Recently, we had the opportunity to meet and interview Clive Harvey Fox for three of our sister division’s publications, Tandem, Corriere Canadese, and Correo Canadiense. Born in South Africa, both his early professional career as a financial investment manager and his own personal life was marked with incredible success and devastating tragedy, including the death of a child. Then, a little over 3 years ago, his life course took another turn when he was diagnosed with Aids. Since then, he has become an author and tireless motivational speaker; and through it all, he refuses to consider himself a victim.

Today, bloggers all over the world are uniting to signify and recognize World Aids Day 2008. Clive is also marking the event. “I have been invited to speak at a special service to be conducted by the Anglican Archbishop of Southern Africa at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town on Monday,” Clive emailed me last week. “It is such an exciting time for me to be communicating these new ideas around HIV/Aids. We need to change the victim consciousness around HIV/Aids because it is not helping anyone.”

So, to mark the occasion of World Aids Day, I thought it best to invite Clive to guest post, and he graciously accepted. What follows is central to his “Positive HIV” campaign.

THE GIFTS OF HIV/AIDS

by Clive Harvey Fox

The outer landscape of our lives is a reflection of what we may not yet consciously perceive as being the essence of our subconscious minds. HIV/Aids most frequently manifests in people who feel disempowered; and it is this state of disempowerment that translates so clearly into self-love issues.

In reality, HIV/Aids is the illness of self-love!

Self-love is that fundamental respect for ourselves, which is not driven by any ego intention, but is a conscious way of existence, where we respond to all of life in a manner that protects the sanctity of self. Narcissism and selfishness are rooted in ego and that separates these behaviours from self-love. They are often incorrectly confused and self-love, which is always at the core of physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, is assumed to be self-seeking and therefor evil.

I contracted HIV/Aids because I loved myself so little as to engage in unprotected sex in an environment that was rife with the infection. I knew better, but still took the risk assuming that HIV/Aids was something reserved for other people. I was completely disempowered when I was infected with “the virus” for a variety of reasons. This mental state encouraged me to love myself so little as to risk my life through engaging in high-risk unprotected sex.

Having contracted the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and lived through a progressive journey into full-blown Aids, I have subsequently come to learn that HIV/Aids came to teach me to love myself enough to do what was required to ensure my survival. As a consequence, HIV/Aids has taught me many aspects of the art of self-love and I now live a full, purposeful, happy and healthy existence.

Every adversity has a corresponding gift and it is when we actively search for that gift, rather than remaining stuck in debilitating and destructive self-pity, then our healing manifests. Self-pity is not an act of self-love, because it is the willful assumption of the victim role, which traps us in less than our real potentiality.

My HIV/Aids infection masked several considerable gifts all associated with aspects of self-love. Because of the radical advances in modern medicine, HIV/Aids is now a chronic manageable disease like diabetes. By loving myself enough to take my prescribed medication every day, my viral load (or the amount of virus present in my system) has been suppressed to “undetectable” levels. This has allowed my immunity to heal radically from the ravages of Aids (with its repeated bouts of opportunistic infection), to a life characterised by almost no illness at all!

Learning to love myself has taught me the importance of good and regular nutrition, drinking enough quality water, taking regular exercise and allowing my body and mind sufficient quality rest. I used to live a life dominated by work related stress and thought that “living on the edge” was macho. Encouraging any stress in our lives is not an act of self-love. We should be listening and responding proactively to stress rather than sitting passively with its destructive influences.

HIV/Aids is frequently dominated by so-called stigma. One of the less obvious but most important gifts I was to receive from my infection, was to stop concerning myself with what others might be thinking or saying about me. Our ego-centric thinking frequently makes us hostage to our perceptions of what others might be thinking or saying. HIV/Aids taught me to hold the most “positive” thoughts about myself rather than stupidly fretting about the content of other people’s minds. This has led to powerful personal transformation and a great sense of liberation from stuff that is not of real importance.

Coming to understand the nature of HIV/Aids has also given me an opportunity to serve those suffering with the effects of the virus. A life of service is always characterised by meaning and purpose, which makes life worth living. I choose to make a positive difference wherever I go and I am grateful for this substantial added dimension in my life.

Far from contracting and damaging my life, HIV/Aids has expanded my frontiers beyond my wildest dreams. This does not mean that the journey with the virus has always been easy, because personal growth always comes at a price. In loving myself in meaningful and healthy ways, I have transformed my life in the best way imaginable. My life is now tasked to teach and empower others to use their particular adversities to expand themselves, rather than becoming hapless victims and wasting Life’s precious opportunities.

Thank you, Clive — for your words, and for your tenacity, spirit and love for life. To read more about Clive Harvey Fox, you can visit his “Indigo-man” website and click on “Indigo Links”, and then click “MORE or LESS” to learn more about the art of self-love. To read/buy his latest book, Finding My Gift, you can visit the book’s website here.

To visit the Bloggers Unite website, click here. And remember, if you are on Twitter and are participating on World Aids Day, please consider using the #WAD08 tag.