Happy Spring!!!

 

 

 

Of course, in my part of the world the earth is still covered in snow and will be for weeks but there is a lot going on underneath the snow!

 

I can hear my Dad as plain as day, "Spring brings new hope!  Spring brings new hope!"

 

Sigh!  I love spring!

 

 

All is well!

Is Your Heart Open or Closed?

The heart is the place through which energy flows to sustain you. This energy inspires you and raises you. It is the strength that carries you through life.  It is the beautiful experience of love that pours through your whole being...If you don't close, it can be like that all the time.
Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 56-57

Open or Closed?

I am going to talk a little more about opening up the heart and therefore opening up to Life.  Or as Michael Singer describes it..."not closing" the heart and "not closing" up to Life.

Right now...do you know if you are opening to Life or closing?  Are you feeling your way through Life or thinking your way out of Life? Are you in your head or in your heart? Do you even know?

Is your heart open...forgiving, peaceful , trusting and above all loving? Or is it shriveling up in fear, holding on to grievances that block the flow of Love, mistrusting, angry, and anxious? (When I think of my recent health seeking experience, I know where my heart tends to lean a little too much. Sigh!)

Do you stand before Life with your arms and heart open, embracing the unknown  with an enthusiastic  "Give me what you got!" attitude? Or do you find yourself protecting your heart more than you are opening it...putting a proverbial or actual  hand up to prevent the world from coming at it,  in fear it will rip it right out of your chest? 

Are you  able to get beyond the veil your mind puts up to experience the wholeness, beauty and wellness that is already  within you? Or are you still depending on an unhealed mind to help you control and manipulate all the circumstances "out there" so they don't come in and touch your vulnerable spaces?

Are you even listening to your heart and all that wisdom that it opens the door to or are you too busy listening to all the noise in your mind that says you need evidence, more information, more data, scientific proof, analysis, articulation, explanation, labels and names?

Do you tend to say, "Oh Wow!" more than you say, "Oh No !"

Are you accepting what Life offers with an open heart and seeking the learning and blessing in each event?  Or are you so busy resisting, complaining, avoiding and struggling against every event your mind deems as "unwanted",  that you experience suffering?

How do you look at things like this COVID-19 pandemic? 

Do you see it as a wonderful example of nature's presence in our lives, offering instruction  for us to take notice, to slow down, to connect as One human race to ensure our survival?  Do you see it as  one of Life's many unpredictable events that serves a purpose even if we do not understand it fully?  Do you watch in awe as nature does what nature does so brilliantly and see how we humans can respond rather than react to it,  by joining together  as one unified force to accept and allow this virus to pass through our lives, as it must do, with as little destruction as possible? Can you open your heart to the greater lesson trusting in that wisdom of nature and God? 

Or do you feel your heart closing up in panic and fear as you watch this thing unfold, keeping track of  how little others are doing to determine how much at risk you are? Do you see this out break  as a freak and random act of nature, one of the many "threats" out there in that dangerous and scary world that we must resist, guard and protect our individual and vulnerable bodies  from at all costs?  Do you see it as more evidence about how weak and destructible  we are in these fragile bodies against this nasty ever changing physical world? Are you consumed with thoughts of illness and death? Do you find "evidence' in this pandemic to support why you should keep your heart closed?

Do You Want An Open Heart?

Hmmm! Is your heart open or closed? More importantly...do you want it to be open or closed?

If you don't mind the darkness, the fear, the illness and the chasing of your tail...by all means continue closing up.  But if , by chance, you want peace, you want true rest and true respite from that mind of yours...I suggest, go to your heart.

You don't have to "do" anything.  You don't have to "fix" anything.  You do not have to put time and effort into manipulating anything so the outcome is what you feel you will need to make you happy and well.  

Just Be Willing

All that is required of you, at this point, in order to get a little bit of lasting peace in your life, is to just be willing to open your heart...be willing to see yourself and the world differently with the insight the heart offers, rather than depending on what the unforgiving mind sees.

Be willing to accept, that maybe, just maybe,  I am more than this and therefore maybe the world I see doesn't have to be so dark and scary.  Maybe the light of Who I am can be found in that heart of mine and if I open it ...I may just discover there will not only be enough light for me but for the whole world to see a bit more clearly.

Opening up to Life  requires a leap of faith...not outward...but inward. Be willing to fall into your heart as it opens for you and the entire world.

All is well

Inspired by :

Sonia Choquette (2016) How Intuition Unveils Your True Self. Mind Valley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zytQxKhPMiI

Michael Singer ( 2007) the untethered soul. Oakland: New Harbinger/Noetic Books

Who is This? Ego or Aware Presence?

Be the Innocent Aware Presence...
Eckhart Tolle


  Who is This?


I came out alone on my way to my tryst.
But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?

I move aside to escape his presence but I escape him not.

He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger;
he adds his loud voice to every word I utter.

He is my own little self, my Lord, he knows no shame;
but I am ashamed to come to Thy door in his company.

Rabindranath Tagore

Do you Have an Ego that Won't Leave You Alone?

Can you relate to Tagore's description of the ego? Are you aware of an ego that follows you around wherever you go, that just does not seem to want to leave you alone? Are you at least trying to avoid and escape "his" company?  ( I often wondered why I wanted to refer to ego as a "he" and now I know why, I was remembering this poem....not that the ego has a gender:)) Are you ashamed to bring this ego with you when you pray or meditate? 

I know I have a strong and clingy ego, pretty much wrapped around my legs and I can't shake him/her/it off. I so want to get beyond its loud and sometimes obnoxious presence that just will not allow me to be at peace.  This presence weighs me down as it constantly whispers conflicting messages in my ear to make "me" special in one way or another: One moment it tells me  why I should be ashamed of myself and the next, why I should be proud. It constantly points out all the dangers "out there" and tells me what I need to do to avoid them. It gets me to run after "things" it feels I need to have or "do"  to keep it happy and then it gets me collecting grievances so I stay unhappy.  It is a nasty and very confusing  little fellow to have around. 

Ashamed?

The more I evolve, albeit slowly :), the more I see it in action and the more "ashamed " I am of it.  But then again "ashamed" is a feeling  ego would use and not what The Innocent Aware Presence, that it so ferociously clings to, would use. 

Innocent Aware Presence

What we want is to be that innocent aware presence, don't we?  We want to experience the world without the "burden" of an ego imposed identity. Whenever we look upon the ego without judgment, criticism or condemnation and therefore  without shame...we are that...we are aware that we are that.  Whenever we get beyond fear and all its nasty consequences...we are that Innocent Aware Presence.  We are Love.  How cool is that?

Maybe our escape from ego...will  simply involve our awareness of it in a nonjudgmental and accepting way. Just bringing ourselves back again and again to this awareness will help to shake ego off, maybe?  Maybe that is the only anti-adhesive we need to detach it from our lives?

Obviously still not detached because ego is tapping me on the shoulder, whispering in my ear, "Tell them.  Tell them." So I will and I will try not to be red faced as I do so. I love Tagore and wrote an article based on one of his beautiful poems, A Moment's Indulgence, that was published in The Mindful Word  a few years ago.  I will link it here.  Pure ego making me do this lol.  The innocent aware presence is simply watching...saying nothing! 

All is Well!

Inspired By:

Poem Hunters:https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/who-is-this/#content

My article (correction- the article that came through me as inspired by Tagore :): https://www.themindfulword.org/2017/learning-tagore-take-break

Wayne Dyer & Eckhart Tolle (January 2013) The Importance of Being Extraordinary.  Hay House. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di9VOwPzmZw

Do You Pray?



Angels of God,

Our guardians dear

Through whom God's Love

Commits thee here.

Ever this night

be at my side

to light

to guard

to rule

and guide.

 

A Prayer from My Childhood

 

Prayer

 

I have not done the traditional praying I was taught to do as a Catholic for a long, long  time.  I have not knelt with rosary in hand and fingered my way through the mysteries since my father's passing and then I did it for him.  I haven't really even said a Hail Mary or an Our Father, other than that.  I have not recited words that are so ingrained in me they come out between my whispering lips automatically when I begin to recite them. I have not prayed traditionally and committedly  in a long, long time.

I have, I guess, prayed in other ways.  I write two devotionals...in one I begin each entry with  "Dear Lord" and the other I begin with "Dear Angels"...The latter is directed mostly to the  guardian angels that I was taught to address as a child.  Does anyone else remember the prayer above?

 

Prayer and Meditation

 

I find such comfort writing to the angels.  It is not really a prayer but a conversation. I tend to focus more on this lately  than the other. Of course my daily writing in this  waxes and wanes too. 

I meditate daily and wonder...what is the difference between meditation and prayer?  Prayer is a form of meditation isn't it? 

 

I think  prayer is more of a plea, an expression of reverence and gratitude  for something "out there" as we maneuver our way around this physical world and mediation is more of a going inward away from the physical world where the answers lie. 

 

Prayer takes us from the "human" parts of us to the "spiritual" , and meditation brings  the "spiritual" parts of us to the human.

 

We seek God outside ourselves when we pray and we seek God inside us when we meditate.

In prayer we do the speaking in hope that Someone will listen.  In meditation we do the listening in hope that Someone will do the speaking.  ( Not necessarily literally...that would probably get us jumping  from the cushion to the ceiling  in record breaking speed.)

 

Does that make sense?  They can compliment each other can't they?

 

 

What We Pray To

 

Of Course God is a term I use and it has great meaning for me.  Someone else may use another word, have another "image" that they hold in mind when they pray or meditate.  I honestly believe, however,  we are all praying to the  Same Thing/No-Thing...to that Higher Power, that invisible Creative Force, that Love.

 

When I pray now I speak from my heart to that Something I call God.  Sometimes I speak directly and sometimes I go through the angels but I am fully aware as I pray and meditate that there is something Greater than me and all I perceive with my senses out there and in me.

 

Praying Again

 

Anyway, I bring that up because I have recently found myself praying again...maybe not in the traditional way of using memorized words and rosary beads on bent knees...but by speaking consciously  from my heart to that Something I call God either directly or through the angels. I began a committed practice last Thursday after an "innocent" phone call that seemed to leave me torn between fighting against what is and surrendering.  I subsequently chose surrendering.  

 

I am asking for the ability, in my prayers,  to surrender and accept this "not knowing" that is going on with my body and to be able to let it go, to surrender to the set of circumstances that will add another six months to my waiting. I want to use this set of circumstances as a leap into Faith.  Instead of fighting, demanding more, resisting this what is going down or not going down...I want to fall into faith, saying "It is okay.  It is as it is.  If I need to make changes in it, I will be shown when and how...for now...just accept and let it go!" To get the help to do that I pray. It is comforting. To remind myself that I am not these circumstances or this body even...I continue to meditate. 

 

Anyway, that is where I am at....and I am wondering if any of you pray too, why you pray and how you pray?  I am wondering what you get from prayer?

 

There have been so many studies done on the power of prayer I can't begin to cite them here.  I would, however, like to look more into this.  It is interesting, don't you think?

 

All is well.



The Wait

The wait

I am not sure what will happen to "me"
as others walk away to deal with
the  more important things
on their over booked to do lists.
I am not sure it really matters.

I am not sure  my body can sustain the storms
as the calendar pages  turn,
the seasons  change,
and the clock  taunts its way into another morning.
I am not sure it really matters.

I am not sure my mind will stand up to
 another extended tryst with time and
its tag team buddy...fear
that hisses and waits in the corner to be tapped.
I am not sure it really matters.

I am not sure how patient and forgiving  I will remain  
on this side of the massive  boulder 
that's blocking  my path,
preventing me from seeing up ahead.
I am not sure it really matters.

I am not sure how this outer form
of what I think I am will breathe through
the endless not knowing
that is buried  in burlap sacks of "wait and see".  
I am not sure it really matters.

I am not sure if this ,
what people know  as "me"
will be here as it is now
when the six month wait is over.
I am not sure it really matters

For something tells me
this is all just a dream of waiting
that I, the lucid dreamer,  
can wake myself up from anytime.
And knowing that,  is all that really matters.

Dale-Lyn March 17, 2020

Your Thinking Has Done This!

If it [the mind that accepts attack] does not understand what love is, it cannot perceive itself as loving.  This loses the awareness of being, induces feelings of unreality and results in utter confusion.  Your thinking has done this because of its power, but your thinking can also save you from this because its power is not of your making.  Your ability to direct your thinking as you choose is part of its power.

ACIM-T-7: VI:2



 All is well

Understanding the Complex

Understanding is appreciation, because what you understand you can identify with, and by making it a part of you, you have accepted it with love.
ACIM-T-7:V:9:4


I was not going to write here today but all students in my first yoga class cancelled and this free hour opened up for me.  I could have cleaned , I could have done my income tax, I could have cleared off the ice on the step for the second class, I could have walked the dogs...but...No...when I realized I had an hour all I could think to do was sigh in gratitude and say, "I can write!  I have an hour with my words after all...how wonderful is that?"

So here I am.

More on Simplifying the Complexity of Illness

I feel the need to continue breaking down the complexity of what I wrote about illness and put it into more practical terms.  Right now...it is all probably " too out there"  to make sense to many and truth is it may never make sense to some but I feel I need to at least try to explain it better.

Is she nuts?

If anyone were to open up for the first time onto certain recent pages , they may have found themselves shaking their heads and saying, "WTF(front)? Is she absolutely nuts?"

If it was someone that already knew me they may be cringing in embarrassment for me or for their association with me, whispering to themselves, "Oh No...She finally went over the edge.  Yep... she lost it!" or "Man...I knew she wasn't all there before but this is something else. It doesn't get any crazier than this.  Imagine saying that there is no such thing as illness. Who does that?  Denying sin...was one thing but to say we sickness isn't real especially with the COVID-19 Pandemic happening?  Now that is cra-cra with a capitol "C". Someone better draw up that Haldol now...we gotta go old school with this one. "

(I am not meaning to insult anyone or diminish the damaging effects of schizophrenia with this analogy but many believe that someone who thinks as I do is actually psychotic, breaking from reality...so that is why I use it.)

Not as Crazy as I Appear.

First of all, I can assure you that I am not psychotic.  I am not delusional having delusions of grandeur or lost in religious preoccupation.  In fact, it feels that I am actually facing reality for the first time in my life.  I am seeing clearer than I have ever seen before...and though I may not be behaving, thinking or expressing like the majority of the world does right now...making me completely strange and abnormal...I feel "healthier" than I ever have mentally and emotionally. I will admit I am strange and abnormal but not psychotic.

A Healing Mind

Most of this, that I write here, isn't coming from an ill mind...it is coming from a healing mind.  It is not coming from  one puny little mixed up mind but One large collective Mind I share.

I don't know where you are in your understanding of consciousness...what it is and what it isn't. I am not sure where you are in understanding your Self. I am not sure if you recognize an ego in yourself or others or if you even believe there is such thing as an ego. I am not sure if you understand or believe there is something Greater within you, if you believe in God/Source/ the One. I am not sure if you are willing to venture beyond a materialistic perspective...to question what exists beyond matter and physical form.  I don't know where you are at. 

Questions to Ask Yourself

What is important,  is  not what I know or don't know as I ramble on here but for you to examine where you are at in these areas. Can you even attempt to ask and answer these questions:

• What is consciousness? 
• What is the Self?
• Who am I really?
• Could I actually be more than this body, this personality, these perceptions, these thoughts and feelings...this story I describe myself in?
• Am I more than the titles and roles I define myself by, the things I own and the things I do?
• Do I believe there is a God or Something Greater than all of us that is behind the creation of all of us?
• If I believe there is, how do I "know" beyond what I might have been told or taught?
• Could I be a part of Something bigger?
• What do I believe will happen to me when my brain dies...do I believe "I" will go on?

Maybe these are the types of questions you need to be asking before you start considering how absolutely off the deep end I may be in my thinking when it comes to the body and illness.

New to Me Too

And please know, this is "new" thinking for me too.  I am just getting my mind around the idea that I cannot be harmed by sickness.  Man...my body has been talking to me big time for years and for years I thought it was saying, "I'm sick! Fix me! Or at least get someone who knows how to fix me to fix me!!!"  Now I have this little issue that is palpably real....and it is like "What the heck do I do with this? Sickness has got to be real!"

I also come from a professional background where I made my living off of sickness. I have lost people I love to sickness.

I have, therefore,  this very deep and ingrained core belief that our bodies are vulnerable to illness. This belief is a part of who I think I am. So when I come to you and say, "We cannot be harmed by illness," I am probably coming from the same place you are at. I am testing the truth of that statement.  Illness is a collective belief that I am still questioning.

Coming From Within

I am not being brainwashed either by doctrine and dogma.  I have no particular religious affiliation right now. I am studying ACIM for the third time  and that is why you see so much reference to it here but it is not the only learning device I use.  I seek out answers from all religions.  Not just from religions but philosophies, science, literature and by watching humanity at large. I have no one guru.  Life is my guru.

What I write here comes from a place beyond "me" anyway.  It is not about me (no matter how many "me"s and "I" s end up on these pages) .  I am nothing more than the canister that holds the ink in a Bic Pen. I am pretty transparent as I let what ever is inside me pour out onto the page. I am doing what I feel compelled to do and this compulsion goes way beyond my limited ability to comprehend the Greater picture, the One Who is holding me and making me move.

Two Ways to View What I Am Writing

So what I am saying can be viewed in two ways...from the perspective of the un-evolved mind/ the unforgiving mind/ unhealed mind/ the unconscious, ego driven mind where most of us are at, including me most of the time and the evolved mind/the enlightened mind/ the forgiving mind/the healed mind/ the conscious, Self driven mind.

The Un-evolved Mind and Illness

With the un-evolved mind illness is very real.  When we determine our reality only by what we pick up with the body's five senses- what can be seen, heard, felt, tasted or smelled...we limit our understanding of Life to the external physical world.  We think we are these separate  bodies and are vulnerable to attack from everything else out there in a dangerous, guilt-ridden and  cruel world...we will get sick.  Masses will show up on our bodies.  Viruses will mutate and find homes in the human organism.  We will break bones.  As long as we see the world through these limited perspectives and do not recognize who we really are...we will get sick.  Illness will be real.  Most of us will hold onto this belief until the day we die but I know ( and I don't know why I know) that at the moment of our death we will realize we only limited ourselves with this belief we clung to  because, in truth, we are so much more than form. It was our belief that made us sick.

The Evolved Mind and Illness

When we finally accept and connect to who we really are and the Source from which we come...there will be no illness.  There will be no need for it.  Illness is just something the ego uses to keep us small and limited so that it can survive. The ultimate  realization of who we really are will happen at death when we escape the confines of body.  (So many scientific studies are being done by scientists that show that consciousness goes on beyond ceased brain activity therefore we do.  So many studies examine NDE's and show how wonderful that freedom from form attachment is.) Yogis and Buddhists practitioners have shown for centuries we do not have to die in order to get to this realization, to experience Heaven and the peace, joy and Love that comes with it...to experience the impossibility of illness. Why don't we venture to learn from them?

Don't take my word for it.  Do your own questioning, your own research. Look out at humanity and the world you see.  Examine it closely. Examine your own mind and your own Self .  I am confident, you will then see what I see or so much more.

All is well!

When you heal, you are remembering the laws of God and forgetting the laws of ego!
ACIM-T-7:VI:2:6

Heal the Mind!

Once your mind is healed it radiates health, and thereby teaches healing.
ACIM-T-6:V:C:9:7

To put what I have learned recently through my own  life experience and my reading/ studying etc into a simple and concise statement is to say that we are not our bodies.  We are so much more. 

So though we need to take care of these vehicles, these communication tools in the basic ways,  we do not need to be consumed by what will happen to them. We can let go and Let God take the reins, finding sweet peace in surrender.

We do not have to struggle and fight to get external world labels and remedies for them which , as important as they may be at the physical level, just add illusion onto illusion at the spiritual level.

On the physical level we need to heal the mind before we heal the body because that is where "sickness" originates and festers.

True healing takes us beyond the body and mind to the truth of Who we are.  At the deepest level there is no sickness or no need for healing. 

True healing, then,  requires much more than a diagnosis or prescription.  It requires a putting away of what is valueless and unreal and a waking up to who and what we are.

All is well.

Lessons 136-140

...the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes.  The body's health is fully guaranteed, because it is not limited by time, by weather, or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible.
ACIM-W-136:18:2-3

Sickness: A Defense Against the Truth

Lesson 136 makes the bold statement that sickness is a defense against the truth.  This lesson teaches that sickness is a self created device, a decision, a choice we make to keep the truth,  that threatens all we think we know and are,  from being whole. 

We set up a series of defenses and later forget that we did and make it appear that it was a happening beyond our mind. This sickness proves to our minds that the body is not separate from us and therefore we must be separate from the truth. We allow the body to become stronger than the truth, stronger than God's Will for us.  (or so we think.)

 But what is truth is unalterable...it cannot change.  God's will for us is happiness.  When we realize who we are and Whose will we cannot escape, no matter how we try to delude ourselves, we will be healed.  The mind will be healed and that will heal the body.

The body should not feel at all.  If you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, of pain or pleasure.  No response at all is in the mind to what the body does.  Its usefulness remains and nothing more. 137:17:2-5

Sickness Separates/ Healing Unites

Lesson 137 explains what healing is by explaining how sickness sanctifies this idea of separation we adhere to. It becomes a door that closes on a separate self, and keeps it isolated and alone. 137:1:4

Healing, however, operates apart from sickness and is a decision to be One again....to accept the whole Self. It demonstrates that only truth is true. It just removes illusions that have not occurred. 

 Just because we believe we are ill, doesn't mean we are.  Healing is a removal of that illusion so we see the truth of our own wholeness and wellness.  Healing is a shared strength and freedom.  As we heal we see others healing with us.  The healed become instruments of healing.  We are not healed alone, thus dismantling this illusion of separation.

Choose Heaven and Put an End to Hell

We may believe there is a thousand choices we must make but there is only one.  Once we see what we don't want, what really isn't real, we make the conscious choice for Heaven, putting an end to the fear of hell.(Lesson 138)

Wake Up and Remember

Once we accept ourselves as being what God created us to be, we become certain of who we are.  This puts an end to choice.  We must realize that previous to this acceptance we have denied our true Self. That is not a sin that requires repentance...just a mistake in thinking.

Atonement is a remembering and accepting the truth of who we are  and understanding that nothing the world believes is true. Our mission is to wake up and remember and to look out at our brother and see that they are what we are too.  We just need to accept atonement and the fact that we remain as God created us and all else will fall into place. (Lesson 139)

The Only Remedy

Lesson 140 tells us that curing the body with the world's remedies does not heal.  They just create an illusion on top of an illusion.

Atonement/salvation/ waking up...is what heals all sickness! Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure.  It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. 4:4

Only the truth of God  heals and heals forever. We need not seek a cure for the body but  go to the mind and seek a cure for all illusions. We are asked to put aside our dependence on external world therapies and instead turn to God and pray ( hourly) Only salvation can be said to cure.  Speak to us, Father, that we may be healed.

Hmm!  I came across these lessons just as I needed them most.

All is well!

ACIM Workbook

Lesson 131-135

What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?
ACIM-W-135:18:1

These lessons speak directly  to my present situation and remind me of what I really want

Reach for the Truth: You Can Not Fail

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth, and it is truth we seek to reach today. ACIM-W-131:10:2.  In this beautiful lesson we are taught that we are indeed seeking as part of our mission here, but instead of searching for the meaningless we can make Heaven ( Truth) our goal.  It is a goal we cannot fail at attaining.  Heaven is our alternative to the world we see now, one of failure, impermanence, fear, danger, illness, darkness and death. We don't want to see that world ...we want more and we can have more. (Lesson 131)


Change Your Mind; Change Your World

Lesson 132 addresses the power of belief and through it, I see what I have been doing in my mind, creating the fearful world I see when I seek validation for bodily changes. I assumed and therefore created the dilemma I now face.. You have enslaved the world with your fears, your doubts and miseries, your pain and your tears; and all your sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to your beliefs.  death strikes it everywhere because you hold teh bitter thoughts of death within your mind. 132:3:4-5

This lesson teaches if we  change the  mind to  what we want to see, rather than what we fear seeing, the world will change accordingly.  If I start believing that the past is not revisiting me/haunting me and all there is is now where  people are here to help me, not harm me my whole perspective would change. The Lesson  emphasizes: ... to know your Self is the salvation of the world. To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself .10:1-2  We can loose the world from all we thought it was and choose our own reality instead. 

This is the ultimate healing I spoke about in the previous entry.

The Easy Decision: Choose Only What is Valuable

When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow not for happiness. ACIM-W-133:2:2 This line form Lesson 133 definitely speaks to my last entries.  I have been consumed by bodily concerns and I knew if I surrendered the belief that my body was so important and let go of my need to determine what was wrong with it...I would find peace. 

The lesson teaches there are only two things to choose from: the valuable and the valueless.  To ensure that you are choosing the valuable over the valueless ask if what you are choosing will last forever?  If it doesn't last forever it is valueless. 

I had to ask if my body was valuable ...it does not last forever, therefore it isn't. 

Is Self valuable ?  Peace?  That is a resounding yes! So I choose that over seeking a body diagnosis.

 Then you need to ask:  am I taking it from another? Why is this choice valuable to me and does it serve a purpose? Then we need to check to see if our decision leaves us feeling guilty in anyway.  If it does ego is holding the reins and the decision is not for our best interest.

This lesson teaches that no decision should be difficult.

There is No Dragon

In Lesson 134 we take another look at forgiveness and see it for what it is. We only need forgiveness for what is false because it is all about putting down the screen of illusion for the Truth.Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for the truth in the illusions of the world.  It sees their nothingness. 134:7:1-2

I love this piece of advice: When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self deception.  Ask instead, "Would I accuse myself of doing this?" 9:2-3  What he thought was never there.  He does not have to fight to save himself.  He does not have to kill the dragons he thought pursued him. 12:1-2 That answers my question, doesn't it,  about whether or not I should fight for a diagnosis?

Put Down Your Defenses And Your Need to Plan

Lesson 135 is  a long lesson on defense . You operate from the belief that you must protect yourself from what is happening because it must contain what threatens you. 135:2:1 How much does that apply to my previous entry?

Defense stems from fear and increases fear.  We defend what we feel is vulnerable and weak. The body is such a thing. A Course tells us that the body, however, needs no defense. Defend its life...and you but say your home is open to the thief of time...5:4 It will be strong and healthy if the mind does not abuse it by assigning it to roles it cannot fill, to purposes beyond its scope, and to exalt aims it cannot accomplish. 7:3

The body is valueless and nor worth defending. So when I choose surrendering the body to find peace, this lesson teaches the body will respond with health!

It is not the body that needs healing but the mind. The mind engaged in planning for itself is occupied in setting up control of  future happenings. It does not think it will be provided for unless it makes its own provisions. 15:1-2.  This is what I have been doing and feeling!

Truth is we do not know what is best for us. This lesson pleads with us to put down our defenses because it is only when we are defenseless will we be strong in truth. We do not need to plan for attack.  If there are plans to be made we will be told


I will be back!!

ACIM Workbook

Surrender or Fight? A Pros and Cons List

The miracle is much like the body in that both are learning aids for facilitating a state in which they become unnecessary.  When spirit's original state of direct communication is reached, neither the body nor the miracle serves a purpose. While you believe you are in a body, however, you can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of expression.
ACIM-T-1:V:1:1-3

Okay I am going back to some learning about the body...and yes...I am going to apply my experience to it.

Yesterday, I felt this strong need to make a decision.  I either had to stand up strong despite my shame and fear and demand a diagnosis for what seems to be going on in my body or step back and surrender to or accept that I may never know.

Whenever, I make a big decision I create a Pros and Cons list. I did that here.

The Physical World Pros  and Cons for Standing Up and Fighting For A Diagnosis

By "fighting" I simply mean putting  effort and strain into pushing back resistance, be it real or imaginary, to get a solid answer as to what is going on in my body.

Pros for fighting for a diagnosis

As long as I need this body to travel around in so I can do what I am here to do, I need it to have a certain level of health and wellness.  It is my responsibility to look after this amazing machine I have been given.  I need to ensure my energy is not further depleted than it already is by all the other things I deal with including other health issues.  I need to conserve what I have. 

Even if this is totally benign, the pain, alone,  drains me of more energy than I have.  If this is something not so benign , on the other hand,  I may eventually lose my functioning all together.

I have enough signs and symptoms, and objective data,  regardless of what three unnecessary  ultrasounds show, to say that this "could be" something. The longer we wait to completely rule out the latter ( and there is only one way to do that) , the faster this grows and the less life span and/or quality of Life I will have to fulfill my function here.

"Not knowing" is extremely painful to a  rational mind, like mine, especially a mind that "knows" something is there.  Not having that thing that is there recognized and labelled would never sit easy with the rational me and it will drain me into illness.

I have people in my life that love and need me right now.  I have to be my best functioning self for them.  They already see me so depleted from this heart thing and from my response to so many external stressors at once.  With this pain and this "not knowing" I have even less to give.

I have so many things I want to offer the world and this "not knowing" sits like a boulder on my path.  I can't seem to see around it. If I can change the "not knowing" into a semblance of "knowing" that sits well in my rational mind, I can roll the  boulder away.

Man, don't I just deserve a diagnosis?  Like isn't that a  reasonable request for anyone  with my signs and symptoms and with what is showing up on tests? After four months of waiting, I deserve  a clearly defined explanation for what I am palpating and feeling in terms of pain. I would appreciate that very much.


Cons for Fighting For a Diagnosis

Standing up , I believe, would cause a great deal of stress for me.  Not only would I  have to confront individuals who I "assume" assert a certain power over me and my quest for wellness, but I would also have to confront these core beliefs I have generated over the years with past health seeking experiences.

I would have to "relive" that terrible shame and fear and somehow find some semblance of assertion in that.  How can I be assertive when these past experiences have actually left me feeling like one of Skinner's dogs? In response to both external and internal shaming ( mostly internal)  I have chosen to stay  tucked in a corner, assuming I will be painfully zapped if I step over the line.  I am terrified of stepping over the line.

Now this is all on me and what my mind has done with past experiences...how it perceived it, interpreted it, filed it and retrieves it. If there has to be one in this story, my mind is the villain here...I know that.  Yet the idea of  having to stand up for myself and "fight" it and all the villains it creates out there ...is terrifying. I doubt if I have the physical or mental energy to do so and as I continue to get more and more tired, the less I have.

My  mind is already so busy, my plate is already so full with just trying to get by. How am I going to add this struggle to my life and expect to stay well?


The Physical Level Pros and Cons for Surrendering Without A Diagnosis

Pros for Surrendering

Surrendering is easier.  I am already hiding in the corner, afraid to venture forward am I not? Learned helplessness makes surrender much, much easier. I can just sigh in relief and do the best to make this little corner I am stuck in as comfy and as homey as possible.

If I surrender, I don't have to exert the energy I feel I don't have. 

I don't have to risk the intense pain of shaming I experienced in the past when I asserted that something was indeed wrong with my body to others who didn't have the time to look beyond the obvious.

The emotional pain of my health seeking has always been much more intense than the pain I experienced /experience physically. I can handle the physical pain. It seems to be mentally and emotionally safer to surrender.

Cons

On the physical level, maybe the surrendering I would be doing would be more of a "giving up"?

Maybe it would be more motivated by a fear than by Love, by ego's need to avoid than Self's need to expand? 

I know it would definitely cost my mind and my body wellness if I surrendered.  Am I ready for that?

 Besides maybe instead of surrendering I need to deal with those core beliefs that have dominated my life for so long and begin chipping away at them once and for all.  Every time I stand up for myself in my health seeking, as terrifying as it may be, there is a chance that instead of being buried by more shame I will be able to  take a chunk of old destructive belief away. Isn't there?

Deeper Level Pros and Cons for Fighting For A Diagnosis

Pros

It comes back to my responsibility to take care of my body so Who I really am can use this vehicle in order to fulfill my purpose here. The Course calls the body a teaching and learning tool, a means of communication. 

I can't pour from an empty cup and if my energy continues to deplete , I won't be able to fulfill my purpose.

 If my function is to use the medium of words to express, teach, offer some semblance of beauty ( okay that sounds a little grandiose lol) I need a healthy body and mind to do that with.  I need a body period. And if this is something...I may lose that.

So maybe Self wants me to stand up to preserve the body and mind so It can be expressed.

Cons

Just these words alone speak tons on why Self would not want this: Struggle Against, Fight, Resist.  These are not words that sit well with Self, with the grace and ease that Life is meant to be. 


Deeper Level Pros and Cons For Surrendering

Pros

I want what Self wants.  I know that is the only way I will finally be free of suffering.

Just the word itself sounds so sweet to Self.  Surrender!

This whole idea of letting go that which is unimportant like fighting, struggling, against, labelling, naming, diagnosing, other-validation, illness, body etc etc is what getting to know Self requires.

This absurd notion that I will be harmed if I am not diagnosed is ridiculous.  My body may be harmed but I won't be.  I am not this body.  When I surrender then, I am simply surrendering the things I do not need to cling to, to defend and attack for.

My mind may be disturbed by this surrender and not knowing but what a wonderful opportunity to heal the mind.  This surrender will be the ultimate of healings.

Letting go and Letting God will bring  the greatest peace!  I want peace. More than anything... I want peace.

I see no cons for surrendering at this Level.

All is well!

All About "Me"?

What is thine is mine, and all mine is thine.
Marcus Tullius Cicero


I am sure you do not want to keep hearing about my silly life dilemmas nor do I want to keep rambling on about them. 

Well that is somewhat of a lie...Truth is, ego likes when I create written story from my circumstances.  It loves it when I paint myself into a tragic heroine with a few twisted adjectives.  And, sigh, ego still gets behind the wheel of my psyche more times than I like. But the Self I so want to listen to... knows better and wants more from my experience of Life than a story in my head. At the same time, it reminds me that my function here is to use words and stories to communicate a greater learning.

So...anywaaaay...I want to explain why, you hear so much about my physical and  emotional experiences from Self's perspective.

Giving Birth

 I write my story here because it tells me to( figuratively, not literally).  I feel the labor pains and they only get worse and more demanding until I deliver what is calling to be delivered. Ever try stopping a woman from delivering a baby at nine months? Doesn't work. Nature is the driving force and we must obey her demands.

Writing is as natural to me as giving birth.  My body and mind absorb all the emotion and images of my life and allow them to grow in the center of my being for a gestational period  until they are ready to come out.  All emotional energy is meant for external release.  At my proverbial nine months I need Something to help me deliver and express. The  page is the midwife that catches all this energy  for me when the time comes.

Maternal Role/Teaching Role

My words are like my children...I do not own them, nor can I control how they come out of me and what they look like or are like....  just as I do not own or am able to determine the appearance of the actual children I gave birth to. They just come from me for a much greater purpose than being "My" children or "my" words or "my" story! There really is no need for "my" anything is there?   What I give birth to are expressions of Something/No-thing so much greater than the little me, I call myself. It really isn't about me at all?

Say what crazy lady? You certainly seemed to have a lot of whiny  "me-me-me" in your entries.

Yes ...I know.  I don't intend to but the "me" comes out as it is meant to.  I sit here to teach "others" and when I look down after a few moments I see the page riddled with "I"s and "me"s.  It's like "WTF(front)?   I recall, then, this wonderful truth from A Course : we must teach as we learn, and we learn as we teach.  We need to clarify our own ideas and strengthen them by teaching them. A good teacher clarifies his own ideas and strengthens them by teaching them. Teacher and pupil are alike in the learning process. ACIM-T-4:I:1:1-2.  The greatest classroom is Life and as I learn the lessons through my particular life circumstances , albeit, not always clearly, I feel the need to share that learning so I cement it in my head as I attempt to open your eyes.

Mind does step in to help with the teaching and the learning. You see I recognize that my role here on the page is to be a vehicle for these words to come through and once through I do have a responsibility to feed them with my mind, clean them up, dress them up, teach them  and  discipline them to some degree. Otherwise,  these words would  scatter and scamper randomly and mischievously everywhere. They would not eventually serve the world in some way as they are meant to.  Isn't that what we do for all our children because we want them someday to make a difference?

Mine Gets Us to Thine

Writing comes from what we know.  It comes from some place deep inside us. It is a compulsion to express what is within that drives me.  Like a drug addict I have very little control over that compulsion...nor do I necessarily want to have control. I need to "express" verbally what I experience and think I know.  As long as I still think in terms of ego, there is going to be a lot of "I", "me", "my" and "mine" in my words and at this point not a whole lot of "Thine". 

But "Thine" is the ultimate goal. I use my mind which is still so ego centered to raise these verbal children.  My mind knows the goal is to connect to other minds like it.  It knows that  these "me" s are relatable ?  And will help to take me, and hopefully others, to the "Thine" of our experience here.

So yeah...I go on and on about my self  and sometimes it is purely ego motivated  and therefore somewhat self-destructive for that reason.  But even that is a positive use of words...If what I write eventually embarrasses "me", diminishes "me", cause "me"  to make a fool of "my"-self..."me" loses its significance and I become just that much closer to "Thine." Do I not?

So I will probably continue to relate what I learn back to my very little human experience.  Bear with me.

It is all good.

The Teacher Is Dancing Inside My Chest

In your light I learn how to love.

In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,

where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,

and that sight becomes this art.

(Excerpts from The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, 1995.

After I prayed today and came here to my writing, as I usually do to gain perspective...I found a page of Rumi's poems open on my desk top.  I know I didn't open them  but there they were!  The above poem called to me even if it didn't seem to directly apply to my prayer request.  I felt compelled to share it here.

Then when I sat down all teary eyed and defeated...this came out...boom...like the water from my eyes.  Go figure! I got up feeling a heck of a lot better then when I sat down. 

I think I am meant to write poems...even sucky ones that could never be called "art" lol. Maybe that is where I will find the answers I am looking for...in my poems.  How cool is that? :)

It is all so good.

Recess

I have been sitting here for so long and I am so very tired. 
I want this to be over. 
I want the bell to ring so I can escape out there
into the sunshine I have been missing out on.
I feel helpless in this lesson…
it is like advanced calculus to a mind that is just learning long division…
I cannot make sense of it.

I have been here before.
There may be different textbooks, different classrooms,
but  You, the same teacher, in different clothing, offer me …
the very same lesson,  again and again,
explaining without words  
that I must master this before I can advance.
But I cannot make sense of any of it. 
 
I try to solve the  problems on my own but I don't know where to begin.
I press my pencil so hard upon the paper
 the lead breaks in frustration….
You just hand me a new pencil and motion for  me to begin again. 
“What is the point?” I ask…
"What am I to learn and when will I ever need this stuff? "
You just point to the page  and usher  me to continue.
 
“I am in pain!!! Am I just to ignore that??” I shout “What does it all mean?"…
You just shake your head as you walk back and forth past me …
slowly, purposefully, gracefully…saying nothing.
“Is this body not worth saving?  This mind? Am I to let it go?”,
I call out again to your back.
No answer comes from your silent mouth. 

“Do I give others control of my body…let them have it? 
Let them do what they will with it as it shrivels into dust?" 
You just smile at me then, your eyes twinkling with laughter
but still You say nothing.
 
“What if this thing consumes me?”
You nod in approval as if that would be a good thing. 
You tap the desk in front of me again, a cue to keep working.

I look down at the page…it is garbled nonsense. 
I fear I will never understand it. 
I feel the tears falling from my blurry, unseeing eyes
onto the scribbled messages before me,
leaving puddles of confusion everywhere,
obscuring the little bit that does make sense. 
Even my name in the upper right hand corner
gets washed away.
"This is a mess." I say to  You, the Being Who doesn't seem to hear me...
 "I know nothing. I am nothing." 
I bend my head and sob.

With that, I feel Your hand on my shoulder…
supporting me,  guiding me with no more than a gentle touch. 
The noisy clock on the wall stops ticking…
I can feel the breath entering and leaving my body
in a perfected rhythm beyond my control. 
I feel my heart being beaten by a drummer I cannot see.
I feel the pencil in my hand and somehow know it is a part of me,
everything is a part of me.
For the briefest of seconds, I understand everything by understanding nothing. 
I feel the most precious peace in not knowing.
It all makes perfect sense.

You smile at me in approval before you  walk away from my desk
and leave the classroom,  
with the door remaining wide open behind you.

The bell rings. 
I jump up.
Is it time to go? 
I look up to the clock that resumes its ticking
and feel the pain once again in my body. 
I sigh loudly. 
It is only recess.

Dale-Lyn, March 2020

Surrender! Surrender!! Surrender!!

When you feel tired, it is because you have judged yourself as capable of being tired. ..You are not really capable of being tired, but you are very capable of wearying yourself.  The strain of constant judgment is virtually intolerable.
ACIM-T-3:VI:5

I am tired.  It feels physical but I am learning it is so much more than that.

The Intolerable Strain

I am so struggling with this health issue, with the pain and the reason/answer for it...a reason, I discovered today, after four months of waiting, I may never get on the physical level. I felt this deep, deep and very familiar sense of hopelessness this morning and realized once again a pattern is repeating in my life.  I just felt such confusion and defeat and asked out loud in a grief stricken voice ( crazy lady, right? :)) :

"Why am I getting this lesson again...why am I once again facing a physical change in my body that includes the pain experience that will go invalidated, the cause undetermined...the pain untreated? Why does  it keep happening in my life again and again?" 

Why Does This Keep Happening?  A Deeper Meaning!

I had this strong impulse to do one of two things: either crumble to the ground in a big pile of beaten down mush or run away  by making one big life change that takes me away from everything and everyone that could put me in this position again.  Not that others are putting me in this position but it seems that something related to ego often stands in the way between me and validation for what is very, very real to my body (if not to who I am beneath the body) .  It just seems too coincidental to be anything but serendipity. I figure there must be a reason for it...a lesson to be learned.  I don't know what that is yet.

Letting Go!

This overwhelming feeling lead me to bow my head and pray for guidance through this.  I asked to be shown  if I am to surrender my body to whatever circumstances are out there for  a reason I do not understand.  You do not have to explain why, I prayed,...just let me know that I do not have to seek to make others aware of what is going on in it. I honestly believe if I can put an end to that  seeking I will be able to manage the pain then...I will be able to take care of it myself then...I will be able to cope then...I will find peace then. 

A Protector of Body?

I want that!  I want to let completely go. This struggle I had with the recent body changes, however,  had little to do with pain or what it could be but with this idea that, as a protector and caretaker of this vehicle I travel around in...it is my responsibility to do whatever I can to get it looked after even if that means driving it or pushing it into shops,  insisting that the "body mechanics" diagnose and treat the problem. I also thought I had to push back a barrier that stood between me and the inside of that shop, a barrier that was preventing other women from getting in too. That is a big responsibility to carry for someone whose greatest human weakness is their shame, a shame often instigated by health seeking. That did nothing but exhaust me and destroy this idea I had of "me"...in the past. Why am I doing it again?

Not a Hypochondriac or a Paranoid Schizophrenic

I may come off as a hypochondriac with a conspiracy paranoia. I have mentioned other pain before in the chest, pelvis, back, arm and  and shoulder.  That does seem like a lot!

In all fairness I am doing nothing but following orders, albeit reluctantly.  I do not insist on tests!  I probably refuse more testing than I ever accept.  I asked for one echocardiogram once and I demanded an Xray of my arm when I fell two years ago because I couldn't put any weight on it during yoga for eight weeks. I did suggest the possibility of a pelvic ultrasound in 2017 when that left lower pelvic pain started to keep me up at night ( thought it was my endometriosis or a cyst on my ovary).

I never asked for these recent tests or insisted they be done but once ordered I wanted them done yes...(well all but teh ultrasound...definitely didn't want or need another one of those!) I thought the tests would bring be closer to an answer...So I agreed to testing and I waited and waited and waited...consumed by the "not knowing"...The delays and the explanations I got about the findings... did not make sense to my rational mind. That is where the perceived "barrier" came into play.

 I feel what I feel...I know there is something there!

Figure it Out Myself or Fight the System?

This mind that has a need to put puzzle pieces together, connect dots, make sense of things in an intellectual and conceptual way keeps pulling me back into a game I never wanted to play in the first place.  It is telling me there is indeed something going on here. It wants a diagnosis! Like I did in the past, if I had all my records ( not just the reported "judgements" of others) I probably could put the pieces together. Sigh! But that takes so much energy.

I just don't have the energy to "fight" nor do I want to spend my life resisting or struggling against what is.  This is what is.  I have had  another body change for over four months of "not knowing" and the 'systems'  file is likely  going to get closed on that without me ever knowing what it is. That is what is in my external world experience. 

Pushing Against What Is or Surrendering To It?

Do I push against that what is or do I surrender to it?  Pushing brings stress, exhaustion, anger, suspicion, fear, defense, attack and possibly prolongation of my body's life span.   Surrendering, on the other hand,  brings acceptance, growth and  peace even if it brings an earlier  end of this physical form. How much do I want peace?

I guess, I know what I want. I want to stop wearying myself by finally putting  aside the strain of constant judgement. I choose peace! I want to surrender!  I want to surrender!

Hmm!  All is well!

Heart and Head

Keep the heart in God and the head in the world.
Hindi saying

Sometimes I can look at all the stressors in front of me and find precious space between me and them.  Other times I am sucked right back into the muddy puddle of life events.  It is overwhelming when that happens but I can still pull myself out. Though the night time awakenings are challenging,  I do good throughout the day it seems...writing, meditating, being mindful, doing yoga and going back to my breath again and again. I am doing good in my practice.

As I walk down the halls in the morning dishes in the sink and piles of clothes waiting to be folded greet me.  I notice what "has to be done" around me and wonder why it never seems to get done or stay done.  I am just so tired! I breathe and sit with my tea before I "do" anything. I open up the door to home.

I do the menial tasks of living as best as I can.  My mind reprimands me again and again throughout the process that it isn't good enough.   I take my mind back to the moment and when I go to the computer to write...I feel welcomed home by a loving family of words.


Then I will get twinges of pain and am reminded of that area.  I check it.  It is still there.  No smaller. I still have no idea what is on my MRI and what they are going to do with it. It has been over four months since the symptoms began.   I will also get that uncomfortable  feeling about the way it has all been dealt with and feel an even heavier weight descending on me. I catch it happening. I  squish that feeling  back down and get back to breath.  I come home.

I see the bills and wonder how I will pay everything, how I will pay the mortgage when the time comes.  Maybe I should sell?  Maybe it is all too much?  It just seems like too much to worry about when I feel this way.  I flip the bills over. I step back.  I find space.  I meditate.  I come home to Self again.

I will encounter reminders that my children are in need and looking to me for answers.  I will handle the "in your face" stuff but file the other things away for the "day when I am feeling better", "when I have more money to help them out" ...all the while not sure if that day will ever come.   I meditate, listen to some words of wisdom, read or write some more and I come back to Self.

We get a collect call from the institution D.'s son is in and I feel that sickening feeling in my gut.  He is going to be released soon and to what???  To the exact same life he had before?   I breathe in and I breathe out.  I come home again. 

After a yoga class I feel the heaviness in my chest, the dizziness and fatigue and know the ticker is acting up.  My body feels what my mind is storing way.  I sigh and settle down in front of the TV to relax and numb...I may not come home but at least I am not lost in thought.

I read something deep and spiritually significant when I go to bed.   I sigh...ready to sleep.  But the dog wets again and I feel the heaviness of having to take care of one more thing when my body screams for sleep.  I feel myself losing it, my voice sharp and loud,  my movements stern...The steps I leave on the earth become angry ones instead of peaceful.  I catch myself.  I breathe again....in and out...in and out.   I mindfully speak softly, move slowly and step gently.  I come home again.

I do good...to come back to Self from mind's frenzied drama throughout the day...but then I wake up at three in the morning with pain and, "slurppppp",  back in to mind I am sucked.  It is like I am getting really good at spiritually disconnecting and observing from a distance what is happening in my life...but... mind hisses in those early morning hours like a neglected lover,

"Yeah ...so what?  You still have to deal with these things physically, you know? You may be a spirit having a human experience...but you are still having a human experience.  Deal with that!!!"

I have to wonder if I am dealing with all these things physically in the  way I should. They are not going away even if I am feeling more peaceful.  That's where I am at.

  I am doing pretty good keeping  the "heart in God"...which is the most essential part of Life. I just need some help getting through the "head in the world"  part which is minor in comparison but still necessary. I will figure it out.

All is well.