Bronchitis, Grief, and the Power of "I Don't Know"
"Un-advice" for seekers of purpose, hope, and the holy in these tender, tumultuous times
This is Enlightened-ish with Brad Wetzler, my weekly dispatch about how we can brave the wilderness of these tough, post-modern, hyper-capitalist times…together. It’s about storytelling, healing, adventure, the human heart, and the pursuit of the sacred and the holy, too.
Who am I? I’m the author of the new memoir, Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing, and a longtime journalist with bylines in the New York Times, Newsweek, Wired, GQ, National Geographic, Travel + Leisure, and Outside where I was a senior editor and a longtime contributing editor. I spent fifteen years working as an adventure writer, journalist, and magazine columnist. After a long period of depression and overmedication with prescription drugs, I launched a round-the-world quest to heal body, mind, and spirit—to recover my very soul. You can read all about this journey in Into the Soul of the World. I live in Austin, Texas, where I edit books, coach aspiring memoirists, and teach yoga and meditation.
I recently endured a six-week bout with bronchitis, a debilitating ailment that visits me every few years. It begins as a cold or flu bug but invariably deepens into a relentless cough that defies antibiotics, steroids, or over-the-counter remedies. The cough persists in its own time. It is the author of its own story.
In Eastern medicine, the lungs are associated with grief—an idea that resonates with me as I reflect on my frequent bronchitis experiences. Could this physical illness be the body's expression of unspoken sorrow, a somatic release of emotions left unmetabolized?
I wonder if this is true.
But I found that my lung infection ebbed and flowed like grief itself, indifferent to my attempts to control or suppress it.
As I navigate my 59th year, I am increasingly humbled by the unexplained and unexplainable.
Terms like "heart" and "soul" are no longer intellectually dishonest words for me. They hold more meaning than "desk" or other words to describe objects in the material world.
In my previous roles as a magazine editor and journalist, I approached such notions skeptically. I appreciated these terms in poetry and art, but only as metaphors.
But these concepts now anchor me to the very bedrock of reality.
My journey through depression, trauma, and addiction transformed me. And I
can’t attribute these profound changes in my heart and soul to my own hard work.
I now see the inseparable link between love and loss, grief and hope. My once-hardened soul has softened, and my heart has opened, attuning me more to the ineffable mysteries that shape our existence.
What’s more real? Your bank account or the losses you’ve endured, the grief you’ve felt, the hells you’ve survived—and the catastrophe of death we all will face.
I’m actually not a negative or dark person.
I know my new perspective starkly contrasts the superficiality promoted in modern society—a culture that prizes extroversion and buying over introspection and depth of feeling.
But I believe this: contrary to our logic-crazed zeitgeist, our capacity to feel is our most profound human asset, tethering us to our core values and shining the light toward a more hopeful, compassionate future.
I invite you to join me in admitting to our own ignorance a little more often. Try to feel the uncomfortable yearn for something beyond our grasp.
If we do, we might find ourselves on a path toward collective healing and understanding.
True wisdom lies not in certainty but in the willingness to embrace the unknown.
If you haven’t bought my memoir, Into the Soul of the World: My Journey to Healing, yet, I hope you will.
Here’s what author Hampton Sides wrote about it:
“Brad Wetzler has led the very definition of an adventurous life, but in Into the Soul of the World, he gives an unflinching account of his interior adventures. Wetzler’s soulful quest, by turns anguished and transcendent, will resonate with readers around the world who struggle to find purpose and a sense of the holy in the ambient jitter of the digital age.”
Bronchitis is a slog. I hope you're feeling all the way mended now! I think my body holds undealt with emotions too. Your thoughts on the powerful reality of our emotions and feelings make a lot of sense to me - and I wonder too if people are going to think I'm just negative when I express the depth of my feelings. The interesting thing is, I think that even the raw, scary, dark places of life are beautiful - sometimes more beautiful in their deep coloring of our lives. I think the more pain that is dealt to us, the better we become at recognizing how much wonderfulness lies on the other side of that pain.