Thanks for everything. I have no complaints what so ever.
-from a story told by Eckhart Tolle in Transcending the Ego Video
I am still such an ego maniac, a thought junkie, a chronic narrator, a roving reporter, a little prisoner stuck in the confines of the personal self, the heroic victim in the tragic story I alone am writing and I am still for the most part very much asleep. Sigh!
I realize that I am not yet where I want to be. I am having trouble waking up and staying awake...no matter how annoying that buzzing alarm gets. I am almost there, it seems, I begin to wake up and just as I am crawling out of bed, I fall back to sleep again. I seem to be caught on a "enlightenment wheel" lol. Another big pathetic sigh!
Body Focus
I think I have come so far...and I have...but every now and again I get reminded of how far I have to go. This arm is reminding me of the obstacles I have before me. It bloody hurts and it is so annoying. I get pulled back into body focus and will sometimes get lost in the discomfort.
Mind and Story Focus
But the pain is benign in comparison to what happens in my mind to spin a story around it. I get the pain and I think, "Oh it hurts again. There has to be a fracture. I wish they would have x-rayed it when I went in nine days ago. It took me so long to get the courage up to go in when I did. I hate going in there. And like always, my health seeking attempt turned against me."
The thinking will continue to expand to, "I can't go in again. I think I would rather have a fracture. What will happen long term with a mal union if there is a fracture there? Can I live with that? But the pain...can I live with that? Man...I live with the chest pain on a regular basis. This is minimal in comparison."
It goes on..."It would be worse if I got it x-rayed and there was no fracture, wouldn't it? I would then have another "unnecessary ER record" stuck to my massively large chart, giving them ("them" being all physicians who I have rounded up, branded and herded into one big coral...stereotyping at its best, lol) even more reason to adhere to their assumptions about me, 'Fat Folder Syndrome; hysterical hypochondriac, attention seeker or someone with a factitious or conversion disorder.' My future or my family members' future cardiac complaints will then be possibly dismissed when help is needed most. Is my arm worth that?"
The thinking continues to grow into a whirlwind. "I can't expect them to take my complaints seriously just because of a few bruises that are almost faded when they never took the chest pain seriously, the pelvic pain seriously, the loss of eyesight seriously, the severe vertigo I had that time seriously, the fainting seriously or me seriously. I mean...if they did take me seriously wouldn't something have been done about it? My chest pain, even after my sisters' heart attacks, is still such a reality for me but no one hears me. How am I to think that they will believe me that my arms hurts when someone else basically tells me the usual story, "These tests or assessments show that it shouldn't therefore it doesn't"? "
I know then that I am out of the present moment. Time becomes my opponent. I leave the future and am dragged into the past by my desperate little mind, "It has been such a hard journey. Over twenty years I tried to get help for what most of me knows is very real. And I still don't have it...even after my sister died of a sudden SCD and two others infarcted in their early fifties, years after I first presented with what appeared to be cardiac symptoms...I am still here living with this, unable to work or do few of the things I used to love to do. Everything has fallen apart around me. I have lost so much and I continue to lose so much but still no one hears me. There is no hope for ever getting any medical help for my health. And it takes too much out of me to try. It is all so unfair. I am such a victim to my tragic life. I don't want this suffering anymore. I give up trying."
Accepting What is
It is with this 'giving up' that I finally ironically find what I have been looking for... a certain peace in acceptance...I feel myself settling in to what is. " This is my reality now. It is what it is. As Eckhart Tolle says, Reality is relatively very benign compared to what your mind is saying about it. (2018). I can get out of my mind. I will let go. I will let others believe what they need to believe about me to appease their own egos. I accept the lack of diagnosis, the lack of help, the lack of support and find my way to the healing that really matters. It is all good."
Then I find myself in the right place, getting to what is really important. I lose my attachment to ego and physical world things. I feel the veil moving between me and this "transcendent dimension'' (Tolle, 2018) I wake up and I I feel a certain peace. It is all so lovely...
Ego not done with me yet
That is until...I move my arm a certain way or wake up in the middle of the night to the throbbing and the darn thing starts all over again, "This shouldn't hurt this much. It must be broken...." and on and on and on...it goes. :) Ego is not done with me yet.
I know there is a very good lesson in hurting my arm. If I didn't I would just be waking up on a pseudo level. I wouldn't be dealing with the pain and frustration I stuffed about my health seeking adventure over the years. It is like a big fur ball caught inside me that I need to cough up.
I don't need to build story around it but I do need to experience the feelings, sit with them, express them. I haven't done that. When in ego I numb with story telling, I complain which is equal to resistance and I feel sorry for myself. When in that other beautiful place I ignore the knocking at the door. I shut out the feelings.
I think it is okay to step out and just sit with these feeling for a while. Let them be too. Maybe this arm is taking me there. :)
I still don't know about going in to get it x-rayed. The practical part of me knows I should. still not sure what part that is though...the ego or the true Self. Hmmm! We will see. For now, it is just good to see what I am doing in my mind. :)
It is all good. It really is.
References
Creative Manifestor (2016, May) Eckhart Tolle: Transcending the Ego. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7QQqJcx4uI
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