SuperForest

(via)

Gooood Morning Lovely SuperForest!

Since reading the book A Course in Miracles, I’ve been paying special attention to my body. My body, which I have happily ignored and reviled for years, has recently become a friend. A companion. A nice lil’ playmate.

So when my nice lil’ friend got a cold, I was keenly interested in what exactly was happening to it while I was “having a cold.” A Course in Miracles says that sickness is impossible if you are connected with love and eternity, so when I woke up with the sniffles, feeling congested and slow, I thought to myself: Great! Here’s a chance for the book to work.

Then I had to remember that the book did nothing in itself, that I myself was in charge. According to ACIM the sole reason that I was “sick” was that my mind was attacking my body. To cure the sickness, I had to identify which idea my mind was attacking my body with, an idea that my ego was desperately trying to hide from my loving attention. To accomplish this, I had to slow down and listen to myself.

The feeling of “having a cold” I quantified thusly:

Feelings of tension and tightness in my neck area, specifically where my head and neck join. A “swollen” feeling in my sinuses. Snot coming out of my nose. A feeling of lethargy and fatigue. A feeling like if I exerted myself too much, I would prolong the sickness. My eyes felt tired.

I would note this little laundry list of feelings with a kind of disassociated interest. The attitude I cultivated was one of happy interest in the fact that my body was alive and feeling sensations, but not trying to interpret those sensations in any way. Feeling neither negative nor positive about my “cold symptoms” I lobbed them onto an imaginary desk in my mind and asked please that they be whisked away from me.

In a whoosh, the icons of sickness I had created in my mind were whisked away, leaving the table clean. In that moment of imaginary clarity, I found myself exhaling fully, taking a deep breath, noting that I was thrusting my head forward at an angle. Breathing in, I felt my body soften, and resettle into a place of comfort and ease.

The cold symptoms I thus self treated for a few days. I would feel “coldy,” and I would instantly remind myself that my body did not have a cold, that it was my mind attacking my body with angry thoughts that was the cause of my unease. Much like a fencer will skillfully parry a thrust of the blade in his direction, the mind training taught by ACIM has given me the inner remove necessary for fending off what in the past would have effected me in a far different way. I could use my imagination to fight back the hateful effects of my ego as it thrashed around inside me, hiding from my thoughts, keeping my body distracted with “sickness.”

On day three I was lying down on our bed at the farm. Melissa was beside me. I had my face smushed into her back, between her shoulder blades. For days I had been moving at what felt like half speed, though we were still being as active as we normally are, more so even because we are about to move and there are many plates spinning. I had been asking myself over and over, what is the root cause of this feeling inside me? Thus far, I had received no answer.

Suddenly, like a Spanish galleon rising from the muddy bottom of a lake and rushing to the surface in a spume of white water, the idea that had been plaguing me surfaced and could be seen: I was mad at everyone.

Deep inside, there was a place in me that was really pissed at the human race. Our destructiveness, our needless enslavement of each other, our hundred million thousand daily cruelties. Why had we treated the planet and each other with such reckless abandon? Why had we destroyed so much and so many?

I was smiling as I thought this. Ahhhhhh, there you are my beauty, I thought. Like a splinter in my mind, the “everyone else is a shithead” idea had sat in there and pumped out toxic waste into my very central nervous system for nearly thirty years. This rotten creme puff of an idea had infected and inflected every decision I had ever made, every interaction I had ever had with anyone, ever. Until now, moth—–er, thought I.

This splinter I believe was the root of the separation idea within my mind. The final vestige of an Us Vs. Them idea that was firmly lodged in my operating system until I took the mental equivalent of a long, hot bath, and let that little sucker squeeze its way out of my ego, up into the bright attention of my will. Where I promptly flushed that lil’ nasty into nothingness.

There sits the wooden table, or the marble mantle, the surface upon which I place the things I wish to be whisked out of my mind, dealt with forever by something much more capable than myself. Upon the table I place the shabby little muddy model of the ship, now looking old, rotten, soaked, and tired. Please, oh Universe, take from me this rotten idea that there is a them to be angry at.

Whoosh!

And there I am left, clean and innocent in the present. The past has been forgiven. All sickness and symptoms and thoughts of unease have vanished. It took three days of focused breathing, soft attention, and compassionate self awareness to root out the cause of my cold, and when it came out, I felt immediately well. It’s funny to think that the common cold remedy is a form of amphetamine, meant to wind you up and keep you going. That’s funny because in my experience, if you want to deal with the root of the symptoms and not just treat the symptoms alone, you must slow down, breath deeply, and wait patiently for the Big Nasty to surface.

Sweating helps. The ocean helps. Tea helps. Lots of water and fluids help. Loving attention from others and a TOTAL denial of your “sickness” helps a great deal as well. Slow down and the funk will work its way out. You may feel a bit funky while it does, but once the idea is clear in your mind, you’ll be able to deal with it immediately and effortlessly. Well, effortlessly over time, with practice :)

Western style medicine pays no attention to the link between the mind and the body, specifically the link between our emotional state and the way we feel physically. That the two are linked is beyond question. Our culture has conditioned us to assume that when we are sick our bodies are fighting germs or infection, but if we shift the idea of sickness in our minds to one where the mind is trying to fight itself, then the power for our healing rests once more in our own capable hands.

There is no sickness. There is simply the mind trying to fight itself and attacking the body. Find the root idea behind the attack and you negate the idea of sickness. Eliminate the idea of sickness from your mind and you will never be sick.

I love you!

-Jackson