How do you think you would feel if you were in an accident and lost the use of all of your limbs, so that you were confined to a wheelchair? Disability is much more than a physical problem - along with the loss of the use of parts of their body, a person who becomes disabled has to deal with the loss of their independence and sense of status, the loss of activities they enjoyed, and a changed body image. There's no doubt that this can be a traumatic and depressing experience. Nevertheless, there is evidence that the horror you might feel at the prospect of becoming disabled - and the pity you might feel for those who are - is misplaced.
Research has shown that people who become seriously disabled are much happier than we might think. One study found that people who had become paraplegic - that is, who lost the use of their legs - as a result of spinal cord accidents quickly adapted to their new predicament. After 8 weeks they generally reported feeling more positive than negative emotions, and after a few years they were only 5% less happy than able-bodied people. A study of people who had become quadriplegic - that is, paralyzed from the neck down - showed similar results. Three months after their accident, they were on average only 10% less happy than before. After a year, they had almost returned to the same level of happiness before their accident. 84% of people with extreme quadriplegia rated their lives as being "above average" in quality.
This suggests that becoming disabled is certainly no barrier to happiness. But even more than this, for some people disability can be the trigger for profound positive transformation. As a part of the research for my book Out of the Darkness I interviewed several people who suffered had become seriously ill or severely disabled. Far from being broken by the experience, they underwent a profound shift of perspective and values, and gained access to a new sense of meaning and well-being.
Gill Hicks was severely injured in the 7/7 bombings on the London Underground in 2005. She was standing just a few feet away from one of the suicide bombers, and was the last person to be pulled alive from the wreckage of the train. Her injuries were so severe that both her legs had to be amputated, and doctors doubted that she would survive. But when she did recover, she was aware of herself as a different person, who would be living what she referred to as ‘Life Two.'
Ever since then, Gill has had a new appreciation of life, an ability to value aspects of her life which she took for granted before: ‘I still make a point of delighting in every mouthful of water, relishing every drop of coffee.' This new appreciation means that she rarely feels bored, or as if she ‘can't be bothered.' She is too busy ‘celebrating being alive' to let herself become despondent.
Although she misses her legs and some of the activities which are no longer possible for her, one positive aspect of losing her limbs, she says, is that she has been forced to live much more slowly, which has given her a new heightened awareness of her experience and her surroundings: ‘Being slow - physically moving at a slower pace - has been an extraordinary experience. I have seen so much more, just by being able to stop, look and absorb.'
One person who has overcome even more severe difficulties than Gill Hicks, and been transformed even more radically and positively, is the author Michael Hutchison. Michael has suffered some the most severe difficulties a human being can possibly endure, without becoming self-pitying or despondent. In fact, he has become contented and fulfilled.
In 1998, he slipped off a bridge while running, and landed on a rocky river bed, smashing five cervical vertebrae. He was paralysed from the neck down and spent months with a neck brace on, unable to do anything but stare directly at the ceiling. As Michael told me, ‘My entire visual field was blank, and at first it was so incredibly mind numbing you can't possibly imagine it. Days after days of staring at nothing, and with nothing to do.'
To make matters worse, after four months his money ran out. Medicaid wouldn't cover him anymore, so he was transferred to a grim nursing home. ‘It was like hell,' he says. ‘The first year I was there, I truly bottomed out. I felt depressed, and I couldn't seem to think very clearly. I wished I didn't have to wake up and I was in constant pain.'
Michael felt like his life was over, that there was no point staying alive anymore. But one day, when he was being taken for a shower, he underwent a profound shift. As he describes it:
It was like my entire being had been clenched in a tight fist, and suddenly the fist opened up and let go completely. Everything dropped away. I began seeing and experiencing this kind of upwelling or emanation inside me...It was just a current of bliss. Over the next few hours, it became more and more intense....As the days went by, I began to realize that I was existing in a sea of bliss. It was fun to be alive. Every moment, even though I was having a lot of pain and was paralyzed, there was still this intrinsic joy at being alive. I experimented with going into this bliss and each time I found it easier. I learnt to slip into blissful nothingness as a way of managing the pain. I disappeared and the pain was left behind.
It's now 13 years since Michael's accident and he's still in a state of bliss. His pain is still very intense, but what he calls ‘going into nothingness' is so effective as pain relief that he has even refused his doctor's offer of inserting a permanent morphine drip into his spine.
Like Gill Hicks, Michael isn't completely free of regret - he misses being able to run, for example. But as he told me, ‘What the hell, I'm in bliss! Why would anybody give up what I have? Looking back, I thought I was a really happy man, but now it's even better.'
It's surely tremendously reassuring to learn that people can transcend the tragedy which both Gill and Michael suffered - not just in terms of learning to cope with it, but in terms of gaining access to a state of joy and peace. Their stories show that no matter how much turmoil and misery we go through, it can't destroy us. Even at the point of deepest desolation, there's still potential for recovery and transcendence. And in fact, there is much more potential for transcendence at this point than when life is easy and goes according to plan.
Steve Taylor is the author of Out of the Darkness and Waking from Sleep, described by Eckhart Tolle as 'one of the best books on spiritual awakening I have come across.' His website is stevenmtaylor.com
