Authority

Who or what determines the people or things that we label as the Authority, the all knowing, the one that knows more than you do about yourself, your body, mind, emotions?       

I've been dealing with a skin rash issue for several months now.  It started as just a couple of dry spots on my lower leg.  I thought, "no big deal, apply some lotion and all will be well".  Which I did and then proceeded to ignore that the real answer should have been to go within and ask my body what this was really about instead of assuming and using my thinking mind.  Let's just say that now after three months of dealing with these "dry spots" spreading and each day becoming more of a distraction by becoming itchier and larger by the day, I took myself off to the doctor (the authority), whom by the way was a very nice and knowledgeable physician, who told me exactly what I already in  my mind knew which was urticaria (aka rash of unknown origin).  The doctor prescribed some steroids of both the oral and topical variety.  Yay, all set right?  Treat the rash and keep moving on getting stuff done and living life.  Wrong!!

Not once did I pause long enough to ask the burning questions of "What's really going on here?", "What is at the root of this situation that started it to begin with?", "What is it that my body is trying to tell me with these symptoms?"  Obviously I was having some type of hyper allergic/immune response.  The symptoms kept persisting and worsening in an attempt to get me to wake up and listen.  Truly listen beyond the superficial complaints of the itching and pain.  But isn't this also how we live our lives, just looking at the superficial picture in a state of reaction to what we think we see and if we aren't sure what we see then we are looking for someone else to tell us rather the consulting the only person that knows us well enough to give a true answer.  We believe that someone "out there" knows more about us then we do.  The truth is that when we take a moment to sit in the silence and consult our Inner Authority it tells us exactly what is going on and exactly what it is that our body is trying to get our mind to wake up to.   

Have you ever had a health issue that seemed as though no matter how many "health authorities" that you consulted the answers never rang true?  Or the diagnosis turned from being an acute (short lived) issue to a chronic (long-term, unresolved) issue that defied anyone's explanations or treatments?  This happens all the time.  Not because the doctor or health care practitioner is incompetent but because they are limited by their knowledge of signs and symptoms, disease pathologies and experience of other patients before you.  Health care practitioners are limited in that they cannot feel or sense what is happening in YOUR body.  Only you can do that.  Only you can get quiet and listen from within. Only you can measure from within what rings true for you.  Health care practitioners can help you by listening and being an important part of your wellness team but only YOU can accurately feel what is best for you.

Getting back to this rash story that I was sharing with you.  I started out with trying to use my rational mind and only deal with the superficial picture in front of me (the dry spots).  As the rash progressed, I still relied on my rational thinking mind and started using Essential Oils that should do the trick and "fix" this rash.  When that didn't work after now three months of using my thinking mind, I decided that clearly I couldn't "fix" this by myself so I took myself off to the perceived "authority" (the doctor) for someone else to tell me what this was all about and prescribe something that was going to "fix" this once and for all. Now, I can meditate with the best of them.  I know to go within and ask my body what it is trying to tell me.  If you are one of my clients, you know that I often make the inquiry with my clients asking them to go within and listen to what their body is trying to tell them.  But, I did not do that for myself.  Instead, I listened to my thinking mind and convinced myself that clearly I was not the authority in this situation and that someone "out there" was going to give me an answer and "fix" me.

Now yes, at first the medication did the trick.  Key phrase being "at first".  The medication took the itching away and started diminishing the spreading and size of the rash.  However, when the medication was completed guess what started coming back.  You guessed it, the rash.  Why did this occur?  Because I never took the time to go within and ask what this was all about?

Here is what happened when I woke up and realized what I was doing and took the time to consult my own Inner Authority.  It was made very clear to me that my immune system was rearing up, in what I perceived as an attack, to wake me up to the ways in which I allow my thinking mind and not very kind inner voices to attack me and my character all day long every day.  The inner critic who constantly is saying things like "you're not doing that right" or "nobody is going to accept you" or a million other things that I believe we can all relate to and list as the critical self talk that tears us down all the time.  The inner nervous nelly who doesn't believe that you can actually accomplish something and is constantly challenging you to accomplish more or do better.  What is it that we need to do better?  Who says what is better?

These are the real and deep questions that we need to be asking ourselves when these self sabotaging, self defeating voices are chattering.  Who have we assigned as the Authority, the measuring stick, the person/people that we look to for acceptance, for the "atta boy" or "good job"?  That even when we do get that "compliment", we don't believe its true.  And why don't we believe it?  Because it isn't coming from within, we aren't accepting or congratulating ourselves.  We are still looking somewhere "out there" for someone to say we are good enough.  The truth is that we are only going to believe that we are "good enough" when we can look in the mirror and say "I am a good enough".  Until then, no matter how many people tell you that you are good enough it only takes one person to be critical and you fall back into believing that you are not good enough because of what one person said.  We refuse to believe all the positive and instantly believe the negative.  We are the only authority that can transform this situation, be it negative self talk or physical symptoms that arise to get our attention encouraging us to come within and reclaim our own power and authority.

                                 

 

Spring the Season of Rising UP

As we move further into the Spring season, I am noticing the Rising Up energy in very palpable ways.  When I look out my window, I can see the buds on the trees rising up from the barren branches ready to burst open and bring fresh new green leaves to the trees.  All around my yard there are blades of bright green grass rising up out of the dirt in stark contrast to the crispy brown grass left from winter.  Out front in the flower garden where the hydrangea shoots are rising up out of the ground in the middle of the old brown withered bush from last year.  As I walk my dogs each day, I am seeing more and more people rising up and emerging out of their homes from the long cold days of winter and joining me in enjoying walking outdoors.  The temperatures are rising up out of the colder temperatures significant to winter.  So all around us, we can visually see the energy of Rising Up into Spring.  It's a beautiful time of year.

Just as we are able to observe the external signs of Spring's energy, we can also observe the internal signs within our bodies.  Are you noticing any signs within your body, mind or spirit of your own energy rising up?  I know these past couple of weeks that I am noticing many internal signs of the Spring energy rising up within me.  My energy levels are increasing and I have been feeling motivated to clean out closets exchanging the winter clothes for spring clothes.  Cleaning out the things that are no longer fitting or are worn out.  This is happening on an emotional level as well. Old thought patterns or beliefs are rising up to the surface to be looked at and sorted by things that are no longer relevant (worn out) or no longer fit.  Beliefs that reach deep back into childhood, some that are still relevant and fitting and some that are no longer true.  Some physical symptoms have popped up over the winter like suddenly not seeing very well up close to the point of going out and purchasing a pair of cheaters to be able to read the fine print and some shoulder pain that I hadn't had in years and a problem in my knee that was from an injury that occurred when I was 4 years old.  Strange these things that come back to visit us, things that we thought we had worked through many times over the years whether physical, emotional or spiritual.  This is the energy of Spring rising up within us, the renewal of fresh energy pushing up through the old that is no longer serving us.

When these physical and/or emotional symptoms start being activated, it can be quite scary.  I know when my vision issue started I thought "oh my goodness, I'm getting old and now I'm going to need glasses".  I even went to the eye doctor and got checked out, confirmed that yes, indeed I did have some loss of upclose vision.  The knee issue and the shoulder issue were also concerning.  As I mentioned I have dogs to walk which can be difficult to do with a knee that feels like it's popping in and out at very inconvenient and unpredictable moments and a shoulder that is aching.  My point in bringing these issues up is that when I dug a little deeper, what was going on in my internal environment (my body) I began to notice the correlation to the things that I was noticing in my external environment.  Just as the trees must endure the bursting forth of new fresh energy, just as the ground makes room for the new fresh energy of the green grass and the flowers that will come up to bloom so must our bodies make room for the new fresh energy bubbling up within us.  As I started cleaning out and making room for the Spring energy to rise up within me, the previous symptoms started resolving. Believe it or not my vision has cleared and the glasses are no longer necessary.  By honoring what was going on within and not fearing it, this empowered me to do the work that I needed to do to make room for the energy of Spring to emerge more fully within me.

Our body is not out to get us

I've been contemplating this message for quite some time.  Many times from many spiritual teachers and guru's, I have heard or read the message that there are really only two emotions, fear or love, and we are never victims.  This has been a difficult concept to grasp in light of the tradegies both personal and globally that we live through each day.  How can this be, only two emotions, fear or love?  Well, I still don't have the answers but I feel like I understand little bits and pieces around the edges of what I perceive to be a huge question.  Sort of like trying to put together a 10,000 piece puzzle that you don't have the container it came in but you have started to put enough of the pieces together that you think maybe it is starting to look like something understandable.

Here are some of the pieces that have given me a frame of reference for trying to understand this bigger picture.  I understand this concept better when I apply it to our bodies and how our bodies work. Specifically pain and disease processes in our bodies.  For years, I have worked with people that have chronic pain and idiopathic (unexplained) dis-ease.  It never made sense to me, that as part of a medical community, we couldn't figure out with laboratory data, x-rays, CT scans and MRI's and literally every test known to man what is causing chronic symptoms.  Idiopathic is what we in the medical field name things when we cannot find a cause by ordinary means.  So, I started applying this principle of there really only being two states, love or fear to these situations.  

In many of these situations, when you start asking questions about emotional and spiritual health, the physical symptoms start making more sense.  For instance, in working with a woman who was diagnosed with Idiopathic Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT) after having every heart test known and despite being on the "best" medication to control the symptoms and was still having symptoms, the underlying cause of all of this was deep seated fear.  She was afraid of being alone so she was staying in a relationship that she wasn't happy in but was convinced that it was better than being alone.  Her symptoms started when they started looking at buying a house together.  Interestingly, when she acknowledged these emotions and worked through her fears, the symptoms resolved and she was able to stop the medication and has not had symptoms since.

Another example of this theory at work is a gentleman that I was working with who had chronic back pain.  His doctor prescribed heavy duty narcotics and muscle relaxants to try to at least help reduce his pain so that he could "function" throughout the day.  Though now he says he doesn't know how well he was "functioning" since he felt like he was in a fog all day every day.  His pain was all lumbar low back pain to the point that it was excruciating to walk and he felt his feet were numb and tingling every moment of every day with no relief in site.  He had CT scans and MRI's that showed degenerative disk disease and was recommended back surgery.  We worked through several sessions with bodywork and then started talking about his emotional and spiritual health.  Long story short, he had been verbally abused all through his childhood by both of his parents leaving him feeling that he could never do anything right and if he had just been a good enough child his parents would have been happy.  Into adulthood, he continued with relationships that also reinforced this feeling of never being good enough for the other person in the relationship. He had so much guilt and insecurity tied up at his core that he could barely move anymore. When he acknowledged these deep emotions of how fearful he truly was and was able to work through that his parents unhappiness was not his fault, his pain started decreasing.  At first, he noticed that he didn't need to take the pain pills every 4-6 hours throughout the day.  Within a short period of time, he weaned himself completely off the pills and has been pain free since.

There are many more examples of people with many other symptoms that I could go on and on with here but the point is that symptoms and dis-ease changed when the emotional and spiritual health was acknowledged. So what really changed for these people?  Let me first say that things changed over a period of time and with some deep work with body, mind and spirit.  By working with the deep seated emotional pain that was present inside, the external physical manifestations of the pain started to resolve.  These people acknowledged their fears and realized that not only did they no longer need to be a victim of their past but they didn't need to feel like they were a victim of their body either.

How many times when our body is not functioning the way that we want it to or think that we it should do we feel like a victim of our own body?  We think oh my gosh, I try to eat right and exercise regularly and look at this, my body is not behaving or reacting the way I want it to.  Or maybe something more dramatic has happened like a heart attack or a stroke.  It is very easy to fall into being a victim of what ever is going on with our body.  The key is to look within and find what is causing us to take up that victim mentality.  Only then can we change our thought process and start looking for the opportunity that our physical symptoms are presenting to us.  We can change from being fearful of what is happening on the physical level and look for the opportunity to allow love to empower us to overcome the physical symptoms of dis-ease.