A Course In Miracles teaches, that an illness is a manifestation of erroneous thinking.
This teaching is such a fitting one right now, with the collective wellbeing of our world being in a disturbed state.
Yes, there is immense suffering, fear, and a state of nervous system hijack – loss of life of our fellow men at a mass scale, a total shake-up of our lives (day to day, and long term), a period of isolation and #physicaldistancing which for some can be a very difficult time (especially in abusive environments).
Contraction, separation, stress, anxiety, fear and uncertainty – these are just some words that aptly describe the current mood around the globe.
But this is also a wake-up call, a nudge, a very promising guide to the end of an era of fearful consciousness. As Tara Brach says, “May whatever is happening help to serve awakening of this heart”.
I like to think of this analogy – if life has to offer me a lesson it’ll start with a little tap on the head, if I manage to sort my stuff (the underlying ego-driven belief/ attitude), great, I suffer some, and I am through.
If however, I do not wake up with the tap, then at some point it becomes a brick that falls over the head, and it can come in various ways – a cancer diagnosis, the death of a loved one, a miscarriage, a big financial loss, betrayal etc. – and that sometimes works to teach us the only lesson that matters.
So, what is the lesson?
LOVE YOUR SELF.
I love this quote:
All you need is already within you, only you must approach it with reverence and love.
Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors. Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign of the love you bear for your self, all I plead with you is this: make love of yourself perfect. Deny your self nothing, give yourself infinity and eternity, and discover that you do not need them; you are beyond
Excerpted from “I AM THAT – talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj”, by Maurice Frydman.
Suffering – of any kind and magnitude – stems from identification with a separate, limited identity, relating to the body, senses, sense perceptions, and this activates the fight-flight-freeze response (the sympathetic nervous system), driven mainly by, fear, and survival.
The only antidote to fear, you ask?
LOVE.
Love heals
Anything that hurts, anything we’re aversive to, is a projection of our fear-based thoughts. The only way to true healing is acknowledging the fear, allowing it to be there, pausing in the experience, being mindful, and bringing unconditional positive regard and compassion to it.
Marianne Williamson tells this little story in her book “A Return To Love” –
When a child takes a cut finger to his mother, the mother does not say “bad cut”. The mother kisses and loves the cut finger, which belongs to her child, and therefore, to her, and that loving acceptance heals.
I believe that if each of us can just bring an honest, kind, and a loving attention to our lives, right here and now, with non-judgment, and lead with the mantra “This belongs. Yes, this too”; that is the very moment we are on the path to radical healing.
Rumi writes:
Don’t turn your head,
Keep looking at the bandaged place.
That’s where the light enters you.
A vast space opens up in us, and everything that we are experiencing in any given moment, becomes included, as it is, sans labels and stories. It feels like pure freedom. Every time we are even faintly connected to this spaciousness (you may know it as Spirit, God, Divine, Source), we are more aware of our true essence; and our true essence is love, pure light, healing, and connectedness.
That’s exactly how wellbeing, and wholeness feels – spacious, open, light, flowing, and loving.
So, I invite you, right now, to bring mindful attention to whatever it is you are experiencing, allow and include it, let it belong, and just be willing to bring loving kindness to it.
Tara Brach says:
We cannot will acceptance and love, but, we can be willing