We are so much stronger than we think.
-Norman Cousins
I heard Cousins speak at a conference in Denver about fifteen years ago. Most of us don’t remember much about a given speaker’s presentation. But I was struck by the above line, the last one Cousins delivered in a magnificent speech.
In his book, the Anatomy of An Illness, Cousins, a gifted writer and former editor of the Saturday Evening Post, describes his own remarkable journey from the brink of a terminal illness back to health. Diagnosed with a dreaded disease, he laughed his way back to health and homeostasis. That’s what he claims, and the evidence of his doctors proves he’s right. Given a death sentence, Cousins said Yes to life and No to his illness…
Lying deeply ill in his hospital bed, Cousins asked that films of his favorite comedians be brought to him for viewing. His favorites were the Marx brothers comedies. His caregivers say that Cousins laughed his brains out day after day. Miraculously, the symptoms of his terrible connective tissue disease gradually receded. 
None of his doctors believed it. But Cousins didn’t seem that surprised by his recovery when he spoke to our group back in the late ’80s. He told us he knew he could beat the illness – with laughter and with hope.
We spend lots of time dwelling on our weaknesses. But human strength is often stunning. Every so often, we get a literal illustration. At least once a year, the news will carry a story about some young mother who has lifted a full-sized car off of her infant child that has fallen under it. How could this be? Small women can’t lift cars weighing a ton and a half. Yet it has happened time and again.
Needless to say, after the emergency has passed, the woman has no more ability to lift the car than you are I. Where did her superhuman strength come from?
Practitioners of the martial arts love to demonstrate the human capacity to break bricks with our heads or smash thick boards with our hands. Indian yogis can demonstrate to us the ability of a human being to lie on a bed of nails or to slow their heart rates down to twenty beats a minute. All of these acts turn out to be not so much tricks as an ability to concentrate energy in a particular direction.
What is the value of this for caregivers? We have capacities to heal far beyond what we imagine. We can bring to the bedside of the sick and vulnerable the greatest power of all. Healing occurs when caregivers can mediate between human pain and the power of God’s love. This is not mumbo jumbo. It is holy truth. Any caregiver with any lengthy experience can tell you of patients who have recovered agains the odds.
How do these things happen? As Cousins said, "We’re all so much stronger than we think."
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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