The new face of a daffodil - photos by Rob
Ever pulled on an old pair of jeans and found a piece of paper scrunched up in the pocket? Maybe it was last week's shopping list, or a movie ticket from the trip to Melbourne, or a receipt for a dress you bought in 1997. Whatever it is, there was a brief recollection, "oh yeah - I remember that" before you chucked in the bin. The experience was done and dusted, no need to hang on.
Last week I found myself pulling something else out of my back pocket. An old belief I thought I'd chucked out ages ago.
I have this belief that the health of your body reflects the health of your mind. I am not alone in this. Many respected medical practitioners believe and practice from this standpoint, including the famed Deepak Chopra.
I also had an extension of this belief that went something like this: if you've got your sh*te together, then you'll always be healthy. Therefore if you get sick, there is something wrong with you. Getting sick=failure.
It took me getting cancer to knock this belief around a bit. If I was such an accomplished coach and learned personal development guru, then I would never get sick. Then I got cancer. Hmmm. Along with the cancer diagnosis I was also dealing with being a 'failed' life coach.
None of this felt very good, I can assure you. So I revamped my belief and took another look at illness, health, and success.
Who really knows why you get things like cancer? LOA types would say it was because I was in vibrational resonance with cancer. Now that just sounds plain nasty. Why would anyone choose to be in resonance with cancer?!
Now I ask for what the upside of the illness is all about. Cancer let me have six months to reflect on my life, what I really wanted, and called me to make some big decisions about what I was tolerating. It was a massive kick-start in leading a more authentic life. Cool. Cancer was a good thing for me then in this regard.
I still don't like to believe that illness=failure. That just feels bad and punishing to me. Like getting sick was an admission of being a bad student of life or something.
However, last week my health came crashing down around me with a killer fever and flu. I have been in bed for five days, dizzy, listless, and for all intents and purposes fairly catatonic.
And to be honest, I did feel like a failure. I started wondering where I had let myself down again. Had I not been looking after myself? (I had.) Was there too much stress in my life? (no - none. I don't 'do' stress anymore).
What then? Why this whopper of a bug now?
The only way forward is to look for the upside of the bad stuff and what I can learn from it moving forward.
The upside of getting sick was that I gave myself permission to read a fiction book. I have been devouring some good reading as I am really not up to anything else very creative at the moment.
Aha! So that's it! The flu lurgy was a secret subterfuge to get some good reading time in! Of course. Because when I am 'healthy', I have been playing the should game of "I don't have time for reading, I should really do something more productive like write an article or do some research."
Looks like I still have a belief stuck in my back pocket that says something like, "doing pleasurable things during work hours is not allowed." Geez. And I needed to get the flu to teach me this was one I could chuck in the bin? Maybe I need to substitute the belief "I'm a slow learner" with "I no longer need to get sick to learn important lessons about life."
If only it was as easy as emptying pockets!
Here's some more irony: the ebook I am currently working on is all about installing new beliefs...
It's all good. Time to go and sit in the sun and read something, just for the fun of it.
To your good health :)
Almond tree blossoms about to bloom
Timely post, Zoe. Just today someone asked how it is his friend who is very "up" and positive and downstreaming could get ovarian cancer. And this was right after I drove home from euthanizing a second distemper kitten wondering how I became a vibrational match to death.
ReplyDeleteI love your approach - going straight to looking at the upside. In my friend's case, when his friend received her diagnosis, she decided that was the time to reveal a big time long-held personal secret to her family, which she felt as an immense relief and actually brought the family closer together.
In my case, the upside is that I'm learning how to make peace with the cycle of life and death; learning how to trust and let go better - and remembering that energy doesn't really die anyway.
Here's to reading in the sun for fun! Thanks for sharing your valuable reminder with us.
Hi J
ReplyDeleteYeah - I love that - energy doesn't die. This comes after a dream of a friend's mum last night. She is actually dying, the dream was about saying goodbye, watching sunrise and imagining her eyes (those particular ones) would not see a sunset again - but she would simply shift her energy shape to a new form.
I think about that all the time: that energy moves from form, out of form, into form, and through form again. Like water - water, ice, vapour - it's all the same stuff, just different forms, whether you can see it or not - it's there.
Thanks for posting!
Hi Zoe,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing so personally and insightfully. Having gone through the things you have you'll be prepared to compassionately coach (the many) others who are no longer young, healthy, and still blindly attached to this incarnation.
I like your metaphor about water: ice, water, vapor in the last comment. I am looking to find or manifest that insight in cinema. Do you know of any movies in which it is already shown? Do you know of any good stories in which it is incorporated. I think cinematically it could come as special effects that resonate with plot line and setting as well as dialog (department of redundancy department :-) to give the experience depth and coherence.
Getting this insight REALLY acknowledged and incorporated into our culture could change A LOT, much of which seriously needs changing.
I'm on about creating "culture healing cinema" to help promote "wisdom culture(s)" - really the more mature aspect of each different culture, letting the paths converge toward the mountaintop.
Gotta go now and help video the Summer of Love 40th Anniversary festival.
Blessed be,
Fred
Hi Fred
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't really know any specific movies where the concept of spirit as energy like water cycle exists. I think it would be cool to have in a movie! The key would be making it different to the concept of reincarnation. Maybe the journey of a water from through a body/plant/etc would be cool. I have read the story of a water drop somewhere...
Keep us up to date with your movie projects!