It's embarrassing to have health issues
As a health practitioner, it can often be embarrassing to admit that you have health issues. It’s kind of like the plumber with the leaky tap. Shouldn’t all their plumbing issues be sorted and in perfect working order? Shouldn’t we have perfect health if we are the ones dishing out health advice to everyone else?
If you are a health practitioner and you have some health challenges, then read on…….because you are not alone!
Here’s the things I’ve noticed about health practitioners and their health issues;
It’s a paradox - often the thing that drives us towards becoming a health practitioner is an experience or history of health challenges. It’s often that search for help, for understanding, for answers and solutions that creates a burning desire to help others.
It’s complex - following the paradox in number 1, the health challenges we face are therefore often more complex. They are multilayered and multifaceted, often with a long history, and therefore complex to solve.
It’s valuable - sometimes the challenging nature of our own health quests can be the very thing that leads you to learn more about particular issues and then have more knowledge and experience to pass on to patients. It would be nice to be able to learn without the pain, but, the difficulties make the lessons so much more valuable.
If this sounds like you, then be reassured it’s ok to ask for help and it’s ok to not have all the answers. As the famous and intelligent Albert Einstein said “problems can’t be solved on the same level of thinking as they were created”. Sometimes you need someone else to objectively look at the whole picture and guide you to the answers. To give you a different level of thinking to see what the solutions are. So don’t be embarrassed, just know that you are definitely not alone.
Jac Edser