Every Monday I go to the Assisted Living home where my mother lives and is cared for. I read one of the books she wrote to a small group of from 4-10 people, including her. Every week I do a quick review of the story to date, because they will have forgotten, and usually, so have I.
At first, I figured this was a “triple points” thing—I get credit for visiting Mom, double credit for giving her accomplishments some exposure, and triple for entertaining other people.
I thought I was doing it for her. Then I thought I was doing it for the listeners—many of whom can no longer read. Now I know I do it for myself. I love these people. I haven’t missed a Monday since March. I plan the rest of my schedule around Mondays. Lately I take homemade cinnamon rolls for the staff on Mondays. They have the “birthday cupcake rule” in facilities—no homebaked goodies for the residents, but staff is OK. Sometimes I buy bakery (legal) cinnamon rolls and take them to the listeners to eat while I read.
Mom was deciding who she liked and didn’t like based on their disabilities:
“She has Alzheimer’s.” Can’t be friends with her.
“She can’t talk.” Can’t be friendly to her.
“He drools.” “She’s doesn’t mind her manners (same person, has Alzheimer’s). “There’s some guy behind where I sit in the dining room who laughs too loudly. I think they’re telling dirty jokes.”
And so on. I keep explaining to her that everyone who lives there has something wrong with them, or they wouldn’t be there. I don’t point out that also applies to her. It hurts my heart to hear her judge people, because when she was a spiritual teacher, her main teachings had to do with forgiveness and giving up judgment.
Reading to the assembled listeners, and talking with them between paragraphs, I have learned some fascinating things. One lady in a wheelchair has transcribed children’s book into Braille, since 1964! And she still does it! On a computer!
Genevieve can’t speak, has obviously had a stroke, and the words she does manage to get out don’t always match the thought she’s trying to express, to her great frustration.
The woman in a wheelchair, her legs useless and painful, danced with the San Francisco Opera Ballet for many years.
Art hiked every week with his hiking group of twenty members who now visit him every month. He is in a wheelchair. He wears shorts all the time. The muscles in his legs are atrophied and concave. But his eyes sparkle and he barks a loud, delighted laugh at funny things in the stories. The “bad boy” character in one book was named Art, which tickles him. He loves Mom’s stories, and never misses a Monday.
My mother, was a writer, bookkeeper and longtime spiritual teacher. She has lost the ability to process anything linear. Numbers, time, date, day, what comes next.
One day after reading, I walked Mom back to her room. We passed Genevieve at the door of her own room, struggling to get her key in the lock. I offered to help her, and she invited us in. She had something she wanted to show us. We had talked that day about places people had traveled to in their lives—the states, Europe, Africa, India. Genevieve had struggled to say that she had been in Europe, that her daughters were in the foreign service. Her room was filled with beautiful antiques and souvenirs of, clearly, many foreign travels. Genevieve beckoned us to the map of the world, on the wall over her couch. There were probably a hundred colored pushpins stuck in various locations—most of the states including Alaska and Hawaii, many countries in Europe, several in Africa, India, China, Japan, the Middle East, Australia, and some obscure locations I couldn’t make out. On the wall were two framed photos: one of herself as a lovely young woman, a redhead, model-perfect. And the other, one of her daughters with President Obama.
Then Genevieve told us, with many gestures and pointing and struggling to find the right words, that she had all the memories, pictures, stories, and the correct words for things in her head. But she could no longer get them to come out of her mouth correctly.
Mom, who has short-term memory loss and trouble finding the right words or names for things, was silent.
On the way back to her room, Mom said that she had no idea Genevieve had anything going on in her head, she had seemed so…stupid. After a reflective pause, she said, “Thank you for taking me into her room. I like her now.”
We talked again about how everyone there has something wrong with them. Then I realized: “Everyone here has something right about them.” We agreed to start looking for what was right about people who live there.
The other day Mom turned around during lunch and discovered that the man she doesn't like because he laughs too loudly at the table behind her is…Art.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Ho'oponopono
This is a process I learned about on a sacred-site pilgrimage to the Big Island with native Hawaiians in 1993. It blew my mind. And I've tried it--I know it "works."
After listening to Republicans denounce "empathy" ad nauseum lately, I'm reminded of the Course in Miracles definition: "True empathy does not join in suffering." This practice of ho'oponopono does not join in suffering. It acknowledges suffering and forgives oneself for judging it; it provides comfort in whatever form it's asked for. And works to heal one's own mind about the sufferer. (I hasten to add: This does not in any way mean to take responsibility to make the sufferer change in any way, to suffer less, to get well, to not die...we can't know what that person's life path might require of her.)
The Republican definition would decry empathy as soft-headed. Maybe a "soft head" is what we need nowadays--less judgment, remembering we don't really know what anything means.
A recent poll revealed the following, when asked Do you think empathy is an important characteristic for a Supreme Court Justice to possess or not?
Yes No
18-29 63 17
30-44 47 34
45-59 55 26
60+ 46 35
White 41 39
Black 81 4
Latino 79 4
Other 79 5
Men 48 34
Women 56 24
Dem 73 12
GOP 18 56
Ind 54 28
There's a reason the Republicans are sinking fast.
Now I have to heal my mind about that remark. Sigh.
Judy
If you want to solve a problem, no matter what kind of problem, work on yourself.
—Ihaleakala Hew Len
100% Responsibility and the Promise of a Hot Fudge Sundae
An Interview with Ihaleakala Hew Len
By Cat Saunders
How do you thank someone who has helped to set you free? How do you thank a man whose gentle spirit and zinger statements have forever altered the course of your life? Ihaleakala Hew Len is such a man for me. Like a soul brother who shows up unexpectedly in an hour of need, Ihaleakala came into my life in March of 1985, during a time of massive change for me. I met him during a training called "Self I-Dentity Through Ho'oponopono," which he facilitated along with the late Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona, a native Hawaiian kahuna ("keeper of the secret").
For me, Ihaleakala and Morrnah are part of the rhythm of life. Though I love them both dearly, I don't really dwell on thoughts of them as people, yet their influence is always there for me, beating a steady pulse like African drums in the night. Recently, I had the honor of being asked to interview Ihaleakala by The Foundation of I, Inc. (Freedom of the Cosmos), an organization founded by Morrnah. It was an even greater honor to learn that he would be coming from his home in Hawaii to meet with me personally.
Dr. Ihaleakala S. Hew Len is the foundation's president and administrator. Together with Morrnah, Ihaleakala has worked with thousands of people over the years, including groups at the United Nations, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), International Human Unity Conference on World Peace, World Peace Conference, Traditional Indian Medicine Conference, Healers for Peace in Europe, and the Hawaii State Teachers Association. He also has extensive experience working with developmentally disabled people and with the criminally mentally ill and their families. In all his work as an educator, the Ho'oponopono process supports and permeates every breath of his efforts.
Simply put, Ho'oponopono means, "to make right," or "to rectify an error." According to the ancient Hawaiians, error arises from thoughts that are tainted by painful memories from the past. Ho'oponopono offers a way to release the energy of these painful thoughts, or errors, which cause imbalance and disease.
Along with the updated Ho'oponopono process, Morrnah was guided to include the three parts of the self, which are the key to Self I-Dentity. These three parts — which exist in every molecule of reality — are called the Unihipili (child/subconscious), the Uhane (mother/conscious), and the Aumakua (father/superconscious). When this "inner family" is in alignment, a person is in rhythm with the Divinity. With this balance, life begins to flow. Thus, Ho'oponopono helps restore balance in the individual first, and then in all of creation.
By introducing me to this three-part system, along with the most powerful forgiveness process I know (Ho'oponopono), Ihaleakala and Morrnah taught me this: the best way to bring healing to every part of my life — and to the entire universe — is to take 100% responsibility and work on myself. In addition, they taught the simple wisdom of total self-care. As Ihaleakala said in a thank-you note after our interview: "You take good care of yourself. If you do, all will be beneficiaries."
Once, Ihaleakala left for an entire afternoon in the middle of a training I was taking, because his Unihipili (child/subconscious) told him to go to his hotel and take a long nap. Of course, he was responsible about leaving, and Morrnah was there to teach. Even still, his exit made a lasting impression on me. For someone like me, raised in a family and culture that admonished me to put others first, Ihaleakala's actions astounded and delighted me. He got his nap, and I got an unforgettable lesson in self-care.
Cat: Ihaleakala, when I met you in 1985, I'd just started private practice after working as a counselor in agencies for four years. I remember you said, "All therapy is a form of manipulation." I thought, "Jeez! What am I supposed to do now?" I knew you were right, so I almost quit! Obviously, I didn't, but that statement completely changed the way I work with people.
Ihaleakala: Manipulation happens when I (as a therapist) come from the idea that you are ill and I am going to work on you. On the other hand, it's not manipulation if I realize that you are coming to me to give me a chance to look at what's going on in me. There's a big difference.
If therapy is about your belief that you're there to save the other person, heal the other person, or direct the other person, then the information you bring will come out of the intellect, the conscious mind. But the intellect has no real understanding of problems and how to approach them. The intellect is so picayunish is its way of solving problems! It doesn't realize that when a problem is solved by transmutation — by using Ho'oponopono or related processes — then the problem and everything related to it is solved, even at microscopic levels and back to the beginning of time.
So first of all, I think the most important question to ask is, "What is a problem?" If you ask people this, there's no clarity. Because there's no clarity, they make up some way of solving the problem…
Cat: … as if the problem is "out there."
Ihaleakala: Yes. For example, the other day I got a call from the daughter of a woman who is 92. She said, "My mother's had these severe hip pains for several weeks." While she's talking to me, I'm asking this question of the Divinity, "What is going on in me that I have caused that woman's pain?" And then I ask, "How is it that I can rectify that problem within me?" The answers to these questions come, and I do whatever I'm told.
Maybe a week later the woman calls me and says, "My mother's feeling better now!" This doesn't mean the problem won't recur, because there are often multiple causes for what appears to be the same problem.
Cat: I have a lot of recurring illness and chronic pain. I work with it all the time, using Ho'oponopono and other clearing processes to make amends for all the pain I've caused since the beginning of time.
Ihaleakala: Yes. The idea being that people like us are in the healing professions because we have caused a lot of pain.
Cat: Big time!
Ihaleakala: How wonderful to know that, and to have people pay us for having caused them their problems!
I said this to a woman in New York, and she said, "God, if only they knew!" But you see, nobody knows. Psychologists, psychiatrists, they keep thinking that they're there to help heal the other person.
So if someone like you comes to me, I say to the Divinity, "Please, whatever is going on in me that I have caused this pain in Cat, tell me how I can rectify it." And I will apply whatever information I'm given indefinitely, until your pain is gone or until you ask me to stop. It's not so much the effect that is important as the getting to the problem. That's the key.
Cat: You don't focus on the outcome, because we're not in charge of that.
Ihaleakala: Right. We can only petition.
Cat: We also don't know when a particular pain or illness will shift.
Ihaleakala: Yes. Say a woman has been taking an herb that was suggested for her, and it's not working. Again, the question is "What's going on in me that this woman is experiencing this herb not working for her?" I would work on that. I would keep cleaning, keep my mouth closed, and allow the process of transmutation to take place. As soon as you engage the intellect, the process stops. The thing to remember when some kind of healing doesn't seem to be working is this: there may be multiple errors — multiple problems or painful memories that are causing the pain. We know nothing! Only the Divinity knows what's really going on.
I gave a presentation out in Dallas last month, and I spoke with this woman, a Reiki master. I said, "Let me ask you a question. When somebody comes to you with a problem, where is that problem?" She looked puzzled when I said, "You're the one who caused the problem, so your client is going to pay you to heal your problem!" Nobody gets that.
Cat: 100% responsibility.
Ihaleakala: 100% knowing that you're the cause of the problem. 100% knowing that you have the responsibility, then, to rectify the error. Can you imagine if we all knew we are 100% responsible?
I made a deal with myself ten years ago that I would treat myself to a hot fudge sundae — so huge it would make me sick — if I could get through the day without having some judgment of someone. I've never been able to do it! I notice I catch myself more often, but I never get through a day.
So how do I get that across to people — that we are each 100% responsible for problems? If you want to solve a problem, no matter what kind of problem, work on yourself. If the problem is with another person, for example, just ask yourself, "What's going on in me that's causing this person to bug me?" People only show up in your life to bug you! If you know that, you can elevate any situation, and you can release there. It's simple: "I'm sorry for whatever's going on. Please forgive me."
Cat: You don't have to actually say that out loud to them, and you don't even have to understand the problem.
Ihaleakala: That's the beauty of this. You don't have to understand. It's like the Internet. You don't understand all this! You just go to the Divinity and you say, "Can we download?" and the Divinity downloads, and then you get the necessary information. But because we don't know who we are, we never download direct from the Light. We go outside.
I remember Morrnah used to say, "It's an inside job." If you want to be successful, it's an inside job. Work on yourself!
Cat: I know that 100% responsibility is the only thing that works, but I used to struggle with this stuff, because I'm an overly responsible caretaker type. When I heard you talking about 100% responsibility not just for myself, but for every situation and problem, I thought, "Whoa! This is crazy! I don't need anybody telling me to be even more responsible!" Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there's a big difference between overly responsible caretaking, versus totally responsible self-care. One is about being a good little girl, and the other is about getting free.
I remember you talking about the years when you were a staff psychologist at Hawaii State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. You said that when you started working there, the ward for criminals was full of violence, and when you left four years later, there was none.
Ihaleakala: Basically, I took 100% responsibility. I just worked on myself.
Cat: You said that when you worked with the inmates, they wouldn't even be there with you.
Ihaleakala: Right. I would only go into the building to check the results. If they still looked depressed, then I'd work on myself some more.
Cat: Would you tell a story about using Ho'oponopono for so-called inanimate objects?
Ihaleakala: I was in an auditorium once getting ready to do a lecture, and I was talking to the chairs. I asked, "Is there anybody I've missed? Does anyone have a problem that I need to take care of?" One of the chairs said, "You know, there was a guy sitting on me today during a previous seminar who had financial problems, and now I just feel dead!" So I cleaned with that problem, and I could just see the chair straightening up. Then I heard, "Okay! I'm ready to handle the next guy!"
What I actually try to do is teach the room. I say to the room and everything in it, "Do you want to learn how to do Ho'oponopono? After all, I'm going to leave soon. Wouldn't it be nice if you could do this work for yourselves? Some say yes, some say no, and some say, "I'm too tired!"
Then I ask the Divinity, "If they say they would like to learn, how can I help them learn?" Most of the time, I get this: "Leave the blue book (Self I-Dentity Through Ho'oponopono) with them." So I just take the blue book out and leave it on one of the chairs or on a table while I'm talking. We don't give tables enough credit for being quiet and aware of what is going on!
Ho'oponopono is really very simple. For the ancient Hawaiians, all problems begin as thought. But having a thought is not the problem. So what's the problem? The problem is that all our thoughts are imbued with painful memories, memories of persons, places, or things.
The intellect working alone can't solve these problems, because the intellect only manages. Managing things is no way to solve problems. You want to let them go! When you do Ho'oponopono, what happens is that the Divinity takes the painful thought and neutralizes or purifies it. You don't purify the person, place, or thing. You neutralize the energy you associate with that person, place, or thing. So the first stage of Ho'oponopono is the purification of that energy.
Now something wonderful happens. Not only does that energy get neutralized; it also gets released, so there's a brand new slate. Buddhists call it the Void. The final step is that you allow the Divinity to come in and fill the void with light.
To do Ho'oponopono, you don't have to know what the problem or error is. All you have to do is notice any problem you are experiencing physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever. Once you notice, your responsibility is to immediately begin to clean, to say, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
Cat: So the true job of the intellect is not to solve problems, but to ask for forgiveness.
Ihaleakala: Yes. My job here on earth is twofold. My job is first of all to make amends. My second job is to awaken people who might be asleep. Almost everyone is asleep! The only way I can awaken them is to work on myself. Our interview is an example. For weeks before our appointment today, I've been doing the clearing work, so when you and I meet, it's like two pools of water coming together. They move through and they go. That's all.
Cat: In ten years of doing interviews, this is the only one I didn't prepare for. Every time I checked in, my Unihipili said that I should just come and be with you. My intellect went nuts trying to convince me that I should prepare, but I didn't.
Ihaleakala: Good for you! The Unihipili can be really fun. One day I was coming down the highway in Hawaii. When I started to head toward the usual off-ramp, I heard my Unihipili say in a singing voice, "I wouldn't go down there if I were you." I thought, "But I always go there." Then when we got closer, about fifty yards away, I heard, "Hello! I wouldn't go down there if I were you!" Second chance. "But we always go down there!"
Now I'm talking out loud and people in cars around me are looking at me like I'm crazy. About 25 yards away, I hear a loud, "I wouldn't go down there if I were you!" I went down there, and I sat for two and a half hours. There was a huge accident. Couldn't move back, couldn't move forward. Finally, I heard my Unihipili say, "Told you!" Then it wouldn't talk to me for weeks! I mean, why talk to me if I wasn't going to listen?
I remember one time when I was going to be on television to talk about Ho'oponopono. My children heard about it and they said, "Dad, we heard you are going to be on TV. Make sure your socks match!" They didn't care what I said. They just cared that my socks matched. See how children know the important things in life?
________________________________________
This interview was originally published by The New Times in September 1997.
For more information about Ho'oponopono or to contact Ihaleakala Hew Len, Ph.D., please visit http://www.hooponoponotheamericas.org.
After listening to Republicans denounce "empathy" ad nauseum lately, I'm reminded of the Course in Miracles definition: "True empathy does not join in suffering." This practice of ho'oponopono does not join in suffering. It acknowledges suffering and forgives oneself for judging it; it provides comfort in whatever form it's asked for. And works to heal one's own mind about the sufferer. (I hasten to add: This does not in any way mean to take responsibility to make the sufferer change in any way, to suffer less, to get well, to not die...we can't know what that person's life path might require of her.)
The Republican definition would decry empathy as soft-headed. Maybe a "soft head" is what we need nowadays--less judgment, remembering we don't really know what anything means.
A recent poll revealed the following, when asked Do you think empathy is an important characteristic for a Supreme Court Justice to possess or not?
Yes No
18-29 63 17
30-44 47 34
45-59 55 26
60+ 46 35
White 41 39
Black 81 4
Latino 79 4
Other 79 5
Men 48 34
Women 56 24
Dem 73 12
GOP 18 56
Ind 54 28
There's a reason the Republicans are sinking fast.
Now I have to heal my mind about that remark. Sigh.
Judy
If you want to solve a problem, no matter what kind of problem, work on yourself.
—Ihaleakala Hew Len
100% Responsibility and the Promise of a Hot Fudge Sundae
An Interview with Ihaleakala Hew Len
By Cat Saunders
How do you thank someone who has helped to set you free? How do you thank a man whose gentle spirit and zinger statements have forever altered the course of your life? Ihaleakala Hew Len is such a man for me. Like a soul brother who shows up unexpectedly in an hour of need, Ihaleakala came into my life in March of 1985, during a time of massive change for me. I met him during a training called "Self I-Dentity Through Ho'oponopono," which he facilitated along with the late Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona, a native Hawaiian kahuna ("keeper of the secret").
For me, Ihaleakala and Morrnah are part of the rhythm of life. Though I love them both dearly, I don't really dwell on thoughts of them as people, yet their influence is always there for me, beating a steady pulse like African drums in the night. Recently, I had the honor of being asked to interview Ihaleakala by The Foundation of I, Inc. (Freedom of the Cosmos), an organization founded by Morrnah. It was an even greater honor to learn that he would be coming from his home in Hawaii to meet with me personally.
Dr. Ihaleakala S. Hew Len is the foundation's president and administrator. Together with Morrnah, Ihaleakala has worked with thousands of people over the years, including groups at the United Nations, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), International Human Unity Conference on World Peace, World Peace Conference, Traditional Indian Medicine Conference, Healers for Peace in Europe, and the Hawaii State Teachers Association. He also has extensive experience working with developmentally disabled people and with the criminally mentally ill and their families. In all his work as an educator, the Ho'oponopono process supports and permeates every breath of his efforts.
Simply put, Ho'oponopono means, "to make right," or "to rectify an error." According to the ancient Hawaiians, error arises from thoughts that are tainted by painful memories from the past. Ho'oponopono offers a way to release the energy of these painful thoughts, or errors, which cause imbalance and disease.
Along with the updated Ho'oponopono process, Morrnah was guided to include the three parts of the self, which are the key to Self I-Dentity. These three parts — which exist in every molecule of reality — are called the Unihipili (child/subconscious), the Uhane (mother/conscious), and the Aumakua (father/superconscious). When this "inner family" is in alignment, a person is in rhythm with the Divinity. With this balance, life begins to flow. Thus, Ho'oponopono helps restore balance in the individual first, and then in all of creation.
By introducing me to this three-part system, along with the most powerful forgiveness process I know (Ho'oponopono), Ihaleakala and Morrnah taught me this: the best way to bring healing to every part of my life — and to the entire universe — is to take 100% responsibility and work on myself. In addition, they taught the simple wisdom of total self-care. As Ihaleakala said in a thank-you note after our interview: "You take good care of yourself. If you do, all will be beneficiaries."
Once, Ihaleakala left for an entire afternoon in the middle of a training I was taking, because his Unihipili (child/subconscious) told him to go to his hotel and take a long nap. Of course, he was responsible about leaving, and Morrnah was there to teach. Even still, his exit made a lasting impression on me. For someone like me, raised in a family and culture that admonished me to put others first, Ihaleakala's actions astounded and delighted me. He got his nap, and I got an unforgettable lesson in self-care.
Cat: Ihaleakala, when I met you in 1985, I'd just started private practice after working as a counselor in agencies for four years. I remember you said, "All therapy is a form of manipulation." I thought, "Jeez! What am I supposed to do now?" I knew you were right, so I almost quit! Obviously, I didn't, but that statement completely changed the way I work with people.
Ihaleakala: Manipulation happens when I (as a therapist) come from the idea that you are ill and I am going to work on you. On the other hand, it's not manipulation if I realize that you are coming to me to give me a chance to look at what's going on in me. There's a big difference.
If therapy is about your belief that you're there to save the other person, heal the other person, or direct the other person, then the information you bring will come out of the intellect, the conscious mind. But the intellect has no real understanding of problems and how to approach them. The intellect is so picayunish is its way of solving problems! It doesn't realize that when a problem is solved by transmutation — by using Ho'oponopono or related processes — then the problem and everything related to it is solved, even at microscopic levels and back to the beginning of time.
So first of all, I think the most important question to ask is, "What is a problem?" If you ask people this, there's no clarity. Because there's no clarity, they make up some way of solving the problem…
Cat: … as if the problem is "out there."
Ihaleakala: Yes. For example, the other day I got a call from the daughter of a woman who is 92. She said, "My mother's had these severe hip pains for several weeks." While she's talking to me, I'm asking this question of the Divinity, "What is going on in me that I have caused that woman's pain?" And then I ask, "How is it that I can rectify that problem within me?" The answers to these questions come, and I do whatever I'm told.
Maybe a week later the woman calls me and says, "My mother's feeling better now!" This doesn't mean the problem won't recur, because there are often multiple causes for what appears to be the same problem.
Cat: I have a lot of recurring illness and chronic pain. I work with it all the time, using Ho'oponopono and other clearing processes to make amends for all the pain I've caused since the beginning of time.
Ihaleakala: Yes. The idea being that people like us are in the healing professions because we have caused a lot of pain.
Cat: Big time!
Ihaleakala: How wonderful to know that, and to have people pay us for having caused them their problems!
I said this to a woman in New York, and she said, "God, if only they knew!" But you see, nobody knows. Psychologists, psychiatrists, they keep thinking that they're there to help heal the other person.
So if someone like you comes to me, I say to the Divinity, "Please, whatever is going on in me that I have caused this pain in Cat, tell me how I can rectify it." And I will apply whatever information I'm given indefinitely, until your pain is gone or until you ask me to stop. It's not so much the effect that is important as the getting to the problem. That's the key.
Cat: You don't focus on the outcome, because we're not in charge of that.
Ihaleakala: Right. We can only petition.
Cat: We also don't know when a particular pain or illness will shift.
Ihaleakala: Yes. Say a woman has been taking an herb that was suggested for her, and it's not working. Again, the question is "What's going on in me that this woman is experiencing this herb not working for her?" I would work on that. I would keep cleaning, keep my mouth closed, and allow the process of transmutation to take place. As soon as you engage the intellect, the process stops. The thing to remember when some kind of healing doesn't seem to be working is this: there may be multiple errors — multiple problems or painful memories that are causing the pain. We know nothing! Only the Divinity knows what's really going on.
I gave a presentation out in Dallas last month, and I spoke with this woman, a Reiki master. I said, "Let me ask you a question. When somebody comes to you with a problem, where is that problem?" She looked puzzled when I said, "You're the one who caused the problem, so your client is going to pay you to heal your problem!" Nobody gets that.
Cat: 100% responsibility.
Ihaleakala: 100% knowing that you're the cause of the problem. 100% knowing that you have the responsibility, then, to rectify the error. Can you imagine if we all knew we are 100% responsible?
I made a deal with myself ten years ago that I would treat myself to a hot fudge sundae — so huge it would make me sick — if I could get through the day without having some judgment of someone. I've never been able to do it! I notice I catch myself more often, but I never get through a day.
So how do I get that across to people — that we are each 100% responsible for problems? If you want to solve a problem, no matter what kind of problem, work on yourself. If the problem is with another person, for example, just ask yourself, "What's going on in me that's causing this person to bug me?" People only show up in your life to bug you! If you know that, you can elevate any situation, and you can release there. It's simple: "I'm sorry for whatever's going on. Please forgive me."
Cat: You don't have to actually say that out loud to them, and you don't even have to understand the problem.
Ihaleakala: That's the beauty of this. You don't have to understand. It's like the Internet. You don't understand all this! You just go to the Divinity and you say, "Can we download?" and the Divinity downloads, and then you get the necessary information. But because we don't know who we are, we never download direct from the Light. We go outside.
I remember Morrnah used to say, "It's an inside job." If you want to be successful, it's an inside job. Work on yourself!
Cat: I know that 100% responsibility is the only thing that works, but I used to struggle with this stuff, because I'm an overly responsible caretaker type. When I heard you talking about 100% responsibility not just for myself, but for every situation and problem, I thought, "Whoa! This is crazy! I don't need anybody telling me to be even more responsible!" Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there's a big difference between overly responsible caretaking, versus totally responsible self-care. One is about being a good little girl, and the other is about getting free.
I remember you talking about the years when you were a staff psychologist at Hawaii State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. You said that when you started working there, the ward for criminals was full of violence, and when you left four years later, there was none.
Ihaleakala: Basically, I took 100% responsibility. I just worked on myself.
Cat: You said that when you worked with the inmates, they wouldn't even be there with you.
Ihaleakala: Right. I would only go into the building to check the results. If they still looked depressed, then I'd work on myself some more.
Cat: Would you tell a story about using Ho'oponopono for so-called inanimate objects?
Ihaleakala: I was in an auditorium once getting ready to do a lecture, and I was talking to the chairs. I asked, "Is there anybody I've missed? Does anyone have a problem that I need to take care of?" One of the chairs said, "You know, there was a guy sitting on me today during a previous seminar who had financial problems, and now I just feel dead!" So I cleaned with that problem, and I could just see the chair straightening up. Then I heard, "Okay! I'm ready to handle the next guy!"
What I actually try to do is teach the room. I say to the room and everything in it, "Do you want to learn how to do Ho'oponopono? After all, I'm going to leave soon. Wouldn't it be nice if you could do this work for yourselves? Some say yes, some say no, and some say, "I'm too tired!"
Then I ask the Divinity, "If they say they would like to learn, how can I help them learn?" Most of the time, I get this: "Leave the blue book (Self I-Dentity Through Ho'oponopono) with them." So I just take the blue book out and leave it on one of the chairs or on a table while I'm talking. We don't give tables enough credit for being quiet and aware of what is going on!
Ho'oponopono is really very simple. For the ancient Hawaiians, all problems begin as thought. But having a thought is not the problem. So what's the problem? The problem is that all our thoughts are imbued with painful memories, memories of persons, places, or things.
The intellect working alone can't solve these problems, because the intellect only manages. Managing things is no way to solve problems. You want to let them go! When you do Ho'oponopono, what happens is that the Divinity takes the painful thought and neutralizes or purifies it. You don't purify the person, place, or thing. You neutralize the energy you associate with that person, place, or thing. So the first stage of Ho'oponopono is the purification of that energy.
Now something wonderful happens. Not only does that energy get neutralized; it also gets released, so there's a brand new slate. Buddhists call it the Void. The final step is that you allow the Divinity to come in and fill the void with light.
To do Ho'oponopono, you don't have to know what the problem or error is. All you have to do is notice any problem you are experiencing physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever. Once you notice, your responsibility is to immediately begin to clean, to say, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
Cat: So the true job of the intellect is not to solve problems, but to ask for forgiveness.
Ihaleakala: Yes. My job here on earth is twofold. My job is first of all to make amends. My second job is to awaken people who might be asleep. Almost everyone is asleep! The only way I can awaken them is to work on myself. Our interview is an example. For weeks before our appointment today, I've been doing the clearing work, so when you and I meet, it's like two pools of water coming together. They move through and they go. That's all.
Cat: In ten years of doing interviews, this is the only one I didn't prepare for. Every time I checked in, my Unihipili said that I should just come and be with you. My intellect went nuts trying to convince me that I should prepare, but I didn't.
Ihaleakala: Good for you! The Unihipili can be really fun. One day I was coming down the highway in Hawaii. When I started to head toward the usual off-ramp, I heard my Unihipili say in a singing voice, "I wouldn't go down there if I were you." I thought, "But I always go there." Then when we got closer, about fifty yards away, I heard, "Hello! I wouldn't go down there if I were you!" Second chance. "But we always go down there!"
Now I'm talking out loud and people in cars around me are looking at me like I'm crazy. About 25 yards away, I hear a loud, "I wouldn't go down there if I were you!" I went down there, and I sat for two and a half hours. There was a huge accident. Couldn't move back, couldn't move forward. Finally, I heard my Unihipili say, "Told you!" Then it wouldn't talk to me for weeks! I mean, why talk to me if I wasn't going to listen?
I remember one time when I was going to be on television to talk about Ho'oponopono. My children heard about it and they said, "Dad, we heard you are going to be on TV. Make sure your socks match!" They didn't care what I said. They just cared that my socks matched. See how children know the important things in life?
________________________________________
This interview was originally published by The New Times in September 1997.
For more information about Ho'oponopono or to contact Ihaleakala Hew Len, Ph.D., please visit http://www.hooponoponotheamericas.org.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Don't Talk, Don't Go
A friend reminded me today of a lesson that has remained with him for the 14 years since I told this story. It's worth repeating. When my brother was in his last days with melanoma, he struggled to stay alive and comfortable, while maintaining he was "going to get well." Not that he believed it, but he wanted us to. One morning he called early because his family was going to be gone for the day and since he lived in the mountains in a remote place, he was nervous about being alone that day. I'd been taking him to treatments, doctor appointments, therapy, every day during the week for quite some time, so this was the first full day with nothing scheduled. He asked me to come.
I drove up to the mountain, feeling like Mother Theresa (fantasizing) and imagining that we'd get to have some quality time and conversation about how things were developing with him. I could offer him wise counsel and comfort. But when I got there all he wanted was Cream of Wheat. And then, the newspaper. When I settled in with some needlework and then tried to initiate a meaningful conversation, he pushed his reading glasses down on his nose, gave me a fierce look over their tops, and said: "Judy. Don't talk. And don't go."
Tim read the whole paper cover to cover, even the ads, had a little lunch, took a long nap, watched Oprah, and finally it was time to pick up his girls at the schoolbus stop. I was free to go.
It was a lovely, quiet day, and a lesson I've not forgotten. Just being there was the gift. I didn't need to add anything more meaningful than that.
I drove up to the mountain, feeling like Mother Theresa (fantasizing) and imagining that we'd get to have some quality time and conversation about how things were developing with him. I could offer him wise counsel and comfort. But when I got there all he wanted was Cream of Wheat. And then, the newspaper. When I settled in with some needlework and then tried to initiate a meaningful conversation, he pushed his reading glasses down on his nose, gave me a fierce look over their tops, and said: "Judy. Don't talk. And don't go."
Tim read the whole paper cover to cover, even the ads, had a little lunch, took a long nap, watched Oprah, and finally it was time to pick up his girls at the schoolbus stop. I was free to go.
It was a lovely, quiet day, and a lesson I've not forgotten. Just being there was the gift. I didn't need to add anything more meaningful than that.
Recovering
It's been a couple of months since I've visited here--busy months. I tested positive for the BRCA-2 gene, and thus began a round of new procedures. It is the source of breast , ovarian , colon, stomach, pancreas, and prostate cancer and melanoma. My sister has Stage 4 breast cancer now, brother died of melanoma, other brother had prostate cancer. Only one sister is free, and thus probably negative. My kids each have a 50-50 chance of testing positive, and if they do, each of their kids the same odds. Not a feel-good legacy. My colonoscopy revealed only a single small adenoma, easily removed, with followup every three years from now on (colon cancers are slow growing). I had my ovaries removed last week, because ovarian cancer is very hard to detect until it's too late, and it moves quickly. They looked good, but because of all the abdominal surgeries I've had, the surgery was another full-on abdominal, with the resultant recovery issues. I'm doing well. Considering.
My own three children, all in late-40s, 50, have had no problems, which is a really good sign. Oh, if only I could be "the one" to have it all so they don't have to go through it, nor any of their children--some of whom are adults and in their childbearing years. I've had six breast cancers now, before finally having both breasts removed entirely. (Not my choice--I'd have done it 30 years ago if the doctors had been willing. Didn't know then what my rights as a patient were.)
So much for the health update. It does now feel like the first week of the rest of my life, after the last year of diagnosis, surgery, chemo, many staph infections, immune system breakdown, life interruptions constantly, and finally peace--just in time for the BRCA gene to kick it all off again. I'm going to my family reunion on the gene side of the family the end of the month, and will let it be known--quietly--that anyone who wants to talk about the implications of the family BRCA gene should come and see me. It's mind-boggling to me (but understandable, I guess) that so many, including my two sisters, don't want to know a thing about it. Barely, even my own status. My concern for others who don't want to know if they have the gene is ovarian cancer, which is so hard to detect, but there are ways to screen for it--certainly not routine or easy, but I would think necessary. And there's always removal. Same with breasts. Lots of screening options, and finally, removal as an option. But knowing one has the gene means vigilance about screening--beyond mammograms, young women should have ultrasounds and/or MRIs at least annually, if not more frequently. My last one was "fast-growing" and they judge it went from stage zero to stage two in eight months. There was also one in the other breast, stage zero. Who wants that worry constantly?!!
My own three children, all in late-40s, 50, have had no problems, which is a really good sign. Oh, if only I could be "the one" to have it all so they don't have to go through it, nor any of their children--some of whom are adults and in their childbearing years. I've had six breast cancers now, before finally having both breasts removed entirely. (Not my choice--I'd have done it 30 years ago if the doctors had been willing. Didn't know then what my rights as a patient were.)
So much for the health update. It does now feel like the first week of the rest of my life, after the last year of diagnosis, surgery, chemo, many staph infections, immune system breakdown, life interruptions constantly, and finally peace--just in time for the BRCA gene to kick it all off again. I'm going to my family reunion on the gene side of the family the end of the month, and will let it be known--quietly--that anyone who wants to talk about the implications of the family BRCA gene should come and see me. It's mind-boggling to me (but understandable, I guess) that so many, including my two sisters, don't want to know a thing about it. Barely, even my own status. My concern for others who don't want to know if they have the gene is ovarian cancer, which is so hard to detect, but there are ways to screen for it--certainly not routine or easy, but I would think necessary. And there's always removal. Same with breasts. Lots of screening options, and finally, removal as an option. But knowing one has the gene means vigilance about screening--beyond mammograms, young women should have ultrasounds and/or MRIs at least annually, if not more frequently. My last one was "fast-growing" and they judge it went from stage zero to stage two in eight months. There was also one in the other breast, stage zero. Who wants that worry constantly?!!
Friday, May 1, 2009
ACIM: That was then, This is Now
As I reread the articles I am posting on ACIM-related topics, I realize that writer was a person a scarcely recognize--a woman with something to teach. I am no longer that woman, recognizing late in life that I can only teach what I know, and I no longer know anything much. More on this later.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
ACIM: BLESSINGS AND CURSES
Changing a Curse to a Blessing
March-April 1997
My thoughts are private
My thoughts have no power
My thoughts are involuntary
Recognize these beliefs? These are the beliefs that hold our made-up world together--the shared idea of separateness and powerlessness.
The Course does not support these beliefs. In fact, the Course says the opposite:
Minds are joined
Thought and belief combine into a power surge that can literally move mountains
You are much too tolerant of mind wandering
Although I believe this, I tend to exclude my “idle” thoughts. Surely they are private and without effect!
No.
“Few appreciate the real power of the mind, and no one remains fully aware of it all the time. However, if you hope to spare yourself from fear there are some things you must realize, and realize fully. The mind is very powerful, and never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power surge that can literally move mountains. It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is arrogant, but that is not the real reason you do not believe it. You prefer to believe that your thoughts cannot exert real influence because you are actually afraid of them. This may allay awareness of the guilt, but at the cost of perceiving the mind as impotent. If you believe that what you think is ineffectual you may cease to be afraid of it, but you are hardly likely to respect it. There are no idle thoughts. All thinking produces form at some level.” (T 2.VI.9)
Now, this idea does produce fear in me! I clearly recall one of those “life-changing moments” when I was about eight years old. I can see vividly where I was at the time, walking home from Presbyterian Sunday School. I was a quarter of a mile from home when my immature mind grasped a verse I had heard that day that “to deny God is to commit the unforgivable sin.” I wasn't sure what it meant to “deny God” but I was suddenly gripped by a horrible fear: What if I had denied God accidentally, before I knew it was an unforgivable sin, and now I was already condemned to hell forever no matter how “good” I might be from here on out! What if my wild thoughts somehow denied God without my intending to, because now that I knew it was an unforgivable sin it was like being told NOT to think of a blue monkey no matter what, and then trying NOT to think of a blue monkey!
The idea of fear had been introduced into my mind, and a fearful image of God took form. I recall going through the reasoning described in the above paragraph from the Text, first being afraid of my thoughts, then deciding that they couldn't be that powerful. This did allay my fear somewhat. What saved me was an idea I had absorbed from my mother--the suspicion that maybe the idea of “unforgivable sin” wasn't true anyway, maybe there was no literal hell, maybe God wasn't like that.
To now accept the idea that my mind is very powerful and that “all thinking produces form” takes me back to that innocent little girl's fear. What if my thoughts of anger or hatred in the past have hurt someone? What if my fear of something happening has caused that very thing to happen? What if I am not vigilant about my thoughts at every moment, and a stray thought gets away from me and causes havoc in my own or someone else's life?
In the last few months I have again become more vigilant in watching my thoughts. A healed mind, in my opinion, is a mind that no longer believes its thoughts are involuntary, or that they have no effect. A healed mind, furthermore, doesn't harbor guilt for its thoughts that may have caused harm. A healed mind recognizes the ego's attempts to convince it that harm is real and permanent. A healed mind knows this: “When you perform a miracle, I will arrange both time and space to adjust to it.” (T 2.V.A.11.1)
This means to me that when I invite the Holy Spirit to help me, and a miracle--a change of mind--occurs, retroactive healing takes place and erases all effects of miscreative thinking in the past. Retroactive healing. It means that yes, I am responsible for my thoughts and the harm they cause, and yes, any “harm” in the past can be erased in the present.
Here is another passage from the Course that, taken out of context, can cause old fear and new guilt to come up in my mind:
“This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:
I am responsible for what I see. I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked.” (T 21.II.2)
I am responsible for everything that happens to me? I ask for it? But just as I begin to reject that possibility, I read on: “Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done to you. Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of your mistakes will disappear.” Again, retroactive healing. Time and space rearranged so that harm that seemed to have been done disappears.
On sabbatical, I have the quietness and time to watch my thoughts much of the time. I have noticed an interesting pattern: a “random” thought of a person, event, or condition, from the past, present, or future, will occur. And if I am willing to entertain idle thoughts, my mind jumps on a “train of thought” and takes off. The thought of a person will come to mind, and I have a whole palette of memories, speculations, judgments, and worries about that person, some of it pleasant, some of it painful.
But minds are joined. There are no private thoughts. Knowing this, I have begun a practice which does take practice --I believe it is what the Course advises us to do: I change the idle thoughts to a blessing. I get off the train of thought. I believe that if the thought of a particular person or event or condition “occurs” to me, it is because at that moment a call for love went out, the Holy Spirit, the Communication Link transmitted it, and I picked it up. If I allow the train of idle thoughts to begin, I have not responded to the call for love.
How can I respond to a call for love when the person has not directly called to me, and when I am not in direct communication with the person? By giving a blessing, I decided. I wasn't sure how to do that, so I am now learning, from the Course and from my inner voice, how and why to give a blessing. It seems so little, just a little change of mind, but if the Course is true--it will heal not only the receiver, but the giver. The thought alone is that powerful.
I hear people say, “All I could do for him was pray.” Yes. As if that alone were not enough--in fact, as if that alone were not the most powerful response to a call for love. To pray for that person is to step out of our “private mind” and join with the Mind of God, which is in touch with that person directly.
“In the holy instant the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the body's interference, and where there is communication there is peace..” (T 15.XI.7)
What is a blessing?
A blessing is a miracle, a change of perception.
“A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers.” (T 1.I.27)
“The miracle is...a call to the Holy Spirit in [your brother's] mind, a call that is strengthened by joining.” (T 10.IV.7)
Why give blessings?
The first half of the Text and the first half of the Workbook discuss giving blessings because it is imperative for your own salvation (Lesson 39). (T 15.I.13) If you deny a blessing to a brother, you will feel deprived. (T 7.VII.1) When you give a blessing, you are blessed. (T 21.VI.10) (Lesson 58)
“That the miracle may have effects on your brothers that you may not recognize is not your concern. The miracle will always bless you. “ (T 1.III.8)
“When a brother acts insanely, he is offering you an opportunity to bless him. His need is yours. You need the blessing you can offer him. There is no way for you to have it except by giving it. This is the law of God, and it has no exceptions.” (T 7.VII.2)
“When I am healed I am not healed alone. And I would bless my brothers, for I would be healed with them, as they are healed with me.” (Lesson 137)
“You are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers anywhere. You should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude.” (T 5.in.3)
The latter half of the Text and of the Workbook expand that healing: Give a blessing, and it will free the world. (T 30.II.4) “The peace of God is shining in you now, and from your heart extends around the world. It pauses to caress each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that remains forever and forever.... “ (Lesson 188)
As Emmet Fox says: “Bless a thing and it will bless you. Curse it and it will curse you....If you bless a situation, it has no power to hurt you, and even if it is troublesome for a time, it will gradually fade out, if you sincerely bless it.”
Who is deserving of a blessing?
This is the old, “But what about Hitler?” question again. What if a thought occurs of Hitler or the holocaust, or some equivalent monster from current events? Must I give a blessing then? Yes:
“Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls him to return because it blesses and honors him, even though he may be absent in spirit.” (T 1.V.4)
“He has not waited until you return your mind to Him to give His Word to you. He has not hid Himself from you, while you have wandered off a little while from Him. He does not cherish the illusions which you hold about yourself. He knows His Son, and wills that he remain as part of Him regardless of his dreams; regardless of his madness that his will is not his own.” (Lesson 125)
“Each one you see you place within the holy circle of Atonement or leave outside, judging him fit for crucifixion or for redemption. If you bring him into the circle of purity, you will rest there with him. If you leave him without, you join him there. Judge not except in quietness which is not of you. Refuse to accept anyone as without the blessing of Atonement, and bring him into it by blessing him.” (T 14.V.11)
If we leave anyone out of the Circle of Atonement, we leave ourselves out as well. The miracle of forgiveness blesses and honors every Child of God, even those who have “wandered off a little while from Him.” Even Hitler. Then it must be, even me.
How do I give a blessing?
I begin by forgiving myself and remembering Who I am. Blessings will become automatic, involuntary, and continuous when I have finally forgiven myself and remember Who I am. At that point, I will “bless everyone and everything I see.” (Lesson 52.5)
How do I forgive myself? By accepting all parts of myself, even those hidden secrets and dark shadows I am ashamed of and reluctant to bring to conscious awareness. “What can it be but universal blessing to look on what your Father loves with charity? Extension of forgiveness is the Holy Spirit's function. Leave this to Him. Let your concern be only that you give to Him that which can be extended. Save no dark secrets that He cannot use, but offer Him the tiny gifts He can extend forever. He will take each one and make of it a potent force for peace.” (T 22.VI.9) We don't need to--in fact cannot--transform our dark secrets. All we need to do is offer them up to the Holy Spirit, for healing.
In the meantime, while I am still allowing self- forgiveness, I can choose to enter into a holy instant with the person by consciously joining my mind with my sister/brother's mind through the Holy Spirit. “Nothing more than just one instant of my love without attack” is all that is necessary, and “in that single instant is all healing done.” (T 27.V.4)
Lesson 137 gives explicit instructions: “We will remember, as the hour strikes, our function is to let our minds be healed, that we may carry healing to the world, exchanging curse for blessing, pain for joy, and separation for the peace of God.” Buy one of those cheap, annoying watches that beeps every hour. When it beeps, stop to remember that my function is to let my mind be healed. If there is a person or situation “on your mind” use that moment to give a blessing.
We give blessings through the Holy Spirit, the Communication Link to God and all our separated siblings. “If you will listen to His Voice you will know that you cannot either hurt or be hurt, and that many need your blessing to help them hear this for themselves. When you perceive only this need in them, and do not respond to any other, you will have learned of me and will be as eager to share your learning as I am.” (T 6.I.19)
Follow a train of thought of your own. Once you know what your ego mind can do with a simple thought of a person or event or circumstance, you can consciously choose to stop the train and get off. Then focus on that person or event or circumstance and bless it. That, I believe, is why the name or image popped into your mind at that exact moment: the Holy Spirit--the non-local Mind--intersected with your mind, and gave you the opportunity to bless at a point where a blessing was needed.
This week, an experience confirmed the truth of this idea for me. Since mid-December the thought of a particular friend had come to mind again and again. He had been my writing teacher for two years of weekly classes in his home. We students took turns reading and critiquing our writing, as did our teacher, so there was plenty of opportunity for defense and projection, as well as for love and acceptance.
I had not seen my teacher for several years nor had I thought of him with any regularity. But now he came to mind often. I decided to avoid the train of thought and give a blessing, one instant of love without attack, every time he came to mind, and I have been doing that for two months.
This week I came back to Portland from the beach to get The Bridge ready for the printer. My “communication link” (Frances) passed on to me two messages that “seemed important,” both from men I didn't know. The first was a man who had been told by Earl, a teacher and healer in Hawaii, that he should get in touch with me when he moved to Portland. Earl said I would help him and teach him. I don't know anyone named Earl. When I called the man, I didn't recognize his teacher in Hawaii, nor could I figure out how his teacher knew my mother's phone number, or knew that I would be a teacher for him.
The second call was from a man who said his friend was in need of healing, and he knew I could help. (What does that have to do with me? I asked myself.) I returned the call. It turned out to be Earl, in Portland for a week, staying with his friend who was in need of healing. Jack and Eulalia Luckett in Hawaii had told Earl about me, and Earl wanted to put me in touch with his friend, who had been so sick he almost died in December. The friend was my writing teacher. Earl didn't know we even knew each other. He put our mutual friend on the phone, and we had a wonderful reunion. He was much better, and was once again writing and teaching.
If I needed confirmation about my new practice of sending a blessing instead of idle thoughts, this was it. I can trust that this is a necessary practice, and that it will bless me as well as those I bless.
Beyond Blessings and Curses
July-August 1997
Responses and reactions to my recent articles on “Blessings” and “Curses” have helped me to clarify my own experience and thinking on the subject. It's an important topic, one I continue to work on, because the Course raises an important question in us:
“How do I respond to a loved one's suffering?”
Some central principles from the Course compound the question. Minds are joined. There are no private thoughts. Sickness is an illusion. True empathy does not join in suffering. We struggle with sorting out all of this and coming up with a “plan of action” for ourselves, particularly when someone we love is seriously ill, mentally ill, or chronically ill. We worry. We are human. Is that a curse? What about the feelings beyond worry, more like dread?
I do not write about this question from a safe distance. My own spiritual healing through the Course, and my miracle of healing from metastasized cancer led me to believe I understood the question, and the answer. Just at that point of clarity, however, my stepson Lee got lung cancer, and nine months later died. My answers were now a pile of smoking rubble. Just before Lee died, my brother Tim was diagnosed with melanoma. We were close. I was with him three years later when he died.
Spirit has worked with me steadily through recent years, and I have never been without guidance and love, even in my darkest moments of unknowing.
One friend, who has experienced years of sorrow and challenge with a child who is ill, wrote:
“I have to call to mind almost constantly your article on worrying/cursing, Judy! It's just so hard not to worry and yet it is what is needed by all of us. Of course, at first I took extreme issue with that Bridge article and wasted a lot of time thinking up exceptions to that rule! Although there probably are some, my strong reaction finally got my higher attention.”
Of course one worries! Worry, concern, and anxiety are expressions of our love for someone--but they are somewhat distorted expressions of love, or they wouldn't be so exhausting. And at the same time, she is open to see her strong reactions as an invitation to heal, once again, an ancient loss.
And of course, there are exceptions. I am not writing a set of rules--it is just my experience and my interpretation, unique to me. If some of it rings bells of recognition in your own head, then that is what it is for. It's not the Course. Furthermore, there is no one “best” way to study or to interpret the Course. My most profound learnings have come not from The Book, but from my personal, inner experience and from my outer experience in the world. Years of intense study of the Course encouraged me to listen within for guidance, and prepared me for the experiences that would be my most vivid teacher.
Another letter from a friend, Debbie Clay:
“The article stated that a curse is a form of attack, and then went on to say that a curse is subtly given when we worry or are anxious or concerned about another. I found this topic intriguing. But I do not feel it is a simple one. Suppose a dear friend or loved one is seriously ill. There is obviously a difference between pointlessly worrying over them and merely being concerned enough to visit them, offer assistance, etc. Reading the article, someone could say, 'Well, if I am 'cursing' my friend/loved one to be concerned about them, how should I approach this in the correct way?” If to be concerned about another is denying their divinity, should we practice detachment about our feelings for others to the point of releasing all sense of passion? All sense of caring?…This topic interests me because I have a friend who is a Zen Buddhist. He practices detachment, and he does it well. He does it so well that sometimes I wonder if he feels much of anything anymore (beyond his own discomforts/pleasures). Where is the line between healthy concern for another's well-being and a 'curse'?”
I am still learning the lessons Lee and Tim taught me. I tried to be “detached” when they suffered, I wanted to be detached from their suffering. I found it to be humanly impossible. To me, “detachment” is different from “not being attached” which to me means not being attached to a particular outcome--not avoidance or denial, and especially not indifference to another's suffering.
If there is a “correct way” to approach the suffering of a loved one, I don't know what it is. Being with Lee and then Tim, I learned the hard way. I worried, and experienced dread. Total exhaustion at the end told me I still had a lot to learn and a lot to heal, which my retreat at the beach has facilitated. But the truth is, I can't be pious about this. I fumbled along in the dark, sometimes brilliantly guided and certain, sometimes simply dumb. Frankly, the words in the Course were of little comfort to me much of the time. I could not make the miracle I wanted for Lee or for Tim. It was not comforting, either, to have someone remind me that a miracle is merely a change of perception, because my broken heart could not change its perception about the suffering I could see but could not ease.
And yet, I could ease it, and often did. My words did not help, my worry did not help. My thinking and teaching did not help. But when I was able to stay centered in my own divine Self, move the person from my head to my heart, and recognize I could only know what to do by asking within for guidance--those times led to the most blessed joining with my loved one. I did not feel drained or exhausted, and in fact the joining that happened during those times left me feeling joyful rather than sorrowful. Worry and dread were redeemed in those moments of joining in simple love and joy.
Stay Centered in Your Divine Self
We did a demonstration once in a class where we tested the muscle strength of a person by pushing down on the wrist of her extended arm. Then everyone in the group concentrated on pouring energy into the person. Afterward, we again tested her arm. It collapsed immediately, actually weaker now than before. Next, we concentrated on keeping our own energy whole and intact, while seeing the Divine Presence whole and intact in that person. Testing her muscle strength again, we found her arm solid and unmoving no matter how hard we pushed down.
Our outpouring of energy, with the intent to fix or shore up a “weak” person, had the effect of further weakening the person. But our centering within ourselves, while seeing the Light within the other person, actually strengthened her.
I was sometimes able to do this, sometimes not. There were many times when my ego-brain was so involved that my mental activity was an inner wailing, a pushing, an insistence on a particular outcome--my outcome, the one I wanted, healing and survival of these physical beings that I loved. Yes, I was attached. Pouring myself out, wanting a particular outcome, left me exhausted, my light flickering.
But, I noticed, there was a way to be present without exhaustion. It was to stay out of my thinking-ego-mind, open myself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, my own Higher Self, and bring myself and the sufferer into my heart.
Recognize You Do Not Know
“…Whenever you think you know, peace will depart from you, because you have abandoned the Teacher of peace. Whenever you fully realize that you know not, peace will return, for you will have invited Him to do so by abandoning the ego on behalf of Him. Call not upon the ego for anything; it is only this that you need do. The Holy Spirit will, of Himself, fill every mind that so makes room for Him.” (T 14.XI.13)
“Not knowing”, surrendering to the great Mystery, makes room in the mind which the Holy Spirit will fill. It means, when in a confusing or difficult situation, I can simply stop and ask for direction.
I often had to do that--give up my busy efficient “helper” mode and simply ask, “What should I do for him, Your holy Son?” (Song of Prayer, 2.III.5) Sometimes it was clear that the most helpful thing to do was send loving blessings, holding him in my heart. Other times, I was literally pulled up off my couch late at night and pushed to the hospital, where I would find a need for my simple presence. Very often, as Tim said to me once, it was “Shut up. And don't leave.”
So often I longed to be able to do something more “helpful” for Lee or for Tim (which to me meant, “helpful in achieving the outcome I want”) than the mundane things I was asked to do. I wanted to heal them both, keep them alive for me and for their young families. That was not the plan. Instead, what was most helpful was to baby-sit, drive when they no longer could, sit nearby and be quiet, give a Reiki treatment, listen, cook, show up when it was scary--such gestures sometimes seemed like far too little.
Move from Head to Heart
The most important lesson I learned was this: my suffering brother is safer in my heart than in my head.
When I hold a suffering brother in my head--my ego-mind, what a friend calls the “squirrel brain”--I worry. I recall past catastrophes, spin future scenarios, try to fix blame, quote the Course to myself, and most of all, separate. The ego-mind is in the past and future. The heart is in the Now. The ego-mind separates us into the Sufferer (you) and the Worrier (me). The heart joins with the person where they are.
It seems safer to distance myself from the suffering by thinking about it, which means…worry about it. But it isn't safer, for me or for my brother. It seems as if I can circle around the pain by worrying instead of feeling it. But the times when I dared to shift my brother from my head to my heart, I discovered something miraculous: when pain is experienced rather than resisted, it makes room for joy. I could do an actual physical shift--I would see myself taking hold of the person I worried about and actually moving him from my head to my heart, where I would tuck him safely into that loving space. While the ego-mind can only worry or dread, the heart can only love.
In that heart-space, I could no longer think about my brother's suffering. Now I could actually feel it, sometimes as physical pain in my own body. This cascading of love from an open heart without thoughts opened me to a fuller awareness of his pain. During times of his deepest anguish, I could do nothing but join in suffering. When I was able to do that from my heart rather than my head, the pain was greater. But it always led to a release, pain replaced by the joy of joining. Joining in the release from pain led to the tenderest of moments with my brother.
Not happiness, but the quiet joy of joining. Not contentment, but acceptance of what is. For the moment. Until I reeled back to ego-mind and again experienced oh-so-human emotions of concern, anxiety, bafflement, desperation, frustration, exhaustion, heartache and worry.
If I am holding you in my mind, there is worry. If I am holding you in my heart, there may be sorrow or compassion, but not worry. From my heart I don't have a reaction (always of ego) to suffering. Instead, I have a response (always of the Holy Spirit, the Higher Self), which is an overflowing, an outpouring of love and joining. The heart doesn't see anything to do, except respond to a call for love by giving love.
So, Debbie, yes, I believe that we can respond to a call for love by giving love in a concrete form. Never discount pillow-fluffing as a form of response. And never, never discount the blessings of simple prayer--prayer for your own peace and for the peace and well-being of your brother. If we are always asking, “What should I do for him, Your holy Son?” we will hear what to do, and what to say, and when. It will be precisely what is needed in the moment. When I keep my own peace and my own light, ask for guidance as to what, if anything, to do, and hold my brother in my heart instead of my thinking-ego-brain, he is safe with me. In that moment, all my times of frustration, worry and dread are retroactively healed, leaving no effect on myself or my brother.
Thank you, my friends who responded to my writing on this subject. It has helped me to begin to see this: even though I was sometimes a total “failure” in responding to calls for love--times when I worried and fretted and relied on my own will and desired outcomes--there were also times when I did it well, times when I was able to let go, and to say in complete surrender: “I do not know what anything, including this, means. And so I do not know how to respond to it. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now.” (T 14.XI.6.7)
I can now see that those were the times when I was truly helpful.
March-April 1997
My thoughts are private
My thoughts have no power
My thoughts are involuntary
Recognize these beliefs? These are the beliefs that hold our made-up world together--the shared idea of separateness and powerlessness.
The Course does not support these beliefs. In fact, the Course says the opposite:
Minds are joined
Thought and belief combine into a power surge that can literally move mountains
You are much too tolerant of mind wandering
Although I believe this, I tend to exclude my “idle” thoughts. Surely they are private and without effect!
No.
“Few appreciate the real power of the mind, and no one remains fully aware of it all the time. However, if you hope to spare yourself from fear there are some things you must realize, and realize fully. The mind is very powerful, and never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power surge that can literally move mountains. It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is arrogant, but that is not the real reason you do not believe it. You prefer to believe that your thoughts cannot exert real influence because you are actually afraid of them. This may allay awareness of the guilt, but at the cost of perceiving the mind as impotent. If you believe that what you think is ineffectual you may cease to be afraid of it, but you are hardly likely to respect it. There are no idle thoughts. All thinking produces form at some level.” (T 2.VI.9)
Now, this idea does produce fear in me! I clearly recall one of those “life-changing moments” when I was about eight years old. I can see vividly where I was at the time, walking home from Presbyterian Sunday School. I was a quarter of a mile from home when my immature mind grasped a verse I had heard that day that “to deny God is to commit the unforgivable sin.” I wasn't sure what it meant to “deny God” but I was suddenly gripped by a horrible fear: What if I had denied God accidentally, before I knew it was an unforgivable sin, and now I was already condemned to hell forever no matter how “good” I might be from here on out! What if my wild thoughts somehow denied God without my intending to, because now that I knew it was an unforgivable sin it was like being told NOT to think of a blue monkey no matter what, and then trying NOT to think of a blue monkey!
The idea of fear had been introduced into my mind, and a fearful image of God took form. I recall going through the reasoning described in the above paragraph from the Text, first being afraid of my thoughts, then deciding that they couldn't be that powerful. This did allay my fear somewhat. What saved me was an idea I had absorbed from my mother--the suspicion that maybe the idea of “unforgivable sin” wasn't true anyway, maybe there was no literal hell, maybe God wasn't like that.
To now accept the idea that my mind is very powerful and that “all thinking produces form” takes me back to that innocent little girl's fear. What if my thoughts of anger or hatred in the past have hurt someone? What if my fear of something happening has caused that very thing to happen? What if I am not vigilant about my thoughts at every moment, and a stray thought gets away from me and causes havoc in my own or someone else's life?
In the last few months I have again become more vigilant in watching my thoughts. A healed mind, in my opinion, is a mind that no longer believes its thoughts are involuntary, or that they have no effect. A healed mind, furthermore, doesn't harbor guilt for its thoughts that may have caused harm. A healed mind recognizes the ego's attempts to convince it that harm is real and permanent. A healed mind knows this: “When you perform a miracle, I will arrange both time and space to adjust to it.” (T 2.V.A.11.1)
This means to me that when I invite the Holy Spirit to help me, and a miracle--a change of mind--occurs, retroactive healing takes place and erases all effects of miscreative thinking in the past. Retroactive healing. It means that yes, I am responsible for my thoughts and the harm they cause, and yes, any “harm” in the past can be erased in the present.
Here is another passage from the Course that, taken out of context, can cause old fear and new guilt to come up in my mind:
“This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:
I am responsible for what I see. I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked.” (T 21.II.2)
I am responsible for everything that happens to me? I ask for it? But just as I begin to reject that possibility, I read on: “Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done to you. Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of your mistakes will disappear.” Again, retroactive healing. Time and space rearranged so that harm that seemed to have been done disappears.
On sabbatical, I have the quietness and time to watch my thoughts much of the time. I have noticed an interesting pattern: a “random” thought of a person, event, or condition, from the past, present, or future, will occur. And if I am willing to entertain idle thoughts, my mind jumps on a “train of thought” and takes off. The thought of a person will come to mind, and I have a whole palette of memories, speculations, judgments, and worries about that person, some of it pleasant, some of it painful.
But minds are joined. There are no private thoughts. Knowing this, I have begun a practice which does take practice --I believe it is what the Course advises us to do: I change the idle thoughts to a blessing. I get off the train of thought. I believe that if the thought of a particular person or event or condition “occurs” to me, it is because at that moment a call for love went out, the Holy Spirit, the Communication Link transmitted it, and I picked it up. If I allow the train of idle thoughts to begin, I have not responded to the call for love.
How can I respond to a call for love when the person has not directly called to me, and when I am not in direct communication with the person? By giving a blessing, I decided. I wasn't sure how to do that, so I am now learning, from the Course and from my inner voice, how and why to give a blessing. It seems so little, just a little change of mind, but if the Course is true--it will heal not only the receiver, but the giver. The thought alone is that powerful.
I hear people say, “All I could do for him was pray.” Yes. As if that alone were not enough--in fact, as if that alone were not the most powerful response to a call for love. To pray for that person is to step out of our “private mind” and join with the Mind of God, which is in touch with that person directly.
“In the holy instant the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the body's interference, and where there is communication there is peace..” (T 15.XI.7)
What is a blessing?
A blessing is a miracle, a change of perception.
“A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers.” (T 1.I.27)
“The miracle is...a call to the Holy Spirit in [your brother's] mind, a call that is strengthened by joining.” (T 10.IV.7)
Why give blessings?
The first half of the Text and the first half of the Workbook discuss giving blessings because it is imperative for your own salvation (Lesson 39). (T 15.I.13) If you deny a blessing to a brother, you will feel deprived. (T 7.VII.1) When you give a blessing, you are blessed. (T 21.VI.10) (Lesson 58)
“That the miracle may have effects on your brothers that you may not recognize is not your concern. The miracle will always bless you. “ (T 1.III.8)
“When a brother acts insanely, he is offering you an opportunity to bless him. His need is yours. You need the blessing you can offer him. There is no way for you to have it except by giving it. This is the law of God, and it has no exceptions.” (T 7.VII.2)
“When I am healed I am not healed alone. And I would bless my brothers, for I would be healed with them, as they are healed with me.” (Lesson 137)
“You are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers anywhere. You should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude.” (T 5.in.3)
The latter half of the Text and of the Workbook expand that healing: Give a blessing, and it will free the world. (T 30.II.4) “The peace of God is shining in you now, and from your heart extends around the world. It pauses to caress each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that remains forever and forever.... “ (Lesson 188)
As Emmet Fox says: “Bless a thing and it will bless you. Curse it and it will curse you....If you bless a situation, it has no power to hurt you, and even if it is troublesome for a time, it will gradually fade out, if you sincerely bless it.”
Who is deserving of a blessing?
This is the old, “But what about Hitler?” question again. What if a thought occurs of Hitler or the holocaust, or some equivalent monster from current events? Must I give a blessing then? Yes:
“Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls him to return because it blesses and honors him, even though he may be absent in spirit.” (T 1.V.4)
“He has not waited until you return your mind to Him to give His Word to you. He has not hid Himself from you, while you have wandered off a little while from Him. He does not cherish the illusions which you hold about yourself. He knows His Son, and wills that he remain as part of Him regardless of his dreams; regardless of his madness that his will is not his own.” (Lesson 125)
“Each one you see you place within the holy circle of Atonement or leave outside, judging him fit for crucifixion or for redemption. If you bring him into the circle of purity, you will rest there with him. If you leave him without, you join him there. Judge not except in quietness which is not of you. Refuse to accept anyone as without the blessing of Atonement, and bring him into it by blessing him.” (T 14.V.11)
If we leave anyone out of the Circle of Atonement, we leave ourselves out as well. The miracle of forgiveness blesses and honors every Child of God, even those who have “wandered off a little while from Him.” Even Hitler. Then it must be, even me.
How do I give a blessing?
I begin by forgiving myself and remembering Who I am. Blessings will become automatic, involuntary, and continuous when I have finally forgiven myself and remember Who I am. At that point, I will “bless everyone and everything I see.” (Lesson 52.5)
How do I forgive myself? By accepting all parts of myself, even those hidden secrets and dark shadows I am ashamed of and reluctant to bring to conscious awareness. “What can it be but universal blessing to look on what your Father loves with charity? Extension of forgiveness is the Holy Spirit's function. Leave this to Him. Let your concern be only that you give to Him that which can be extended. Save no dark secrets that He cannot use, but offer Him the tiny gifts He can extend forever. He will take each one and make of it a potent force for peace.” (T 22.VI.9) We don't need to--in fact cannot--transform our dark secrets. All we need to do is offer them up to the Holy Spirit, for healing.
In the meantime, while I am still allowing self- forgiveness, I can choose to enter into a holy instant with the person by consciously joining my mind with my sister/brother's mind through the Holy Spirit. “Nothing more than just one instant of my love without attack” is all that is necessary, and “in that single instant is all healing done.” (T 27.V.4)
Lesson 137 gives explicit instructions: “We will remember, as the hour strikes, our function is to let our minds be healed, that we may carry healing to the world, exchanging curse for blessing, pain for joy, and separation for the peace of God.” Buy one of those cheap, annoying watches that beeps every hour. When it beeps, stop to remember that my function is to let my mind be healed. If there is a person or situation “on your mind” use that moment to give a blessing.
We give blessings through the Holy Spirit, the Communication Link to God and all our separated siblings. “If you will listen to His Voice you will know that you cannot either hurt or be hurt, and that many need your blessing to help them hear this for themselves. When you perceive only this need in them, and do not respond to any other, you will have learned of me and will be as eager to share your learning as I am.” (T 6.I.19)
Follow a train of thought of your own. Once you know what your ego mind can do with a simple thought of a person or event or circumstance, you can consciously choose to stop the train and get off. Then focus on that person or event or circumstance and bless it. That, I believe, is why the name or image popped into your mind at that exact moment: the Holy Spirit--the non-local Mind--intersected with your mind, and gave you the opportunity to bless at a point where a blessing was needed.
This week, an experience confirmed the truth of this idea for me. Since mid-December the thought of a particular friend had come to mind again and again. He had been my writing teacher for two years of weekly classes in his home. We students took turns reading and critiquing our writing, as did our teacher, so there was plenty of opportunity for defense and projection, as well as for love and acceptance.
I had not seen my teacher for several years nor had I thought of him with any regularity. But now he came to mind often. I decided to avoid the train of thought and give a blessing, one instant of love without attack, every time he came to mind, and I have been doing that for two months.
This week I came back to Portland from the beach to get The Bridge ready for the printer. My “communication link” (Frances) passed on to me two messages that “seemed important,” both from men I didn't know. The first was a man who had been told by Earl, a teacher and healer in Hawaii, that he should get in touch with me when he moved to Portland. Earl said I would help him and teach him. I don't know anyone named Earl. When I called the man, I didn't recognize his teacher in Hawaii, nor could I figure out how his teacher knew my mother's phone number, or knew that I would be a teacher for him.
The second call was from a man who said his friend was in need of healing, and he knew I could help. (What does that have to do with me? I asked myself.) I returned the call. It turned out to be Earl, in Portland for a week, staying with his friend who was in need of healing. Jack and Eulalia Luckett in Hawaii had told Earl about me, and Earl wanted to put me in touch with his friend, who had been so sick he almost died in December. The friend was my writing teacher. Earl didn't know we even knew each other. He put our mutual friend on the phone, and we had a wonderful reunion. He was much better, and was once again writing and teaching.
If I needed confirmation about my new practice of sending a blessing instead of idle thoughts, this was it. I can trust that this is a necessary practice, and that it will bless me as well as those I bless.
Beyond Blessings and Curses
July-August 1997
Responses and reactions to my recent articles on “Blessings” and “Curses” have helped me to clarify my own experience and thinking on the subject. It's an important topic, one I continue to work on, because the Course raises an important question in us:
“How do I respond to a loved one's suffering?”
Some central principles from the Course compound the question. Minds are joined. There are no private thoughts. Sickness is an illusion. True empathy does not join in suffering. We struggle with sorting out all of this and coming up with a “plan of action” for ourselves, particularly when someone we love is seriously ill, mentally ill, or chronically ill. We worry. We are human. Is that a curse? What about the feelings beyond worry, more like dread?
I do not write about this question from a safe distance. My own spiritual healing through the Course, and my miracle of healing from metastasized cancer led me to believe I understood the question, and the answer. Just at that point of clarity, however, my stepson Lee got lung cancer, and nine months later died. My answers were now a pile of smoking rubble. Just before Lee died, my brother Tim was diagnosed with melanoma. We were close. I was with him three years later when he died.
Spirit has worked with me steadily through recent years, and I have never been without guidance and love, even in my darkest moments of unknowing.
One friend, who has experienced years of sorrow and challenge with a child who is ill, wrote:
“I have to call to mind almost constantly your article on worrying/cursing, Judy! It's just so hard not to worry and yet it is what is needed by all of us. Of course, at first I took extreme issue with that Bridge article and wasted a lot of time thinking up exceptions to that rule! Although there probably are some, my strong reaction finally got my higher attention.”
Of course one worries! Worry, concern, and anxiety are expressions of our love for someone--but they are somewhat distorted expressions of love, or they wouldn't be so exhausting. And at the same time, she is open to see her strong reactions as an invitation to heal, once again, an ancient loss.
And of course, there are exceptions. I am not writing a set of rules--it is just my experience and my interpretation, unique to me. If some of it rings bells of recognition in your own head, then that is what it is for. It's not the Course. Furthermore, there is no one “best” way to study or to interpret the Course. My most profound learnings have come not from The Book, but from my personal, inner experience and from my outer experience in the world. Years of intense study of the Course encouraged me to listen within for guidance, and prepared me for the experiences that would be my most vivid teacher.
Another letter from a friend, Debbie Clay:
“The article stated that a curse is a form of attack, and then went on to say that a curse is subtly given when we worry or are anxious or concerned about another. I found this topic intriguing. But I do not feel it is a simple one. Suppose a dear friend or loved one is seriously ill. There is obviously a difference between pointlessly worrying over them and merely being concerned enough to visit them, offer assistance, etc. Reading the article, someone could say, 'Well, if I am 'cursing' my friend/loved one to be concerned about them, how should I approach this in the correct way?” If to be concerned about another is denying their divinity, should we practice detachment about our feelings for others to the point of releasing all sense of passion? All sense of caring?…This topic interests me because I have a friend who is a Zen Buddhist. He practices detachment, and he does it well. He does it so well that sometimes I wonder if he feels much of anything anymore (beyond his own discomforts/pleasures). Where is the line between healthy concern for another's well-being and a 'curse'?”
I am still learning the lessons Lee and Tim taught me. I tried to be “detached” when they suffered, I wanted to be detached from their suffering. I found it to be humanly impossible. To me, “detachment” is different from “not being attached” which to me means not being attached to a particular outcome--not avoidance or denial, and especially not indifference to another's suffering.
If there is a “correct way” to approach the suffering of a loved one, I don't know what it is. Being with Lee and then Tim, I learned the hard way. I worried, and experienced dread. Total exhaustion at the end told me I still had a lot to learn and a lot to heal, which my retreat at the beach has facilitated. But the truth is, I can't be pious about this. I fumbled along in the dark, sometimes brilliantly guided and certain, sometimes simply dumb. Frankly, the words in the Course were of little comfort to me much of the time. I could not make the miracle I wanted for Lee or for Tim. It was not comforting, either, to have someone remind me that a miracle is merely a change of perception, because my broken heart could not change its perception about the suffering I could see but could not ease.
And yet, I could ease it, and often did. My words did not help, my worry did not help. My thinking and teaching did not help. But when I was able to stay centered in my own divine Self, move the person from my head to my heart, and recognize I could only know what to do by asking within for guidance--those times led to the most blessed joining with my loved one. I did not feel drained or exhausted, and in fact the joining that happened during those times left me feeling joyful rather than sorrowful. Worry and dread were redeemed in those moments of joining in simple love and joy.
Stay Centered in Your Divine Self
We did a demonstration once in a class where we tested the muscle strength of a person by pushing down on the wrist of her extended arm. Then everyone in the group concentrated on pouring energy into the person. Afterward, we again tested her arm. It collapsed immediately, actually weaker now than before. Next, we concentrated on keeping our own energy whole and intact, while seeing the Divine Presence whole and intact in that person. Testing her muscle strength again, we found her arm solid and unmoving no matter how hard we pushed down.
Our outpouring of energy, with the intent to fix or shore up a “weak” person, had the effect of further weakening the person. But our centering within ourselves, while seeing the Light within the other person, actually strengthened her.
I was sometimes able to do this, sometimes not. There were many times when my ego-brain was so involved that my mental activity was an inner wailing, a pushing, an insistence on a particular outcome--my outcome, the one I wanted, healing and survival of these physical beings that I loved. Yes, I was attached. Pouring myself out, wanting a particular outcome, left me exhausted, my light flickering.
But, I noticed, there was a way to be present without exhaustion. It was to stay out of my thinking-ego-mind, open myself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, my own Higher Self, and bring myself and the sufferer into my heart.
Recognize You Do Not Know
“…Whenever you think you know, peace will depart from you, because you have abandoned the Teacher of peace. Whenever you fully realize that you know not, peace will return, for you will have invited Him to do so by abandoning the ego on behalf of Him. Call not upon the ego for anything; it is only this that you need do. The Holy Spirit will, of Himself, fill every mind that so makes room for Him.” (T 14.XI.13)
“Not knowing”, surrendering to the great Mystery, makes room in the mind which the Holy Spirit will fill. It means, when in a confusing or difficult situation, I can simply stop and ask for direction.
I often had to do that--give up my busy efficient “helper” mode and simply ask, “What should I do for him, Your holy Son?” (Song of Prayer, 2.III.5) Sometimes it was clear that the most helpful thing to do was send loving blessings, holding him in my heart. Other times, I was literally pulled up off my couch late at night and pushed to the hospital, where I would find a need for my simple presence. Very often, as Tim said to me once, it was “Shut up. And don't leave.”
So often I longed to be able to do something more “helpful” for Lee or for Tim (which to me meant, “helpful in achieving the outcome I want”) than the mundane things I was asked to do. I wanted to heal them both, keep them alive for me and for their young families. That was not the plan. Instead, what was most helpful was to baby-sit, drive when they no longer could, sit nearby and be quiet, give a Reiki treatment, listen, cook, show up when it was scary--such gestures sometimes seemed like far too little.
Move from Head to Heart
The most important lesson I learned was this: my suffering brother is safer in my heart than in my head.
When I hold a suffering brother in my head--my ego-mind, what a friend calls the “squirrel brain”--I worry. I recall past catastrophes, spin future scenarios, try to fix blame, quote the Course to myself, and most of all, separate. The ego-mind is in the past and future. The heart is in the Now. The ego-mind separates us into the Sufferer (you) and the Worrier (me). The heart joins with the person where they are.
It seems safer to distance myself from the suffering by thinking about it, which means…worry about it. But it isn't safer, for me or for my brother. It seems as if I can circle around the pain by worrying instead of feeling it. But the times when I dared to shift my brother from my head to my heart, I discovered something miraculous: when pain is experienced rather than resisted, it makes room for joy. I could do an actual physical shift--I would see myself taking hold of the person I worried about and actually moving him from my head to my heart, where I would tuck him safely into that loving space. While the ego-mind can only worry or dread, the heart can only love.
In that heart-space, I could no longer think about my brother's suffering. Now I could actually feel it, sometimes as physical pain in my own body. This cascading of love from an open heart without thoughts opened me to a fuller awareness of his pain. During times of his deepest anguish, I could do nothing but join in suffering. When I was able to do that from my heart rather than my head, the pain was greater. But it always led to a release, pain replaced by the joy of joining. Joining in the release from pain led to the tenderest of moments with my brother.
Not happiness, but the quiet joy of joining. Not contentment, but acceptance of what is. For the moment. Until I reeled back to ego-mind and again experienced oh-so-human emotions of concern, anxiety, bafflement, desperation, frustration, exhaustion, heartache and worry.
If I am holding you in my mind, there is worry. If I am holding you in my heart, there may be sorrow or compassion, but not worry. From my heart I don't have a reaction (always of ego) to suffering. Instead, I have a response (always of the Holy Spirit, the Higher Self), which is an overflowing, an outpouring of love and joining. The heart doesn't see anything to do, except respond to a call for love by giving love.
So, Debbie, yes, I believe that we can respond to a call for love by giving love in a concrete form. Never discount pillow-fluffing as a form of response. And never, never discount the blessings of simple prayer--prayer for your own peace and for the peace and well-being of your brother. If we are always asking, “What should I do for him, Your holy Son?” we will hear what to do, and what to say, and when. It will be precisely what is needed in the moment. When I keep my own peace and my own light, ask for guidance as to what, if anything, to do, and hold my brother in my heart instead of my thinking-ego-brain, he is safe with me. In that moment, all my times of frustration, worry and dread are retroactively healed, leaving no effect on myself or my brother.
Thank you, my friends who responded to my writing on this subject. It has helped me to begin to see this: even though I was sometimes a total “failure” in responding to calls for love--times when I worried and fretted and relied on my own will and desired outcomes--there were also times when I did it well, times when I was able to let go, and to say in complete surrender: “I do not know what anything, including this, means. And so I do not know how to respond to it. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now.” (T 14.XI.6.7)
I can now see that those were the times when I was truly helpful.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
TODAY I BEGIN TO ADD ESSAYS FROM MY YEARS AS A COURSE IN MIRACLES TEACHER, as well as others on other topics. I'll use a prefix and a label (ACIM:) for those articles, so if you're interested, you can find them, and if you're not, not.
All were probably written between 1985-2004, for the monthly newsletter I edited and published for the Center for A Course in Miracles in Portland, Oregon, the Center my mother, Frances Reed, established in 1985 (it's still there, though we're not!). Those were the years of my most intense study and teaching of the Course, after my healing from metastatic cancer. My spiritual path has moved on and diverged, while never losing the teachings of the Course, now permanently embedded in my consciousness.
Here's the first one.
ACIM: Potholes and Pitfalls
by Judy Allen
In the years of my devotion to the Course I have witnessed my own stages of development, and also a number of potholes and pitfalls in my experience. I write this not to "save" others from falling into them, but to join with others who have had or will have the same experience, in laughter and love.
At a recent retreat at the Trappist Abbey, Brother Mark pointed out a framed quote in the meditation room: "God, Whose Love and Joy are present everywhere, can't come to visit you unless you aren't there. A. Silesius." I wondered about this. I don't have to be there? But then I realized...my ego can't be there. God can't come to visit me unless my ego is absent.
And there is pothole #1. We try to throw the ego out, so God can visit. In fact, it's a big relief to imagine that we can throw the ego out, because we don't approve of much of what it is responsible for. There are some guilty secrets, some character flaws, and some fierce grievances that we'd just as soon bury. Then there will be space for God to visit, right?
Wrong. We can't really throw out the ego without looking at what it is we are throwing out. Until we know and accept all parts of ourselves without judgment and disapproval, we can't "give ourselves up." If we gathered up everything in the closet and gave it to Goodwill, without looking at what was in there, we would be likely to go shopping at Goodwill in the future, and find several outfits that we really like. And buy them back.
The Text, Chapter 13 Section III, "The Fear of Redemption", addresses this very well:
"You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and realize its full extent. You may also think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and to dispel it without the need for you to raise it to awareness yourself...Therefore, you have used the world to cover your love, and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego's foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you."
In the Introduction to A Course in Miracles, we are told
"The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance."
The "blocks to the awareness of love's presence" are the many forms of fear locked in our subconscious mind, covering up the love that is our natural inheritance. We are afraid to listen to the Voice of Love, afraid that it, too, will tell us of our guilt and darkness. By becoming aware of our blocks and choosing to challenge our beliefs we can uncover the beauty of our true essence, which is love.
In other words, allow the thing within myself that I have judged as "not acceptable" to come into my awareness, look at it clear-eyed and without judgment, and ask the Holy Spirit to release it for me.
Pothole #2 is that old "body" thing again. Long-time students of the Course love to argue about whether or not we have a body, are a body, or merely imagine that such a thing could even exist. Especially if my body is experiencing illness, pain, or disability of any kind, it is very tempting to just ignore it totally, saying "I am not a body," and view our physical selves as entirely illusory and non-existent. This may be particularly true for some who have experienced physical abuse as a child and "left" their bodies in order to survive. They may have a particularly hard time as adults even being willing to stay grounded within their physical body.
But the Course is written to connect with the split mind, the mind that needs to be healed in order to perceive Truly. "I am not a body" does not deny that we have bodies, or at least perceive ourselves in that way. As I experience this world now, the Holy Spirit is helping me to wake up by using my every distorted perception of the Kingdom of Heaven as a teaching device. Even my body, which identifies me perfectly as a recognizable Child of God--with skin on.
While I seem to exist in this world, I see suffering, in myself and others. How can I deal with that, if I perceive bodies as non-existent? I can extend love to my body, and to the bodies of others, while choosing to see only spirit...
"But choose the spirit [over flesh] and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes and bless your holy sight, that you may see the world of flesh no more except to heal and comfort and to bless." (T-31.VI.1:8)
That is the purpose I see for bodies here--to heal and comfort and bless.
All were probably written between 1985-2004, for the monthly newsletter I edited and published for the Center for A Course in Miracles in Portland, Oregon, the Center my mother, Frances Reed, established in 1985 (it's still there, though we're not!). Those were the years of my most intense study and teaching of the Course, after my healing from metastatic cancer. My spiritual path has moved on and diverged, while never losing the teachings of the Course, now permanently embedded in my consciousness.
Here's the first one.
ACIM: Potholes and Pitfalls
by Judy Allen
In the years of my devotion to the Course I have witnessed my own stages of development, and also a number of potholes and pitfalls in my experience. I write this not to "save" others from falling into them, but to join with others who have had or will have the same experience, in laughter and love.
At a recent retreat at the Trappist Abbey, Brother Mark pointed out a framed quote in the meditation room: "God, Whose Love and Joy are present everywhere, can't come to visit you unless you aren't there. A. Silesius." I wondered about this. I don't have to be there? But then I realized...my ego can't be there. God can't come to visit me unless my ego is absent.
And there is pothole #1. We try to throw the ego out, so God can visit. In fact, it's a big relief to imagine that we can throw the ego out, because we don't approve of much of what it is responsible for. There are some guilty secrets, some character flaws, and some fierce grievances that we'd just as soon bury. Then there will be space for God to visit, right?
Wrong. We can't really throw out the ego without looking at what it is we are throwing out. Until we know and accept all parts of ourselves without judgment and disapproval, we can't "give ourselves up." If we gathered up everything in the closet and gave it to Goodwill, without looking at what was in there, we would be likely to go shopping at Goodwill in the future, and find several outfits that we really like. And buy them back.
The Text, Chapter 13 Section III, "The Fear of Redemption", addresses this very well:
"You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and realize its full extent. You may also think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and to dispel it without the need for you to raise it to awareness yourself...Therefore, you have used the world to cover your love, and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego's foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you."
In the Introduction to A Course in Miracles, we are told
"The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance."
The "blocks to the awareness of love's presence" are the many forms of fear locked in our subconscious mind, covering up the love that is our natural inheritance. We are afraid to listen to the Voice of Love, afraid that it, too, will tell us of our guilt and darkness. By becoming aware of our blocks and choosing to challenge our beliefs we can uncover the beauty of our true essence, which is love.
In other words, allow the thing within myself that I have judged as "not acceptable" to come into my awareness, look at it clear-eyed and without judgment, and ask the Holy Spirit to release it for me.
Pothole #2 is that old "body" thing again. Long-time students of the Course love to argue about whether or not we have a body, are a body, or merely imagine that such a thing could even exist. Especially if my body is experiencing illness, pain, or disability of any kind, it is very tempting to just ignore it totally, saying "I am not a body," and view our physical selves as entirely illusory and non-existent. This may be particularly true for some who have experienced physical abuse as a child and "left" their bodies in order to survive. They may have a particularly hard time as adults even being willing to stay grounded within their physical body.
But the Course is written to connect with the split mind, the mind that needs to be healed in order to perceive Truly. "I am not a body" does not deny that we have bodies, or at least perceive ourselves in that way. As I experience this world now, the Holy Spirit is helping me to wake up by using my every distorted perception of the Kingdom of Heaven as a teaching device. Even my body, which identifies me perfectly as a recognizable Child of God--with skin on.
While I seem to exist in this world, I see suffering, in myself and others. How can I deal with that, if I perceive bodies as non-existent? I can extend love to my body, and to the bodies of others, while choosing to see only spirit...
"But choose the spirit [over flesh] and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes and bless your holy sight, that you may see the world of flesh no more except to heal and comfort and to bless." (T-31.VI.1:8)
That is the purpose I see for bodies here--to heal and comfort and bless.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
WORDS
I’ve always been fascinated with correct pronunciation of difficult words. I look them up in my huge unabridged Random House Dictionary.
Humiliation is a familiar feeling to a person who learns words by reading rather than by hearing them in conversation. The first time I was humiliated for pronouncing a word wrong was when I asked Dad why he didn’t get some MAN-ure to use as fertilizer. He puzzled over it for a minute, then gently explained that man-OOR was what he shoveled up in the barn and dumped onto the farm crops. But he couldn’t conceal his amusement.
Spelling can be another source of humiliation for a word lover. I nearly won the county-wide seventh grade spelling bee on the radio in Astoria. When I realized it was me against Wanda Biggs for the final word, I froze. The word was exaggerate, a word I could easily spell. But my mind went blank. “E-g-g-s-?” I began. The moderator, seeing my panic, tried to help. “No, EX-aggerate.” I searched frantically in my tortured mind and came up with “E-c-k-s …?” At which point he turned to Wanda. “Wanda?” She tossed her hair, stepped up to the microphone and rattled it off. The letter X, that’s what I couldn’t find. I wanted to die. Wanda smirked, her favorite expression. That was a humiliation I clearly have issues about to this day. At our 50-year class reunion Wanda brought her red chiffon prom dress, and hung it on a divider in the center of the room. Then she laid out on tables all of her angora sweaters, complete with the scarves she had tucked into the neck back in the Fifties; and the earrings she had worn with each outfit. She stood to make an announcement: “Everything here still fits me perfectly.”
That was obviously true—but…Why?
Another humiliation I still have issues about happened the night before my first cancer surgery. My then-husband brought his mistress over to share a bottle of wine and “comfort” me. Since I couldn’t eat or drink anything I tried to make conversation with her. I used a word which I had read but never used in conversation. I pronounced it BANE-ul. She flashed a quick, amused look at my soon-to-be-ex-husband, and finally, encouraged by his grin, laughed out loud. “Do you mean ban-OWL?” I’ll never mispronounce that word again. In fact, I’ll never use that word again.
Jack, my husband for the last twenty-eight years, never smirks, or smiles, or grins if I mispronounce something. I haven’t felt pronunciation humiliation for ages.
Now if I only knew for sure how to pronounce “vapid.” My Unabridged Dictionary says it’s vapp-id, but the online Webster’s says it could also be pronounced vaypid.
And flaccid. There’s a word for which I have used the secondary pronunciation, flassid, like everyone else, until I looked it up and found that the preferred pronunciation is flak-sid. Not that it’s a word anyone regularly uses. I may never use that word again, either.
Now try to get that word out of your head.
Humiliation is a familiar feeling to a person who learns words by reading rather than by hearing them in conversation. The first time I was humiliated for pronouncing a word wrong was when I asked Dad why he didn’t get some MAN-ure to use as fertilizer. He puzzled over it for a minute, then gently explained that man-OOR was what he shoveled up in the barn and dumped onto the farm crops. But he couldn’t conceal his amusement.
Spelling can be another source of humiliation for a word lover. I nearly won the county-wide seventh grade spelling bee on the radio in Astoria. When I realized it was me against Wanda Biggs for the final word, I froze. The word was exaggerate, a word I could easily spell. But my mind went blank. “E-g-g-s-?” I began. The moderator, seeing my panic, tried to help. “No, EX-aggerate.” I searched frantically in my tortured mind and came up with “E-c-k-s …?” At which point he turned to Wanda. “Wanda?” She tossed her hair, stepped up to the microphone and rattled it off. The letter X, that’s what I couldn’t find. I wanted to die. Wanda smirked, her favorite expression. That was a humiliation I clearly have issues about to this day. At our 50-year class reunion Wanda brought her red chiffon prom dress, and hung it on a divider in the center of the room. Then she laid out on tables all of her angora sweaters, complete with the scarves she had tucked into the neck back in the Fifties; and the earrings she had worn with each outfit. She stood to make an announcement: “Everything here still fits me perfectly.”
That was obviously true—but…Why?
Another humiliation I still have issues about happened the night before my first cancer surgery. My then-husband brought his mistress over to share a bottle of wine and “comfort” me. Since I couldn’t eat or drink anything I tried to make conversation with her. I used a word which I had read but never used in conversation. I pronounced it BANE-ul. She flashed a quick, amused look at my soon-to-be-ex-husband, and finally, encouraged by his grin, laughed out loud. “Do you mean ban-OWL?” I’ll never mispronounce that word again. In fact, I’ll never use that word again.
Jack, my husband for the last twenty-eight years, never smirks, or smiles, or grins if I mispronounce something. I haven’t felt pronunciation humiliation for ages.
Now if I only knew for sure how to pronounce “vapid.” My Unabridged Dictionary says it’s vapp-id, but the online Webster’s says it could also be pronounced vaypid.
And flaccid. There’s a word for which I have used the secondary pronunciation, flassid, like everyone else, until I looked it up and found that the preferred pronunciation is flak-sid. Not that it’s a word anyone regularly uses. I may never use that word again, either.
Now try to get that word out of your head.
Monday, April 20, 2009
ENEMIES
If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each person’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. …Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
FLYING
Be like the bird, pausing in his flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way, yet sings,
Knowing he has wings.
Victor Hugo
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way, yet sings,
Knowing he has wings.
Victor Hugo
Sunday, April 19, 2009
It's late
My friend Karen www.museofsouthprairie.blogspot.com said I could have a blog up by the end of the weekend. I just now took her up on it. She was right. So quick and easy. Now to add content...
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