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One of my ego’s favorite ways to hook my attention has been through fears of sickness. Worrying about the health of my body has been an ego pattern that has accompanied me throughout most of my life. “The god of sickness” (which the Course says is really a belief in nothing) is something that I’ve chased and looked for my whole life.
To hear Corinne talk about this experience on a recent ACIM study group call, download the mp3 HERE.
I recently had a wonderful opportunity. It was an opportunity to look at my firmly held belief that my body can hurt me. It was an opportunity to look, smack-in-the-face, at my fears about personal sickness.
I’ve always avoided being in the space of “not knowing” if something was wrong with my body. Illness had always terrified me and I’d rush to the doctor at the first hint that something was wrong. Being in a place of suspecting a problem and not knowing the cause was a place I avoided like the plague (pun intended).
To my ego’s (Corinne’s) unhappiness, I was recently in that place of “not knowing” for a span of several months. I had been undergoing a series of lab tests and scans because one inconclusive but abnormal test result lead to another one and then to more. I had moments of feeling terrified, yet there were also moments where I was able to rest in a space of pure innocence, feeling like it was impossible for anything to hurt me.
Having been in similar situations in the past, I was well aware that I had two choices in this situation. I could freak out and sweat it out, only feeling better once I got a clean bill of health, or I could decide to look for my peace where it REALLY can be found. And when I decided that I wanted to find the type of peace that did not depend on the outcome of a test result, I became wholly willing to find it.
Withholding nothing from the Holy Spirit was a key component throughout this process. Every time I felt the fear of sickness arise and the strong pull to believe it, I turned to the Holy Spirit instead, asking to be taught about the UNimportance of the body. As promised in the Course:
“I can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them, and lets me teach you their unimportance.” – ACIM T-4.I.13
Every moment when the fear grew strong, I didn’t dismiss it, I didn’t minimize it, I didn’t make myself try to “feel better” by telling myself that my body would be OK. Instead, I let go of everything, putting it in the Holy Spirit’s arms, trusting that I CAN learn True Healing and the unimportance of the body — with the help of the Holy Spirit. Above all, I recognized this was coming up as an opportunity to look WITH the Holy Spirit at another layer of my blocks to Love, and allow them to be undone as I was willing to let them go.
There were many other ideas from the Course that were key in helping me in this situation, including the Course’s teachings on cause and effect. According to the Course, the last step of the separation was the reversal of cause and effect., and so this is where salvation begins:
“Effect and cause are first split off, and then reversed, so that effect becomes a cause; the cause, effect. This is the separation’s final step, with which salvation, which proceeds to go the other way, begins.” – ACIM T-28.II.8-9.
The way of the world is to think that things “out there” can “cause” me to have a bad day, or can “cause” me to get sick. Even thinking that my body can make me sick is to give the body the power to be able to cause or in other words, create an illness. The Course teaches that this is not true. My body is an effect of my mind, and to find where salvation begins, I became wholly willing to accept that what I was experiencing was coming from my split mind. The situation in which I found myself was coming from my ego, because my ego knew it would be a hook where I would be likely to take the bait to stay in fear. But not this time.
Essentially, working with the spikes of fear boiled down to 3 steps for me.
- Step 1: Every moment when the fear arises (e.g. fears of death or fears of the flu) look at that fear WITH the Holy Spirit, rather than turning away from it or minimizing it.
Suggested self-talk: “I’m willing to look at this WITH you.” “I’m willing to look at my beliefs that are bringing this fear about.” “I am willing to own that this is coming from my split mind.”
- Step 2: Clean up shop and toss EVERYTHING into the Holy Spirit’s hands.
Suggested self-talk: “Take this from me and look upon it, judging it for me” (T-19.IV.C.i.11), “Teach me the right perception of my body” “Teach me how to think like you.” “I withhold absolutely nothing from You. Take it all.”
- Step 3: Seek a moment of quiet.
At times, I felt so much fear that meditation seemed too difficult. Instead, I found that getting on my knees into a prayer pose helped my practice of Step 2. Being in prayer pose helped me to feel like I am done being the maker of my own dream, and I’m ready to let the Holy Spirit take the lead. As I truly relinquished everything, the only thing that remained was joyful quietness and pure peace.
I worked these steps as if my life depended on it (becoming aware of our True Life most certainly DOES depend on this), every single time I felt a spike in of fear. By handing over my fixed false perceptions to the Holy Spirit, I started to experience small glimpses of pure joy, and a feeling that NOTHING can hurt us in Truth. Sickness began to feel utterly preposterous.
“When I am healed, I am not healed alone” – ACIM Lesson 137
When I got the phone call announcing a clean bill of health, my ego was relieved, but my Spirit was untouched, knowing that any picture of the world can’t change the truth of who we are. The ego cannot change Truth. By working the steps above and resting many times in a place of pure joy and innocence, my belief in sickness felt like it was going down the drain.
An unexpected event then occurred. Unknown to me, within one minute of my receiving the phone call with “good news” from my doctor, my mom, while in her kitchen, found herself looking at the clock, distinctly noting that it was 5:31 p.m. She was 75 miles away and unaware that I had gotten the surprise doctor’s call at 5:30 p.m. My mom had been in the midst of a 5-day long cluster-type migraine headache (which often knock her off of her feet for several days per week, every week). One minute before I received the phone call, she experienced a sensation as if several layers of sandbags were being lifted off of her shoulders, resulting in the almost instant dissipation of the headache. Subsequently she was headache free for weeks, which has not occurred in years. This healing did not happen because she was relieved about my news. She had been working the Course as I had been, and we simply both joined in meeting the conditions of peace. It is there where healing happens.
I realized that I have been chasing after the god of sickness my entire life. I looked for him. I sought him out. That is what I’ve always done by running to the doctor out of fear every time I noticed a physical symptom.
Instead of running to the doctor (which wasn’t an option because I was forced to wait things out), I ran to the Holy Spirit. Seriously ran. And I let go more deeply than I thought I could. The miracle that came was a healing for me, my mom, and for anyone who needs it.
The thought then came to me, “The god of sickness is loosening his hold on me” but I was given an immediate correction with a firm “No!” – “I am learning how to let go of the god of sickness.”
To hear Corinne talk about this experience on a recent ACIM study group call, download the mp3 HERE.
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