Let Your Life Speak

As this blog post was percolating in my mind, my daughter was sharing some frustration around a situation in my granddaughter's life. This next weekend, there are two events she really wants to participate in. The two events do not usually conflict, but this year they are on the same weekend. My granddaughter would prefer to do part of one (a youth retreat), so she can do both (a ride with her dad), and her mom was OK with that option. 

My daughter had figured out a way to get my granddaughter back for the ride with her dad, as her focus was very much on creating a win-win, but that solution did not seem acceptable to leader of the retreat. His point of view was that my granddaughter had to choose one or the other. My daughter felt that his position was unnecessarily harsh. 

As I listened, I could understand my daughter's feelings. 

Suddenly I remembered (and shared) the story of the butterfly struggling to get out of the cocoon. As challenging as it is to watch the struggle, it is vital to realize that the very struggle is necessary because it is thinning the body to enable the butterfly to take flight when it is fully emerged. 

Without saying anything else, my daughter thanked me, and we ended the conversation. 

I was imaging how this situation was such a gift to my granddaughter, providing her the important learning of being at ease when making choices, staying peaceful in the midst of negotiations, being respectful to her own wants and needs as well as to the wants and needs of others. I could see such win-win, right there along side the present circumstances.

You have to love how things are so connected…. 

I was reading from Forty Seven Stories of Jesus about Jesus and several of his followers. Along their way, they came upon a young boy with a donkey. The donkey had wounds on its legs, looked very undernourished, and so was struggling under an unbearable load. No amount of the boy's prodding and whipping was helping that donkey to move.

According to the story, Jesus offered the boy some help. He began to transfer the load off the beast. Jesus and those with him picked up the load, then Jesus led the donkey to a nearby stream. 

As Jesus began to tend to the donkey's wounds, and then feed the donkey, he easily engaged the young man with questions about his life: Where was he going? Where did he live? What else was part of his life? What did he enjoy? 

Reading that story about Jesus made me think of the words of Pamela Chappell's "Peace Cannon." If you have not heard it before or have not listened to it in a while, take a few moments now and enjoy her amazing musical invitation to let your life speak. 

 That is probably the true answer to the question, "What would Jesus do?"

A wonderful photo of my beautiful friend, Pamela Chappell.

Retreat

As the saying goes, and miles to go before I sleep…. It has been a wonderFUL couple of weeks since my last blog post. I have already written about some of the specifics in my article for the November Beyond Mastery newsletter, so you will read about those when that comes out (or you can sign up here). 

The past three days were spent at a silent meditation retreat in Howell, Michigan. When I mentioned my planning on going to one colleague, this was his response: "Debra, you're really going to be silent for 3 whole days ????  3 long days ?? Ha Ha..........."

The amazing gift that comes from Noble Silence within a group on retreat is how clearly you can see that the only things that get in your way are within you. The habit patterns of blame and shame (See The Drama Triangle), mercifully, fall away, and you are left there with the invitation to make something beautiful from your experience.

I was rooming with two other women, neither of which I know very well. After the last sitting meditation of the first evening, two of us went to bed. It was some time later the third came in to our room, turning on lights, opening and closing doors, opening (or crinkling) something, as she did her bedtime preparations. 

The annoyance seemed to go on and on and on and on, but, thankfully aware of the gift that is ever-present, I was able to have compassion for my roommate and myself trying to sleep. 

I forgave myself for any time in the past I was interrupting another. 

I made up stories about how this woman must live alone so she was not used to being respectful of others. 

I acknowledged the challenge she must be having trying to find everything she needed in the mostly darkened room. 

Most of all, I was able to ask, "Can I keep an open heart for all of us through all of this?" 

As I was able to lie there in the stillness, I was infinitely grateful for the practice and for this woman who was gifting me so beautifully....

As one of the meditation teachers said, there is no experience in the world that is more rich in practice, more nurturing to body and soul, than retreat. We may be going on retreat with the intention to get away from it all, but while we are on retreat, we find ourselves in love with the ALL THAT IS.

What Will It Take?

Many of you know my personal healing journey of when I had been given a diagnosis of degenerative disc disease—L4, L5, and S1, and osteoarthritis of the hip. I was told that I needed to have a hip replacement but, since I was only 38 years old at the time, it was suggested I wait. Otherwise, it was thought I would have one hip replacement, and it would only last 10 years, then I could only have one more, and would be left with no options at 58 years old.

I was evaluated at the Post Polio Clinic at University of Michigan. There I was told I had not actually had polio when I was five years old, even though I had been diagnosed with (and had been treated for) polio in 1955. I was prescribed a lumbar support, a shoe lift, and physical therapy. I was taking 1,000 mg of Naprosyn daily.

With everything that was done to me, my symptoms got worse. I used to say that I had bad days and worse days. At that time of my life, I never had a day where I was pain free.

The medical doctors told me I would not be able to work, I would be in constant pain, and I was told that I would never have quality of life. I am so grateful that you don't have to take bad advice, even when it is delivered as a hypnotic command, and even when you paid for it!

One of my friends was a nurse. She needed some quick CEUs so she attended a Healing Touch Level 1 workshop. She came back from that, brought me her manual, and gave it to me saying, "I don't know why I took this, but it is you." I did not know anything about chakras, or auras, or meridians, but I knew a lot about chronic pain, and one of the techniques said it was for relief of chronic pain. Learning about energy healing gave me my life back, and I have since dedicated my life to sharing that with others. Now, over 60 years of age, I bike, hike, and totally enjoy life!

Dr. Paul Alfalla, chiropractor, shaman, and healer, with Amelia.

Today while I listened to Dr. Mary Jo Bullbrook's Wise Chats internet radio interview with Dr. Paul Alfalla, a chiropractor from Lima, Peru, I kept wondering, "What will it take?" I know what it took for me to open up to a paradigm of healing that goes beyond the physical. I have been honored to witness what it took to open up many clients, including Jane Foster who is an amazing spokesperson for Imagine Healing. 

It may not take a universal movement at all. No, when  it is time, it is time. Thank god that is true.  

Molecules

Last weekend I heard a powerful story about very conscious woman who broke her toe. The toe was quite painful, and she was not able to walk. She was (understandably) upset, thinking about the lost opportunity to enjoy the lake for the rest of the summer. She thought, "I’m not going to be able to walk up and down the hill to the lake. I’m not going to be able to swim. It’s going to ruin my summer.” 

She works with a nonphysical guide/teacher. He asked her, “Is the toe ruining your summer or are the fears about it ruining your summer? Can you simply remember the whole toe? All that’s happened are that certain molecules have separated. That’s all bone is; it’s molecules. The impact separated them. Now they have to remember that they belong together and re-adhere.” 

He suggested she sing to her toe as she was lying on her bed with her foot elevated. While skeptical at first he says, "She began to just sing OOOOOMMMMM. OOOOOMMMMM. She began asking the toe in each moment, what tone do you want next? And offering the tones."

She went to sleep that second night, and the third morning she woke up realizing that the foot really wasn’t very painful. He said, “It is knit. You can stand on it.” So she gingerly got out of bed and put her weight on it. It was tender, a bit, but not excruciating like a broken toe.

 He said, “Wiggle it.” 

Some wiggle. It wiggled without pain. 

He said, “Just be careful with it because it’s still healing.”

The most amazing part of this story is his closing comments:

"There was nothing to be done. She simply allowed it to express its wholeness. So she did not fix the toe, she simply invited the toe to express its wholeness and got out of its way, in a sense."

This idea has been part of my process for a good many years now. When I was learning Healing Touch, I remember Janet Mentgen saying our role as healers is simply to see the wholeness, in spite of the conditions. When I am most clear, this makes perfect sense to me. You know you are not just your body. Even scientists realize you are energy, and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. 

In spite of the current conditions, at this very moment, you are whole. I am whole.

YOU are untouched by any trauma. I am untouched by any trauma. YOU are unscathed by any history. I am unscathed by any history.YOU are unmarred by any accident, illness, or injury. I am unmarred by any accident, illness, or injury.

What comes to mind most freely when you remember that we are just molecules? 

It is the truth. 

I am sure to be allowing this truth to permeate my heart and mind deeply over the next few weeks as I navigate the anniversary of the surgery that removed an abdominal mass. 

I know there is continued healing happening within and without. 

I think I will be singing to my abdomen in the days to come. 

I will start with one of my favorite songs, All is Well, by Karen Drucker….