I chose healing as my topic today, because this is what I most need to learn. I don?t know everything there is to know about healing, but what I have come to understand is that healing does not take place in the body at all, and that it is the correction of my thoughts that bring about healing.
It is the mistaken thought that I can be separate from God and from my brother that cause illness. This belief system, which A Course in Miracles calls the ego, is the source of all dis-ease in the body. The Holy Spirit tells me that I am God?s holy child, that He created me like Himself, and that He has not changed His mind about me. So if I do feel separate from God, it must be in my mind that the separation has occurred. It is in my mind that the correction must be made.
These separation thoughts are reflected in my relationships as well. When a friend disagrees with me about something I have made important it feels like an attack, and so I defend myself. If I did not see us as separate who would there be to attack me? Who would I defend against? This whole thing could only happen if I believed we were separate beings with separate interests and so in competition. God created but one Son and so it is not possible that we are separate from each other. All of these thoughts began, not in creation, but in my mind. It is here that they must be healed.
When I see myself as being separate, it is as if there were this gap that existed between me and the one who is not me. It is in that little gap I imagine exists between myself and others that the seed of sickness germinates. As I mentally close that little gap, I replace the seed of sickness with the seed of healing and wholeness.
So how do I close the gap I imagine exists between myself and my brother, and myself and God? Awareness is the most useful tool that I have found; just being aware of what I am thinking, how I am reacting. Separation is such an unnatural state that it requires a lot of effort to hold it in place. Learning to recognize the kind of thinking I use to do this is the first step in the undoing process. Awareness of my emotions is helpful in this. If I feel angry, fearful, guilty, depressed, then I know that I am experiencing separation anxiety.
Anything that makes me feel unique and special signals a belief in separation. For instance, if I believe that I am a better mom than my friend is, I?ve made myself special and different from her. That thought has created a little gap between us, a place where we are not the same. The other side of the coin would be if I thought I was a worse mom than her. Again, I have made myself special, only this time I am especially bad. Good or bad, it doesn?t matter; a feeling of specialness, of uniqueness causes me to believe that I am different from my brother and therefore separate.
I have a couple of processes that I use to help me undo my separation thoughts. Each of these processes requires my willingness to be healed, but allows the healing to be accomplished by the Holy Spirit. One of these is a simple three step process which I learned from Dan Joseph in his book, Inner Healing. I use this process every day, many times a day.
The first step is to be mindful of my thoughts so that I can catch separation thoughts as they occur. One day at work, I got a call from an angry customer. Someone in the office had messed up his order and he was threatening to buy from someone else. This would have cost me a lot of money and I was really upset. The more I thought about it the angrier I got. It was a careless mistake made by someone who should know better. What did she care? It wasn?t her money. I started to notice that my neck was stiff and that and that I was getting a headache.
My anger and fearful reaction, as well as my body?s response to these separation thoughts brought me up short. I could see what I was doing, but it was hard to halt the forward movement of my reaction. But that is OK. I am not expected to do my own correction, just be willing to see things differently.
The second step is to give these thoughts which represent my beliefs, to the Holy Spirit for correction. I knew that this was not the truth and that I wanted another way to think. I asked the Holy Spirit to correct my thoughts and heal my mind of the belief in separation. I gave Him all my thoughts about being afraid of losing a customer (my belief that I was separate from God, my Source), and I gave Him all my thoughts about my brother being the cause of my discomfort (my belief in our separation).
The third step is to allow myself to feel the love and comfort of God. It is in that little space of time that I allowed the work to be done. I didn?t try to think my way out of this, making excuses for people I clearly found to be at fault. I just gave it to the Holy Spirit with the clear expectation that He would know what to do about it.
Because I did this process, I was able to release my anger, and when I spoke to the office, it was from a place of love. We figured out what went wrong and fixed the problem. If I had stayed in anger, I am sure I would not have received such cooperation, and I am equally sure I would not have been so calm and certain when I called my customer. Who knows how it might have turned out?
What makes this process different than other processes I have tried is the miracle a change in perception makes. Mostly in the past, my efforts were directed toward behavioral modification rather than true change at the level of cause. When I invite the Holy Spirit into my mind, there is a healing from outside the ego.
Another process I have found helpful is imagining. The Course suggests this and Brent Haskell describes it beautifully. Here is an example of how I use this. I had a bump on my lip that wouldn?t go away. It had persisted for several weeks, seeming to get smaller then returning to full size. The longer it stayed the more fun the ego had with it. My mom had skin cancer more than once and so I started thinking about that. I thought about getting an appointment with the doctor, but then decided to use this process instead.
I sat very still for a moment and imagined. I imagined what it would be like to know that this body is not me. I am not even in this body, but only directing it to play out my choices within this illusion. How does this feel, I asked myself, and then I allowed myself time to just sit with that feeling and to experience it. I wondered, how would it feel not to be afraid of this, and then I allowed myself to experience not being afraid.
I imagined what it would be like to know that I am spirit, the holy Son of God, perfectly created by a perfect God, completely and forever unchanged. I felt my power in God and knew that all things are my choice, and that I am free to change my mind. I allowed myself to feel that; to experience that truth. And as I allowed myself to experience the truth of who I am, I felt freedom ?begin to seep into my soul.?
Later that day, I noticed the bump on my lip was gone. My healing didn?t come because I used the right words, or said the right affirmations. It came because I allowed myself to experience the truth; that I am part of God. That I choose everything that comes into my life, and so I choose everything that leaves my life. I do this through the power that is in me as God?s Son.
That bump was just a symptom. I wanted to heal more than the symptom and so I went to the source of the problem which was my confusion about who I am. This process works because it is not about thinking, and reasoning my way out of a problem-both ego activities. It is about experiencing; being. In this experience I reached my highest Self, and so again, I went outside my ego for healing.
It is essential that I remember healing takes place from the inside out. To be truly healed, it must happen at the level of thought, not at the doctor?s office or the pharmacy. Those are just tools we use within the illusion, a way of giving ourselves permission to heal. They only work if we decide they do. If I am unable to accept healing in any other way, I take medicine and that’s ok. I am not loved any less by God because of it. I simply recognize that I am using magic and that the real healing was in my decision to recognize my union with God and my brother.
It is possible for us to heal each other. Our minds are not separate. The power of one mind can shine into another. In order to be helpful to our brother we must be very clear that sickness is an illusion. In truth, God did not create sickness so it cannot exist. Being helpful is a matter of learning to stand apart from the dream, but not the dreamer. Yes, I see that he thinks he is sick, that his body suffers, but what I know is that he is not his body. My focus is not on his apparent illness, but on his wholeness, his strength, and his perfection.
While pain is not the truth, in my illusion I certainly feel it. I would not find it helpful for someone to tell me that the migraine I am suffering is not real and neither is the pain. The reason that pain is such a convincing tool for the ego to teach separation is that it is so compelling, and so words may not be useful.
What is always useful is the joining of my brother at the level of mind. What is shared is strengthened. If I am sick, please overlook what seems to be happening in the body, and know for me that this is not who I am. That is the most helpful thing anyone can do for me. Do your best to keep your attention on that, and not to be distracted by the illusory body. In truth, the strength of your conviction will weaken my belief in sickness.
This is my practice. My body reflects my vigilance. When I am living an aware life and am allowing myself to experience my unity with God, my body is healthy. This is my condition more and more often. When I choose to live unconsciously, and I am in conflict and turmoil, my body reflects this, and I become sick. It is an excellent communication device, always keeping me up to date on how I am choosing to think.
When we are told that we need to change at the level of thought, this is what is meant. Changing my thoughts is not about chanting affirmations or self-talk about being free of addictions or being thinner, or disease free. It is about living in harmony and peace. It is about choosing to think not with the ego, but with God. It is choosing to recognize that I am not separate but am part of God with my brothers. As I choose to do this more and more often, my body will respond with health and vigor.
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