Run Toward the Roar: Rediscovering Healing in a World Obsessed with Curing

Modern medicine is astonishing. With enough technology, a failing heart can be replaced, bacteria can be eradicated, and complex surgeries can repair once-fatal injuries. For many, this scientific progress is synonymous with healing. But if that were true, why do so many people, even after being "cured," still feel unwell—disconnected, fearful, and lost?

Somewhere along the way, we confused curing with healing. They are not the same. Curing refers to eliminating disease or alleviating symptoms. Healing is far more expansive—it is about becoming whole again. It is about finding peace in the face of pain, making meaning of suffering, and living well even when life hurts.

In the rush to conquer disease, the wisdom traditions that saw illness as part of life’s deep story have been sidelined. Today, many of us have forgotten that healing is not something done to us by experts in white coats. It is a profoundly personal and human journey—one that begins not in a lab or pharmacy, but in the heart, mind, and soul.

The Other Side of Illness: Healing as Transformation

In his book Peace, Love, and Healing, Dr. Bernie Siegel, a cancer surgeon, noticed a pattern among his patients. Some lived far longer than predicted. They weren't just lucky; they had changed. These individuals, many with terminal diagnoses, embraced life in ways they never had before. They forgave others, released guilt, confided deeply held emotions, and practiced gratitude. They didn’t avoid the reality of their illness—they grew through it.

One woman, ravaged by diabetes and near the end of her life, taught Siegel this lesson personally. She had lost her sight, her kidneys, a leg, and fingers, and yet when Siegel sat quietly with her, holding her hand and admitting he had no answers, she said softly, “You are helping me.” She did not expect a cure. She wanted human presence. That simple act, free of medical intervention, was deeply healing.

This theme runs deep in spiritual and psychological traditions. The Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, writing after surviving the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, observed that those who found meaning in suffering were more likely to endure. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl writes that even in the bleakest conditions, humans possess "the last of human freedoms"—the ability to choose one's attitude. For him and many others, suffering, when faced with courage and dignity, could become a source of profound transformation.

The Hidden Dangers of the "Cure-Only" Mindset

Not all views on healing are uplifting. Some are critical, even dire. Ivan Illich, a philosopher and former Catholic priest, wrote Medical Nemesis to warn about the dangers of an over-medicalized society. He coined the term iatrogenesis to describe diseases and harm caused by medical interventions themselves. But Illich went further: he argued that modern medicine, by claiming authority over what counts as sickness or health, disempowers individuals and communities.

By turning all suffering into something to be fixed or medicated, medicine risks severing people from ancient ways of understanding pain. In traditional cultures, Illich noted, suffering was contextualized through ritual, story, and relationship. Pain and illness were not meaningless misfortunes; they were woven into the narrative of life and helped individuals reconnect with what matters.

In our mechanized view of health, however, suffering has become unacceptable. Every ache is pathologized. Every imperfection must be medicated. This mindset deprives people of the opportunity to face challenges as rites of passage, as moments to grow, reflect, and change.

Run Toward the Roar: A Parable of Fear and Healing

The old wisdom traditions knew that facing fear was central to transformation. In The World Behind the World, storyteller Michael Mead recounts an African teaching about lions and survival.

On the African plains, old lions whose teeth have worn down are still useful to the pride. Their role is to roar ferociously while the hunting lions hide in the grass. Prey animals, terrified by the roar, instinctively run away from the sound—right into the ambush. The young and wise are taught, "Run toward the roar." Only there, paradoxically, is safety to be found.

Healing works much the same way. When we run from pain or numb ourselves with distractions, we only increase our suffering. Unmet fear festers and grows. But when we turn toward what terrifies us—loss, mortality, vulnerability—we often discover unexpected strength, wisdom, and peace.

This principle is echoed across psychology, spirituality, and somatic therapies today. Suppressing difficult emotions can make them more toxic. Expressing them—crying, raging, grieving—helps us process and integrate them. As Siegel once noted through the tale of the snake who stopped biting but forgot to "hiss," repressing our natural responses leaves us vulnerable and tangled up in knots. Healing requires us to feel fully.

Embracing Healing Over Curing

This is not a call to reject medicine. Antibiotics, surgeries, and emergency interventions save lives daily. But it is a call to balance the mechanistic with the human. Healing asks us to move beyond the binary of sick or well and instead explore the wholeness hidden in brokenness.

Illich argued that medicine should support nature’s processes, not replace them. Likewise, Siegel saw himself not as the healer, but as a facilitator. The patient’s journey, not the doctor’s expertise, defines healing. And Frankl saw in suffering not senseless cruelty, but the possibility of discovering one's ultimate purpose.

Healing, then, does not mean that disease will vanish. It means that the person will no longer be defined by their illness alone. It means they will live, love, and even die with awareness, dignity, and authenticity.

Conclusion: Returning to Ourselves

In the end, healing is about remembering. Remembering that life is temporary and precious. Remembering that we are more than biological mechanisms. Remembering that our bodies, minds, and spirits are connected, and that the language of illness often speaks in symbols and metaphors.

The world will break us, as Hemingway wrote. But afterwards, "many are strong at the broken places." The choice is ours—whether we numb, flee, and blame, or whether we turn toward the roar, embrace the truth of our vulnerability, and walk the courageous path of healing.

True healing is not something we receive. It is something we become.