Peace is an attribute in you. You cannot find it outside. Illness is some form of external searching. Health is inner peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without and capable, through your acceptance of miracles, of correcting the conditions proceeding from lack of love in others. ACIM-T-2:I:8-12
A Familiar Part of the Scenery
Hmmm! I do real good...so I think...at steering myself away from focusing on the health seeking boulder on my path. I can get around it many times to deal with life events and issues on the other side of it. When I can't do that, I distract from it and find some pseudo contentment on this side of it. Every now and again, however, it becomes the focus of my attention. I will stare at it and allow my mind to build story around it, label it as a "major obstacle" to my moving forward in happiness and I may even get frustrated enough to fruitlessly try to push it out of the way...which I cannot do. Sigh.
Most of the time, however, I just accept that it is there and it becomes a forgettable part of my day to day scenery.
It is what it is!
After 109 days , over 15 weeks of waiting...I still do not know what this is that is going on in my body. I can almost "forget" about it until I experience the symptoms. The pain, though definitely more than bearable, is still present, changing in its radiation a bit everyday. It is not there "constantly". I experience it at night and several times during the day and it is honestly quite annoying mostly because of what my mind does with it when I notice that it may me going to another location or changing , however slightly, in intensity.
My mind takes that physical pain and builds up story around it, a not very pleasant one at that. On top of that I have been experiencing headaches and dizziness over the last two weeks. My rational mind chucks it up to nothing more than air quality issues affecting my sinuses . My ego mind, however, drags it right into the previous story line as symptoms occurring in a secondary site. Imagine!
No News is Good News?
I want to just fall right back into the comforting old adage, "No news is good news" which I intended to do from the beginning: allow the system to take charge as I quietly and patiently waited. I, however, lost my trust of that system after the delays and the lectures and the realization of another's agenda. So though it is over the 14 days I was told to wait for the MRI report, I cannot settle in peaceful acceptance that everything must be okay because I have yet to hear back. I am not experiencing "peace".
It is very likely as I assumed it was from the beginning: just ductal ectasia leading to a small cyst formation, some subsequent scar tissue which may be causing the pain and the retraction. Maybe the appearance of the new lump, which seems to be a fibroadenoma...came to be because of that scar tissue. No big deal! I just wish my mind would accept that without question as the cause of my bodily changes. But every time I feel the pain, and on top of that that feeling in my head, I am carried away into this terrible story of "what if".
Missing What Is
On the other side of that is this realization that it has become such a big part of my life over the last four months, I wonder what life will be like without it. If...when...I hear back that it is nothing but a minor benign change, what will I feel like? Relief for sure...but I believe there will also be a bit of grief.
Greif????
That sounds so strange, I know, but part of me will miss it??? This boulder, as hideous as it appears, was actually a distraction from the other life issues that seem to be constantly pulling at me. It was something "heavy enough" for me to say..."Okay! This is in your way. You cannot move forward right now. Just sit here and relax a bit until it is moved. This is a good time to rest your weary mind and body. This boulder gives you an excuse to take care of you."
It was like I could say ( without saying anything out loud to anyone because I have yet to share this) to all the hands reaching out to me, "I can't get to you right now. I have a good reason for that. I will get to you when I can."
External Searching
That takes me back to the above passage from ACIM Illness is some form of external searching. This illness scare was me searching for a worthy excuse to rest, focus on my healing, and to settle in the peace I so long to settle into. I see myself as unworthy of these things unless I do the penance of intense suffering through an actual serious illness or the looming threat of one.
I still don't quite get it that peace is my birthright, it is a gift I have already been given and it is within me now. So I have been searching out there for it but feeling "guilty" I unconsciously sought suffering to cleanse me and make me worthy enough for this peace. Thus the illness/illness scare.
Inner Peace
There would be no need for illness in any of us if we realized that peace was already in us. That peace would be constant and unwavering no matter what others did or didn't do, no matter what Life did or didn't do. All the many conditions that seem to stem from a loveless state can simply be corrected with this awareness.
Peace is an attribute in all of us.
All is well!
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