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July-September, 2021

What Does Healing Look Like to You?

by Rev. Peggy Rivera, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

I have recently given some thought to what other people’s expectations of healing are, and I wondered if people think of healing as purely about the physical body, or if mental emotional healing is enough. I think many times the perception of healing expectations is mostly about the physical. And there is nothing wrong with wanting our body to be healed.

After all the Course says God made us perfect and so I for one want to be perfect. But it also says in the Course that all healing is in the mind. When it is the mind that thinks it can be sick, then the mind is sick. So, our perception of what the body is for and what our true Self is needs correction.

During the process, if we need to take medicine or some other physical treatment, we should do that. Jesus said that alternative treatments contribute to magical thinking but fear is the greatest obstacle to healing so it is better to find comfort in physical means than to perpetuate fear.

In Text 2.IV.5:1 Jesus said, “The children of God are entitled to the perfect comfort that comes from perfect trust. Until they achieve this, they waste themselves and their true creative powers on useless attempts to make themselves more comfortable by inappropriate means.” (T-2.III.5:1)

To alleviate this fear, Jesus has said that it is better to take alternative substances that help you feel better as long as you are still seeking to develop trust. These substances are magical statements that re-enforce the belief that the body makes its own illness. So it is better to find comfort in alternative treatments while you are trying to heal. Fear sets you up to miscreate and so it is better to offer yourself comfort on the physical level for a time.

What needs to be healed is the idea that you can be sick reinforcing the thought that you can create what is not real. Identifying with the dream of bodies keeps us planted with the laws of the physical Universe. Our true self is of Spirit and cannot create any form of sickness. So, one of the key’s to healing is learning to trust Him.

“All healing is essentially the release from fear. To undertake this, you cannot be fearful yourself. You do not understand healing because of your own fear.” (T-2.IV.1:7-9)

Sometimes when I thought of the statements in the Course that talk about how we created our own illness, it really bugged me. I thought that there is no way I would create this asthma, etc. Why would I do that?

On an earthly level I believe that is true.But when you think about it from a spiritual point of view, it makes total sense because it is not my individual personality that is doing the creating. It doesn’t happen in my conscious thoughts. It happens from a separated concept out of guilt. In our separated individualized self we try to claim our power and feel guilty because we think we are trying to usurp the power of God. Although that was only in a moment, it was corrected immediately.

But God left with us a Comforter, the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that teaches us that we are not the body as we have been believing, but we are the thoughts of the changeless, all loving mind of God. In him we have our being.

This helps me realize that we do not create our own illness from our personalities but when we thought we separated, the guilt that we accepted created a thought system of punishment for ourselves — even individually.

But the Holy Spirit was given to us to show us how to find our way back out of the chaos. He teaches us that by Grace we are saved and that we are always loved, no matter what we think. He shows us how to see things differently. We then can have the knowledge to see things differently.

Jesus said, “You are the Kingdom of Heaven but you have let the belief in darkness enter your mind and so you need a new light. The Holy Spirit is the radiance that you must let banish the idea of darkness.” (T-5.II.4:1-2)

We see how it is so important to change our thoughts to Love and forgiveness for ourselves and each other. That is how we are of one mind. When we attack others, we are attacking the Sonship because it keeps us on the defensive.

When I ask Holy Spirit to help me see things differently, I feel so relieved when I sit quietly and listen and see the images that are sent to me. I often see things that happened to me in the past and I can say, “Thank you, I forgive you and I forgive myself.” As I learn to realize that when I hold no grievances then no grievances are held against me. I feel free and I feel fearless. I think that on a personal level as each one of us learns more and more about letting go of old pain and forgiveness, we all become happier and healthier. We can more easily accept the Love God showers upon us.

Being able to just be Love is very healing. Does it always result in physical healing? I don’t think we can say for sure. I think that you cannot really separate our thoughts from our physical experience. There are times when you may feel attacked by someone else unjustifiably and wonder why you are being picked on. But we then have to realize that the person who is attacking is outside of Love and he is desperately needing Love. That is when asking for the Holy Spirit’s help to see differently is very helpful.

That is when we can mentally remember the truth about them and, in our prayers, we lift them up. After a while we start feeling that release and it begins to lose power over us. That is how we can assist each other in our healing. That to me is what is meant by, “We all heal together.”

That is why I think healing is different for all of us but we are all on the same path. Each experience may seem to have a different origin like say a baby born sick maybe with cancer or something like that. I really would feel pressed if I thought that baby could create its own illness. So, when we realize that it is not the individual personality that creates illness but the entire thought system of separation that keeps us all bound in this perpetual cycle of birth and death, where we seem to be innocent victims that we need to overcome.

When we learn that we are all Love, we are all equal and without guilt, we become free.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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