As a healthy person frightened of disease, I am fearing what "isn't." To concentrate on sickness would be the same as concentrating on the hole in the doughnut... it's the part that isn't.

So when I say, "sickness," I am actually addressing myself to fears of what is not. Instead of focusing on my wants (good health), I attend to my not-wants. I attend to my unhappiness, which is fear of becoming ill or fear of an already existing condition becoming worse. The result is I drain my energy and divert my strength with tension and anxiety. In doing so, I render my body even more incapable of dealing with its distress. By concentrating on nothing (lack of health, future pain or death), I deprive myself of participating energetically in my wants for health. It is when I move toward something that I usually perform with much more effectiveness and clarity than while in retreat.