Tuesday February 14, 2023
Captiva Island, Florida
Happy Valentines Day Beloved Reader!
Someone wrote to me yesterday, “Blessings abound don’t they?”
I smiled when I read this. It made me remember how an attitude of gratitude multiplies the blessings in my life. The more gratitude I cultivate for what I value in my life, the more abundant the blessings.
Right now, I’m grateful for this time of “glamping” here in my elderly in-laws’ house on Captiva Island, as we facilitate the repairs needed after Hurricane Ian.
I’m also enormously grateful for my physical health. Even though it’s not always easy, I practice listening to my body. An excerpt from Chapter 24, Part Two of my book:
When I was fifteen, my mother bought herself a copy of the Louise Hay book, Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them. When she brought home that little blue book, I picked it up and couldn’t put it down. I took it into my bedroom and lay on the bed reading for hours. It was as though what I read was a validation of my own intuitive inner knowing. But I’d always felt I needed to keep this inner knowing a secret. I was afraid of being laughed at.
Recently I read in a preface to the 67th edition, “This little book doesn’t ‘heal’ anyone, but it does awaken within you the ability to contribute to your own healing process.” Louise Hays also writes about her own cancer and how she healed.
When Jamie and I moved to New York City in our early-twenties in 1990, one of the first books I bought was that little blue book to put on my shelf in our studio apartment in Greenwich Village. It was originally published in 1976, and now, nearly fifty years later, I’m not surprised it’s still in print. According to Hay’s obituary (she died at the age of ninety) that little blue book, Heal Your Body, has sold more than 50 million copies around the world, and continues to sell. But at the time of Jamie’s cancer, I still felt the metaphysical aspects of illnesses were ridiculed by the majority. So I spoke about it to very few people. Except to people for whom I cared.
We are human beings consisting not only of physical body, but also of emotions, mind, and spirit. Even Western science is now finally recognizing how significantly our minds can effect our levels of stress, which of course effects our bodies. As any doctor trained in Western allopathic medicine will tell you, “stress kills.”
Something to note here though: I have never had the view that I am being “punished” by an illness. I have noticed this “punishing” attitude from those who may have been conditioned by or raised in religions with more “judgmental” attitudes versus simply “observing” what is transpiring in our human lives.
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I’m also grateful to my 49-year-old sister for sharing the wisdom of how she walks towards challenges. As an Enneagram number 7, my own natural tendency is to want to avoid pain at all costs. And by “walking towards challenges” I’m not talking about being a masochist—I have no interest in that. I’m talking about how all spiritual traditions point towards the growth and evolution of consciousness that can transpire as the result of challenging experiences.
Yesterday, after a challenging experience, I’m grateful to have had a breakthrough.
Jamie and I were driving off island in our metallic blue rental car to the Home Depot in Fort Myers to return some house insulation, as he’d bought too much for the ceiling repairs. We were talking about a topic we both find challenging, and it’s amusing to me now when reflecting on the experience, that such intense emotion arose in my body, I needed to get out of the car and walk for a mile or so. I’m also grateful for Jamie’s kindness, compassion and generosity, in his walking with me.
But at the time, it did not feel funny at all. This process of dissolving the Pain Body within, is perhaps the most challenging, and the most rewarding work I have ever done.
The rewards include the most deeply healing and rejuvenating sleep last night, so that I awoke this morning feeling centered, strong, and equanimous (and yes, I love this word ‘equanimous’ and reconnecting with my equanimity 😁)
But at the time, the work of digesting, metabolizing and dissolving the old emotions that make up the Pain Body, felt impossible. The physical act of walking helped me with this inner work.
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Also yesterday, a friend asked me to write more about the Inner Patriarch.
I shared with her an article for further reading, but I also downloaded the audio edition of Dr. Sidra Stone’s book, The Shadow King: the Invisible Force that Holds Women Back.
My late father was friends with Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone who are the creators of Voice Dialog therapy, which essentially saved my life, and which I also write about in Part Two of my book. I listened to the first chapter of The Shadow King last night while falling asleep—perhaps also a part of why I slept so well… who knows, but I’m enjoying this book a LOT!
More to come on how we women have our own Inner Patriarchs which keep us subjugated and small. But once we have awareness of our Inner Patriarch, it’s no longer unconscious so we’re no longer unconsciously driven by it, then we have more choice in how and when we may utilize it.
In the meantime, Many blessings to you on this Valentine’s Day my Beloved Reader, and may your attitude of gratitude intensify the abundance of blessings in your life 🥰 ✨🌟💖🙏🕊️
Beautiful. Thank you. Needed this today about healing.
Wow, I never even considered I had an Inner Patriarch! You are so right!! I need to read more about it!! Thank you! I am binging your articles right now...lol.