I had lunch with a friend of mine who was worried—worried about her worrying. Recently promoted to a high-powered position in a Fortune 100 company, she now works closely with the CEO in a much more visible role. Her every word is weighed, her charisma dissected, by employees, investors, the press, you name it. But this wasn’t the crux of her concern.

“You consider me a rational person, don’t you? I mean, I try to be objective … calm … thoughtful. Last week, I had a bump on my nose, and I was frantic. I told my husband I was sure it was cancer. I was completely freaked out! He told me to get a grip, because it was just a zit—a simple zit! Isn’t that insane?!” She said she repeatedly jumps to the worst case scenario when she or her children have health issues. I could totally empathize with her, because that same week I’d been trying to quell my own panic about symptoms that made me wonder if I was on the verge of a flare for a rare autoimmune disease I had four years ago.

“What’s the story you’re telling yourself?” I asked. It took a while to sift through the emotions to unearth the thoughts that triggered them. Then she said, “I guess I’ve lived such a charmed life. I’ve always been healthy, never had anything worse than the flu. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

What caught my attention wasn’t the idea that “the good life” can’t last, that disaster would eventually come her way. What caught my attention was the suggestion that health was synonymous with a charmed life.

Is that true? Is health a sign of success and favor? Or, when seen from another angle, is illness a curse?

Through the ages, people have come up with a variety of explanations for disease:

God makes us sick; God can save—Most “primitive” cultures believed that demons or spirits caused physical ailments. The Greeks and early Jews adhered to this, too. The writers of the Old Testament sometimes depicted God as “smiting” people who were a tad off the beaten path of righteousness (or sometimes they said God told people to smite others in his name—a little divine delegation, I guess.) The New Testament writers include stories of Jesus healing the sick, making  blind people see, and raising Lazarus from the dead. Muslims attribute health and illness to Allah, while Hindus believe that the heavenly bodies can strongly influence wellness (and so can personal karma).

Curses!—Many people have also blamed their fellow humans, rather than God, for disease. Shamans, witches, warlocks, sorcerers, occultists … those who used their “powers for evil” were suspect. In Europe and early America, many villagers were put to death for cursing their neighbors, which they believe manifested as ill health in their loved ones and their livestock, among other things.

Microbial menaces—In the mid-nineteenth century, Louis Pasteur proved the germ theory of disease. His research led to vaccines for rabies, anthrax, and advances in surgical procedures (not to mention better milk, beer, wine, and silk production).

We are our own worst enemies—Karma and the law of attraction propose that our actions and thoughts create our reality. And medical research has shown links between our personal choices—eating, drinking, smoking, exercising—and our health. Then there’s stress, which is also tied to our individual perception of events and our environment.

So, does it really matter what we believe is the genesis of sickness? I think it might. Thoughts lead to actions and inactions, whether intentional or not. I guess the question is, how do we treat others, and ourselves, when we’re ill?

• What do you think of people who have had multiple medical issues?
• Now, what do you really think and say?
  • She’s that kind of person who’s always got a bunch of medical problems. (She’s a victim.)
  • Some are just poor, unlucky souls. (Disease is a matter of pity, which is not the same as empathy.)
  • They don’t deserve to be sick. (Illness is deserved by some but not others.)
• What do you say and do when you get sick?
  • I don’t have time to be under the weather. (Healing/recovery is not as important as my to-do list.)
  • I’m just lying around here all day doing nothing. (Sickness is akin to laziness.)
  • I should be stronger than this. (Illness is for the weak.)

What if we truly, down in our bones, lived in a way that showed we believe illness is a fact of life—like the changing of seasons—that we don’t need to frantically avoid? I’m not suggesting we completely disregard all efforts to stay healthy, just wondering if we can stop the obsession. What if we took time to consider what sickness can teach us? About ourselves, one another, the Divine. Stephen Levine, author and teacher known for his work on death and dying, suggests we’re not responsible for our illness, we’re responsible to our illness. I can live with that.