Answers and Emotional Anti-venom

How problems hold their own solutions

Our Beloved Family:
Tim Friede of Wisconsin has a very strange hobby. He collects the deadliest snakes from all over the world and then allows himself to be bitten by them. He does this as part of his passion to provide scientific research that may lead to developing a vaccine for poisonous snake bites in the future that could save millions of lives.

Since high school, Friede has performed decades of research into poisonous snakes and biology to achieve what one might call a degree-by-experience. Even so, the official science behind his efforts is being supervised and analyzed by Brian Hanley, PhD, a microbiologist at the University of California, Davis, whose Butterfly Sciences is involved in developing an intracellular vaccine for HIV/AIDS treatment.

Although anti-venom has a 100% record of saving the lives of those bitten by venomous snakes, the time and cost involved in producing it prohibit most hospitals around the world from having enough or any of it on hand. That’s a big problem when a venomous snake bite can kill in a matter of minutes. The fact is milking snakes to produce enough anti-venom yields only negligible amounts of the venom itself, so snakes have to be milked over and over again. For example, it took a total of three years and 69,000 milkings to get one pint of coral snake venom. The time involved and highly complex process of actually producing the anti-venom makes the end product extremely expensive. Just one vial of anti-venom can cost between $1,500 and $2,200, but a snake bite usually requires between 20 to 25 vials for the venom to be neutralized. That means a single treatment can easily cost $30,000 or more. So even though Friede’s work tends to make most people queasy just thinking about it, it holds great promise in many ways.

Friede has even allowed himself to be bitten by two of the world’s deadliest snakes back-to-back, a black mamba and a taipan. The good news is he survived once more what would have killed any other human on the planet. So, how does he do it? He’s built up his own store of antibodies by injecting himself with controlled but increasingly higher doses of venom every day for over 17 years.

The story of Tim Friede reminds us that just as venom is the essential ingredient in its own cure, anti-venom, so too does the emotional pain we experience contain the antidote to solving the biggest challenges of our lives. For example, the emotional upset we experience from a relationship problem happens for a reason. If we resist it through blaming the other person or denial, it poisons our life with anger and resentment, and can even destroy our health over time. If we allow the upset to move through us while remaining conscious enough to ask ourselves some very important questions, we can use it to help us create the healing we need.

What does this situation have to say about me and my judgment? What could it be inside of me that drew this person or circumstance into my life? How would I need to change so that I can resolve this situation and not create others like it for myself in the future?

This is the kind of internal exploration required to begin real emotional healing that’s also the catalyst for physical healing. Sherry and I will be discussing these issues along with the power of emotional anti-venom and Tim Friede’s incredible achievements at a special workshop hosted by The Omega Institute for Holistic Studies later this year. With a 40-year history of providing ecumenical and spiritual education by instructors such as Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, and Thich Nhat Hanh, we are extremely honored to have been asked to present. So, by understanding that the venom we experience from the trials of our lives actually contains a healing balm, we can use it to create the proper anti-venom that delivers us into a healthier understanding of ourselves and a better life.

Love and Light in the Month Ahead,
Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami