies. By living in this way, we begin to embody the love we are, we become more aware, connected, joyful, loving and wise than we perhaps could ever have imagined. It is a paradox that on the one hand when we know we are love, we are already healed, and yet we have work to do, to heal the lived momentum and engrained ways that have not been that.  

This brings in deeper levels of personal responsibility for our health and wellbeing, and with that comes greater empowerment. We no longer see ourselves as victims of life or the Universe or the medical profession – but can make the changes that align with the truth of who we are, the love that we are, and in doing so have the potential to restore true health, harmony and wellbeing.

And even if the condition we have has gone beyond repair, we can still heal by arresting the choices that led to the condition, and reconnecting to the love that we are in our being, knowing it is free of and unaffected by any disease or condition. Healing in this context of a terminal condition does not mean that physical symptoms resolve, but that the person is restored to wholeness in their being, understands why they have what they have, and has healed the choices that led to it as well as being settled in themselves and their life, knowing that there is so much more to this whole journey of life on earth and beyond and that the love they are is not terminated or destroyed by anything. 

And this is only scratching the surface – the depths to which we can have medicine be founded upon love are unending. It is a science in and of itself, with the power to transform and heal the profession and the people it serves.

Science as we know it today is a tool that we use in medicine, and how we use it and apply it can vary depending on whether we have love as our foundation or not. A medicine that is founded upon love, will use science responsibly for the benefit of all mankind and never could it allow its misuse for purely personal gain, and financial agendas as we often see today in the pharmaceutical business for example.