Together, We Light the Way

MY MIND IS NOT IN MY BODY

My Mind Is Not In My Body

I used to be embarrassed by how much trouble I had with some of the simple spiritual concepts. It seems I work on the same issues forever. This became especially noticeable when I started writing. I found that I was writing about the same thing over and over. But I can see with the progression of the writing that this is just my learning curve.

I have written several times about my efforts to control my weight. I felt kind of funny writing about it at all. After all, I shouldn?t care what my body looks like. It is just an illusion. There are lots of things more important than my body size. Perhaps I should concentrate on some of those things and relegate my body to the unimportant pile.

But no, I don?t think so. I think everything I encounter in my illusion is an opportunity to practice forgiveness. I don?t think my body is important; I don?t think anything in the illusion is important, except as how I choose to use it. In that way all things are equally important, and to line them up in any other order is a mistake. On one side I have the Atonement, forgiveness. On the other I have tools with which to work toward Atonement.

After years of dieting and fretting over everything I eat, I decided to use this issue for spiritual growth and started asking the Holy Spirit to show me a new way to see it. It has seemed like a slow process to me, but I understand that I have a lot of ingrained beliefs about food and my body that I have been unwilling to relinquish all at once. I have made some progress, though.

My most recent step up the ladder has been a decision to give up all dieting of any kind. I am asking the Holy Spirit to guide my eating. My prayer is something like this: ?I don?t know what anything means. I won?t decide for myself. I ask the Holy Spirit to decide for me.? I do not do this perfectly. Sometimes I forget all about my new intention. I eat without asking first for help in choosing. I worry about what I ate and how it will affect my body. I forget that I don?t know what my body should look like and that I have surrendered that outcome to the Holy Spirit. But, the more I do remember, the easier it becomes and the more automatic it is.

It is interesting to see how this works. I never seem to want the same type of food twice in a row, and I don?t eat very much unless I am not paying attention. It feels good to eat like this and it feels peaceful. I had not realized how much at war I was with my body. I am learning that we can choose peace in everything we do, even in our eating choices.

I am also receiving insights as I am willing to consider them. I trust that this is moving along at the speed that is best for me. I accept that if I could be aware of all truths at once I would, and that if I don?t know everything at once, then it is because I need to take it a step at a time. The trust feels peaceful, too. I like it better than warring with myself about how fast I should be learning and what it meant that I wasn?t living up to that expectation.

One day recently I was talking to the Holy Spirit about my body. I was thinking that I would be more comfortable if I lost a few pounds and wondering if this is something that I could do without dieting. The thought that came to me is that my mind is not in my body. My body is in my mind. My body is just a figment of my imagination. It has no power of its own. My body cannot do anything without my mind. It cannot get sick or get fat unless I make that decision. Workbook Lesson 152 says, ?Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose.

Of course I can be thinner. What am I thinking? If my body is in my mind, then all changes to the body are made in my mind. Losing weight has nothing to do with what I eat. It is a natural result of what I think. It is a decision I make. I decided that my body will be this size, so now I change my mind and decide differently. It may take me a while to become comfortable with this new thought and to picture it in my body because I am not used to making these decisions consciously, but it is really no different than what I have always done unconsciously. So, why do I get sick? Why do I get fat? Could this really be what I decided? Am I insane?

Well, in a word, yes. I did decide this and I am insane. As long as I continue to see the world through the eyes of my ego, I will continue to be insane because the ego is insane. Once I accept the premise that I am acting insanely because I am acting through the ego, all becomes clear. (Well, a lot of it becomes clear.)

I think I choose sickness and death over healing and life all the time. If I am still in the illusion, I can be sure that I am doing this at least some of the time. Sometimes when I make this choice, I do it in a very obvious way. I decide that if I eat certain things I will get fat or get sick and then? I eat them. Is that insane? Did I just choose illness and eventually death? Well, yeah, obviously I did.

Other times, my choices are not so obvious. I choose to use my body for attack. I attack my brother and I attack myself. I do this verbally, mentally, physically, with my beliefs. In the past I have attacked my partner with words in the heat of an argument. I have thought unkind things about someone and thought it didn?t count because I didn?t voice the words. It was still an attack and it attacked me first. I haven?t attacked anyone physically in a while, but when my kids were little I spanked them when I ran out of imaginative ways to get their attention. I have attacked those I love the most with my beliefs when I didn?t trust them.

All of these attacks on others is an attack on myself. If I don?t trust them, I am teaching myself that I am not trustworthy either. If I attack them in any way, I am teaching myself that I am vulnerable. Attack is always against my self and it is always seen in the body. So, I am constantly attacking my body. When I decide to attack, I am deciding on illness and death.

How do I correct these errors in thought? The Course tells us to remember that only the mind can create and that creation belongs at the thought level. Just knowing that my body is only a realistic representation of a thought in my mind is helpful in getting me started on this. It is a truth that can be hard for me to hold in my mind. The body seems so real and is so compelling. When I feel pain in my body, it is very hard to remember that the pain is really in my mind.

Of course that is the purpose of the body. It is the home of the ego and is supposed to keep me engaged so that I cannot remember that I am a powerful and very holy Son of God. My body does, indeed, engage my attention. Hardly an hour goes by that I don?t lavish some attention on my body. It seems to call out for my care and love (or hate-the ego doesn?t really care as long as it has my attention) all day long.

For most of my life I thought that how my body looked depended mostly on what I put on it and into it. I thought the condition of my body was a reflection of my weakness as I failed at one diet after another. I thought that I was my body. I thought I was weak. That is what I was teaching myself with all those failed attempts to control my body through the manipulation of form. I was teaching myself that I was weak, helpless, and less than. It was a perfect ego set up; seek but do not find. Try and fail.

It was all because I was listening to the wrong voice. My mind is so powerful, but I have been denying that power by listening to the ego as it tries to convince me of my fallibility. I convinced myself that I have no control over my body as I listened to that voice. It is time for a new Voice. The Holy Spirit speaks to me of my power, of my holiness, of my invulnerability and I can hear this Truth if I choose to listen. How the Universe must chuckle at the idea that the Son of God is somehow imprisoned in this little body.

I?ve been dreaming such a life. The most powerful force in the universe, standing on a little scale hoping the needle went down today instead of up. Gulping down pills thinking they would protect this body illusion from harm. Queuing up for a flu shot (Gosh, I hope they don?t run out before I get mine) to protect against microorganisms so tiny they can?t be seen with my eyes and yet capable of slaying this body I have come to call myself. Truly, this is a nightmare. But a nightmare is just a dream after all, and a dream is not truth.

My mind is not in this body. This body is in my mind. This body is just a mistaken thought. The Course tells us that health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly. There is a way to use the body that will lead me back to God. All things the ego has made for its own purposes the Holy Spirit will use for God if I let Him. I invite the Holy Spirit into my mind and I ask that He heal my thoughts. I will step back and let Him lead the way in this as in all things.

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