“What happens in these conversations with your rheumatoid arthritis?” I asked Julia, who, since adding therapy, meditation, and other forms of self-work to her low dose of a single drug, has experienced few flare-ups, with no progress of her disease for over a decade and significant improvement in her blood work. “When it speaks to me,” she replied, “rather than seeing it as something I’ve got to push through or go into a big drama about, I literally just feel it. I sit with it, get curious about what’s been happening in my life, what I might be suppressing.”
