Miracles News

April-June, 2014

True Healing Is a Change of Mind

by Rev. Gail Hamley, O.M.C.

Rev. Gail Hamley The world you see but shows you how much joy you have allowed yourself to see in you, and to accept as yours. And, if this is its meaning, then the power to give it joy must lie within you. (T-21.Intro. 2:7-8)

This quote is particularly interesting to me because I notice how one moment I can be in the throws of judgment and the next I can be laughing and full of joy or vice versa and nothing has changed except my perception! Certainly an extraterrestial being looking into my mind would declare me insane. Yet this is how I (and all of us) live our lives, moment by moment. To bring this home a bit, I will share a recent experience. Truly, God works in miraculous ways and uses everything for our healing!

January is my birthday month and I was gifted with many opportunities to go out to dinner and celebrate. To my surprise, many of my men friends from years ago returned to visit over dinner in honor of my birthday. Dinner after dinner after dinner, I was celebrated. After the flurry of activity, I went into a deep depression. Wow, so unexpected. Was I having too much fun? But in this darkness I began to judge and find fault with them and with myself. They were too critical, too self-absorbed, too this or too that. Then one night I had a dream. In the dream were two men. Each man held all of the characteristics I had attributed to the men in my ‘waking’ life. In the middle was me. Without going into all the details of this extraordinary dream, I began to understand that the men in my dream were me. (Carl Jung would be proud). All the characteristics I had attributed to them were aspects of myself.

The dream was so deep and meaningful that I could not forget it. This experience caused me to recall Jesus’ words about our sleeping dream and waking dream being the same. I saw how I was judging the dear men who had come back into my life and that their true gift to me was to heal me. This was the crux of the entire scenario: My entire life I had the opinion that I needed to heal my relationships with men. After three painful marriages and a number of unsuccessful dating experiences, I believed that the men I chose in relationship were unhealthy and unsafe. I gave up. Healing was not going to happen in this lifetime.

I had forgotten to ask myself what healing meant to me. That may have been the first step in true healing, for it is always a change of perception, a change of mind. But, I continued to blame others instead. However, in a flash of insight, I Realized that this healing had to take place within me! Duh! How long had I been studying ACIM?? As long as I perceived that there was something wrong with them (which is what I had been doing to protect myself from love), then my perception would always be cloudy with fear.

The veil dropped. Only love is Real. I recalled all of the wonderful things the men in my life have done for me — all of the small considerations like opening the door for me, or fixing a broken towel rod, or painting a white room red. I remembered their hand on my back, their hand reaching for mine, and their voice as they read to me when I was sick, the movies that made us laugh, the walks… so many beautiful memories.

Perhaps they were not to stay in my life any longer than they did. I had labeled them toxic in some instances. Now I have a deeper understanding of them and of myself. The only toxicity is of a judging mind that thinks it must protect. The next part of Chapter 21 is called “The Forgotten Song” and I am grateful that the rhythm of joy and gratitude have been recalled within me. The Song of Love is always there and never really forgotten.

Rev. Gail Hamley is a Pathways of Light minister living in Tustin, California.

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