Vertigo

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The late Fr. Venancio Calpotura, SJ, the former head of the Ignatian Spirituality in Manila, used to tell a story about a woman who was brought to him by her family, because she had vertigo, a disease that results in dizziness, in a “whirling and spinning” in the head. A dysfunction of the vestibular system, vertigo is often associated with nausea and vomiting as well as a balance disorder, causing difficulties with standing or walking (Cf. “Every time I am up, I have the feeling that I am about to fall, and I fall down afterwards,” the woman complained. She said when she fell down, she hurt herself more in the process. “That is easy to resolve,” the psychologist priest consoled his patient. “When you stand up, just say to yourself ‘fall down!’, and then you allow yourself to fall down!” he continued. To the woman’s surprise, she did not fall down this time after she commanded herself to do so. What’s the trick here? Psychologist speaks of self-fulfilling prophecy, a term, coined in 1948 by Robert Merton describing “a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true” (Cf. http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/prophecies.shtml). In short, what one fears that might happen, will take place. When Jesus admonished His apostles to take up their cross and follow Him, he meant not to fear the tribulations of life itself like poverty, injustice, pain, because it is in embracing the difficulties of life that one is freed from the shackles of slavery.