FINAL ROUND

I’ve just completed my 8th and final round of chemo, and I didn’t ring the bell.

I actually had to think about it and even ask for guidance. What does it mean to ring the bell? It means I achieved something difficult. I followed through. It is the sound of, “I did it!”

To tell you the truth, chemo was a walk in the park compared to the intense protocols I put myself through. I probably would have rung the bell at that time—for being diligent, determined, and disciplined. But I’m not who I used to be. There is a quiet part of me wanting to turn toward an inquiry: What is this for?

It’s not that I want to downplay the act of completion with a celebratory ring for all to hear. I have witnessed enough people in the chemo lounge looking sick, tired, and withdrawn while we all face the uncertainties of being in that room. I get it. Healing can look like a step-by-step process, and to finish one process is worth celebrating. I remember how I hooted and hollered when my beloved friend finished her rounds. For her, she was done. She was moving into a future away from that room.

For me, part of me doesn’t want to declare completion when I still don’t know what comes next. I don’t want to claim something I still cannot know—the state of my body. Instead, I want to ring a bell only I can hear: the one that sounds when I recognize my true inheritance. I always have the opportunity to choose the domain of peace within my mind.

I believe I came to recognize that place during the rounds of treatment that required my energy, time, and commitment, and to value my own invulnerability. So I celebrate today in my quiet way, with a smiling heart and so much gratitude for the lovely doctors and nurses who helped me along the way. That is enough.

The accomplishment for me is to remain anchored in the safety of my true home, where I reside with God, even while the world tries to convince me otherwise. I keep having to remind myself that I am not separate from God. Perhaps this is the biggest lesson of all: I am not outside of Love, but part of it, and there I am always safe.

Whether I’m back in the chemo lounge, searching for my purpose, facing a crisis at home, or stuck in my familiar, fear-induced messy mind space, what I want to celebrate is my determination to find my way back to joy, regardless of what appears to be happening to me—even if only for an instant.

I’m also claiming that I am much more open to what is happening and what may happen at the level of my body. The next PET scan will tell me where I’m at, but the less I invest in my experience as being solely of my body, the less afraid I am.

The body is not where the mind resides. The mind has the potential to express our Spirit, an extension of Creation itself, or to experience itself as separate from it when we have forgotten who we are. Remembering this allows me to remain open to possibilities I may otherwise close myself off to. I know that the place to focus is on the healing of my mind. From there, time and time again, I am finding my way.

The life I led before prepared me, in a sense, for this. It fueled my search for purpose and deeper meaning, the things that lit up my spirit. Life with Lump led me into the darkest caverns in my mind, where fear mimicked the power of cancer cells—to seed, multiply, and take over.

I’m learning that the mind, like the ocean, can be both ominous at the surface and utterly still in its depths. If I keep trying to tread water at the surface, I will eventually tire out. If I remember that what I really am is the stillness that cannot be affected deep below, my life becomes less about my concerns of being flung around by every wave.

For me, my healing journey became my spiritual journey, and I am eternally grateful that I’m finding my way back to God through applying the teachings of the Course. It could be cancer. It could be a breakup, a natural disaster, loss, war… In our finite world, we are all running from the same seed of fear that fuels our personal hell. I’m not suggesting that we bypass our humanness, but I believe there is a choice to decide when we are ready to pass through it.

Perhaps our spirit is always calling us to inhabit our rightful state, and each and every one of us, at some level, is hearing that call and responding, consciously or unconsciously. Maybe our life circumstances are the catalysts that answer it. I believe there are many paths that all lead to the same changeless place, meeting us exactly where we are.

My personal curriculum is learning the real meaning of life—that it goes on even when the body eventually turns to dust. In the inner sanctum of what we really are, we are already whole, perfect, and healed for always. The more I inhabit that knowing, the more supported I feel navigating the surface stuff. There is a way out of the hell we interpret our lives to be. Heaven is a state of mind, and it can only be entered through there.

I needed to go all the way to the top to understand my original design. In doing so, I restored my relationship with my Maker and discovered that the power of this Divine relationship is ignited when I choose to be in relationship with it. I’m awakening an ancient memory of what is unalterable, with no conditions or compromises. It is available to us all. It reminds me that we are of the same, that suffering is where the waves are crashing on the surface, but we are also safe in the nature of what we really are. That is the paradox of being here. We can hold both. We hold the key to recognize that the door has always been open, and we don’t have to die to walk through it.

As a result, the relationships I care about most have healed, and the relationships I thought didn’t matter now matter to me.

I don’t have regrets. I look for cues for what is holding me back. When I’m afraid, I ask for help. I’m becoming more aware of how easily judgment can slip into even my attempts to be kind or loving, and how the same thought system that produces a subtle jab or gossip can, left unchecked, become something far more destructive. This horrified me at first, but now I counter it with correction as soon as I notice my error, which takes a great deal of forgiveness. I’m a work in progress, and perhaps my greatest lesson is to be patient and kind as I learn to undo the tendencies that need to be healed.

When I feel I need to defend my identity, my opinions, my body, my reputation, or my future, I have already accepted the belief that I am alone, separate from the Love that binds us, mortal, and vulnerable. The undoing of my defenses against the dangers of the world brings me home to Oneness and invulnerability.

I am no longer driven to find my grandiose purpose because I recognize that it happens every time I choose love over fear—through life circumstances and in relationships that contribute to the healing of the world.

Sometimes love asks me to stand up against injustice in worldly matters. This is where I know I need a lot of help—learning to decipher how to respond without reacting from defensiveness, anger, or retaliation. Not to attack back or fight, but to ask for the miracle to stand strong and serve everyone, even those causing the injustice. In the world of cause and effect, justice may still be served, but perhaps it can be done from a place of recognizing that even heinous acts arise from defending a false identity born of fear—the very same thought system that would have me believe I am a sick, vulnerable body.

I have become watchful, with a willingness to stop and question my motives for why I may be driven to do something. Even when I think I am being kind and loving, I’ve come to discover that my motivation can come from serving my ego—to feel special, to be appreciated, or to receive love in return.

I’m practicing that what I give is what I receive. If I have the awareness to take a sacred pause and follow the motive to its root, I can then ask how else I should respond. Often, I get the message to just wait. To not jump into rescue mode and let the “get things done and fix things” mode settle down.

I’ve been amazed at how solutions have come from a much deeper, more loving place than the surface fix I initially had in mind. Because as long as I see the problems of the world at face value, the solutions I come up with will only touch what shifts and changes like ocean waves.

LESSON: LIFE IS RETURNING HOME OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL WE STAY.