In 2003, Steve Jobs (the founder of Apple) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At that time, the doctors felt that Steve had a high chance of being cured with conventional treatments. But instead, Steve chose to try alternative medicine as a means of treating his condition. Nine months later, however, Steve reversed course due to the observation that the tumor was getting bigger. A surgery in July of 2004 completely removed the tumor, and the surgery was considered a success.
Yet in 2006, Steve’s cancer returned. He kept the diagnosis a secret, although the public eventually suspected that Steve was not healthy. In 2009, Steve took a 6-month leave of absence, and in April of that year underwent a liver transplant. Steve later died in October of 2011 at the age of 56.
Almost immediately, multiple news articles questioned whether alternative medicine was to blame for Steve Job’s death. The reasoning was that if Steve had not waited to get surgery, he might have fully recovered. This is, of course, is pure speculation.
Regardless, Steve Job’s healing journey provides a great opportunity for explaining how holistic medicine works and when it doesn’t. Many people are rightly confused by the label of “alternative medicine,” which results in the incorrect assumption that a person can simply choose between conventional and holistic medicine. But as I will explain in this article, the decision to choose holistic medicine demands a completely different mindset than conventional medicine in order to be successful.
Conventional vs. Holistic Medicine
In conventional medicine, the patient comes to the doctor and expects the doctor to heal them. I call this the “fix me doc” mindset. The doctor is seen as the authority who has all with the answers, and it is believed that the patient simply doesn’t have the knowledge, skills, or proper medical equipment to diagnose and treat themselves. Thus, the patient’s job is to simply get on the table and say “fix me doc,” and the doctor’s responsibility is to find the cause and the cure of the illness.
To best way to understand the difference between conventional and holistic medicine is by using religion versus spirituality as an analogy. In religion, the seeker of salvation comes to a church and says “save me priest!” Then the priest – who has all the knowledge and answers – explains to the seeker what they must do to be saved. In this system, it’s important to note that the church believes they are a vital middleman between people and God, and that individuals are not capable of saving themselves without the church’s assistance.
In spirituality, it is believed that seekers of salvation are themselves responsible for their own salvation. More importantly, they understand that while a spiritual teacher or guru can guide them, these guides (if they are true guides) are there for the purpose of supporting the spiritual seekers to find the answers within. The gurus do not have the answers, because “the kingdom of heaven is within” and thus that is where the search must lead. It is also crucial to note that every individual has the ability to search for and find salvation on their own; they do not require the assistance of healer (although it will usually make the task easier).
I want to make it clear that I am in no way criticizing religion, as religion plays a vital role in the spiritual path of every individual. While older souls have graduated from religion, many younger soles are still learning this lesson. To look down on people who are religious would be just as naïve as a mathematician who looks down on a child for not being able to do complex math (while ignoring the fact that they were once a child themselves). Religion and spirituality are simply different levels, and spirituality is not necessarily the highest rung on the ladder of spiritual evolution.
Back to the point: in holistic medicine, the client must take full responsibility for their own healing. While it is certainly recommended to use the services of a healer (who is there to support you on your healing journey), the responsibility of healing yourself is yours and yours alone. Thus, if you approach holistic medicine with the “fix me doc” mentality, you will not be successful.
What Went Wrong for Steve Jobs?
According to multiple accounts, Steve’s motivation for using holistic medicine was due to an aversion to invasive surgeries. This suggests that Steve did not properly understood the concept behind holistic medicine. Instead, Steve was probably thinking, “well, let me just try this first and see what happens.” Crucially, there is no evidence that Steve’s mentality changed from “fix me doc” to “my healing is my responsibility.”
The way to know if you have taken ownership of your healing journey is simple. The question to ask yourself is: when I have a question regarding my health, where am I looking for the answers? If you are constantly going from one external source to the next, be it doctors, healers, books, blogs, etc., you have not taken ownership of your healing journey. The only way you will find the answers you need is by going within. And if you are not sure how to do that, then I would highly recommend using a healer to guide you.
As far as Steve Jobs is concerned, there is no evidence that he took ownership of his healing journey. Instead, Steve returned to conventional medicine for treatment, which indicates that he continued to search for the answers from outside experts until his untimely death. Crucially, Steve never looked in the one place that could have given him the answer he was looking for: he never looked within himself. Let’s take a moment to examine what could have happened if he had done so.
An Opportunity Lost
As previously mentioned, Steve Jobs had pancreatic cancer. In holistic medicine, the pancreas is associated with fatherhood and cancer is associated with something that is figuratively “eating as us” because we have either not forgiven ourselves for something we’ve done, or we have not forgiven somebody else. We don’t know for sure what this was; this is something that Steve would have had to identify himself.
But let’s speculate that the answer had to do with his daughter. Steve had a daughter named Lisa who he initially denied was his child. While Steve and Lisa were later said to have reconciled, the relationship is described as always being cold and distant. And while Steve once told Lisa she would never inherit anything from him, he in fact left her multiple millions of dollars in his will. The inheritance itself suggests Steve was trying to “make up” for something, which in this case could have been the relationship he never had with his daughter and felt guilty about.
That said, I want to be very clear that it does not matter whether or not Steve had a “bad” relationship with his daughter. Having a bad relationship with somebody does not make you a bad person, and it is not the direct cause of illness. What IS problematic is that Steve (very likely) felt that he SHOULD have had a better relationship, and thus he always felt guilty about it.
For healing to occur, Steve would not have needed to mend the relationship with his daughter. Instead, all he would have needed to do was forgive himself for not living up to his own expectations. The irony is that if he could have learned to love himself (by forgiving himself and accepting his own shortcomings), this would have likely opened up the possibility of establishing a better relationship with his daughter. In other words, it was his guilt of not having a good relationship with his daughter that blocked him from being able to establish a healthy relationship.
Once again, this is speculation, but it does show the general approach that is required to heal holistically (i.e. on all levels). Additionally, the reason holistic healing is so important is because when an illness such as cancer is only treated on the physical level, it will likely reoccur until healing is completed at the other levels (i.e. emotional, mental, and/or spiritual).
Conclusion
Anytime a desired outcome is not achieved, it is always beneficial to examine why. In the grand scheme of things, there is no such thing as failure, but there is a lost opportunity when we don’t learn from our mistakes. And what we learn from the story of Steve Jobs is that we must approach holistic medicine with a specific mindset in order to be successful. That said, if we do take responsibility for our own healing journeys, we will learn to trust our own inner guidance, which is a significant step on each individual’s journey of personal growth and soul evolution.
The featured image at the top of this article is an edited version of this image; license is CC BY-SA 3.0 (free to share/adapt).
