The next number of posts, all titled Conversations on… come from email communications between a dear friend and me. With her permission, I am publishing excerpts from them because I feel they pertain to everything we’ve been discussing on the blog. Kate has been in the process of trying to figure out how to be a writer and still maintain her teaching job. She has very recently decided she must leave her job and fully embrace a “writing life.” At her request I’ve changed her name and am using initials for people she brings up. Those of you who have not read any of the earlier Conversation pieces, may want to go back to have a better understanding of Kate’s progress. You’ll find her story under the topic category, “Kate’s Story.” It’d be great if you all would join our conversation…
From Jeane:
Most importantly, I am not suggesting you “reject the idea there is a problem” or that “knowing is hurtful.” Quite the opposite, actually. I am recommending that you fully and completely accept what is: you have Lyme Disease. I absolutely believe that what we focus on we draw to us. So rather than focus on its symptoms or fears of what will be long term, concentrate on your own empowerment and healing. For instance, focus on the meditation you’ve begun and the new acupuncturist you’ve started working with. Notice the beauty around you. Know you have the power to be well within you. We always have a choice as to how we’re going to look at something and how we look at it is what we are giving power.
As an example, I had a choice as to how I was going to “frame” my losing BW. It was easiest to play the victim, to hate him for the deceit, to be angry and devastated by all the betrayal, to blame him for the loss of our marriage. Instead I worked hard to focus on the lessons that were being presented and put my energy toward acceptance and compassion. Ultimately I found unconditional love. Never did I deny there was a problem. But I consciously chose how I was going to look at it. I believe the victim option would have been poisonous to me, while the second choice opened a whole new way of being.
Let’s take the piece I sent you on letting go and apply it to your situation: 1. It is telling you to accept you have Lyme Disease—fully accept it and release your need to try to control it by going on line and focusing on everything Lyme. Let go of your need to DO. Accept you are ill and that you must REST. DO NOTHING. Give in. The universe is telling you that you don’t control life and every time you try to, it’s going to knock you down. 2. You have been “clinging” to a psychology that, now that you’ve left traditional work, in spite of the fact you are still very ill and depleted (even before Lyme), you must be productive. You must grow your food and control the woodchucks and finish grieving Miles and follow a schedule and get your writing projects nailed down and, and, and… regardless of the powerful messages you’ve been receiving from Spirit to give yourself time and space to rest and heal. You’ve pushed on anyway. “Often the intense energy we expend clinging to something is the single greatest obstacle to our good. We greatly improve our lives by letting go.” Trust me, you would be far more productive concentrating on getting well. The writing will follow naturally when you’ve healed. Until you decide to fully embrace your healing, you and the universe will be warring and that’s not a war you will win. Plus it is for your own greater good. 3. But “Letting go does not mean giving up.” It means understanding that there is a benevolent power far greater than you and you are being asked to trust it, to let go, to be. You don’t get to control life. You’re not meant to. It actually takes a lot more strength to trust life than to manage it. I think you’re being told that until you fully get and accept this, you don’t get to write.
You are not being asked to let go of who you are. Who you are is your soul. It is ego, or head, that is telling you that you must be in charge. You are being asked to let go of old ways of being that do not serve. Those old ways are not you. They are parts of your self perception, but they are not you. And, yes, it takes time—sometimes a lifetime.
Focus on what you want: health, strength, joy, clarity, peace, creativity, not on what you fear. Make these part of your meditation.
The primary way I’ve released an attachment to outcome is to consciously say, “Thy will be done,” and mean it.
All of this is a “practice.” We don’t LEARN it so well that we will remember it always. We must practice it every day. After awhile you will discover you’ve practiced your way into getting it. Until reading your emails and trying to communicate these processes to you, I hadn’t been aware that I had gotten it. It is no longer Greek to me.
I’m realizing that these words are still going to, most likely, be Greek to you, as they were to me.
I understand that you don’t know how to rest. It’s why the universe continues to take away your option to do anything but. Since you don’t know how to “do nothing” put energy toward realizing that learning to do nothing is DOING SOMETHING! It’s all in your perspective. Being driven is no longer serving you. You must let that go. So this letting go becomes your big project–not the garden, not a fence, not writing–practicing how to be still is it. And for people like you and me, being still is definitely not “nothing.”
How do you learn a thing? How did you learn to garden? Apply your methods of learning to figuring out how to rest. You’re not being given a choice so you may as well get good at it. Trust me, more creative productivity will come from healing and resting than in pushing yourself. You are being told to learn new ways. And you are being told this because you have made it known that you want a writing life. You’ve taken that huge step and the universe is taking ten steps toward you to support your intention. Whether or not it feels like support right now, it is. To create you must come from a place of gentle acceptance and trust, not drive and will. The universe knows this.
I am thrilled with the news of your new acupuncturist. Bravo you! And it is good news, indeed, that he finds great capacity for letting go in you. It is there for you once you get past the resistance. Working with him in some concentrated way to maximize your body’s ability to let go will be very useful, I think.
The how is going to come. Live the question now. Wanting the answer is part of what you are being asked to let go of–that need to know, the need to control. Just live this question now.
I do an affirmation that might be helpful to you. You can put in your own words and I change mine depending on what issues I’m dealing with, but here it is: I release the past, I release the fear, I release the anger, I release the worry. I embrace my power. I embrace my joy. I embrace my consciousness. I embrace my self-esteem. I am the new story, I live the new story, now.
Another I use is: I am an expression of divine life. I love myself exactly as I am right now.
I am with you on this journey. I know it is hard. But I’m on the same path and, when I can, I’ll light the way. However, I am still learning too.
To be continued…
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Love to you all,
Jeane
