Tag: finding peace

FINAL ROUND

by Maasaisis

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 I have witnessed enough people in the chemo lounge looking sick, tired, and withdrawn while we all face the uncertainties of being in that room.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.

TOUCHING GOD WITH MY HANDS

by Maasaisis

The result of my most recent PET scan did not give me the clarity I sought. It’s so easy for the mind to think it has things all figured out, running scenarios, making assumptions, seeking assurances that only ever show up wearing a different face. I wanted the result to say “significant reduction of disease” or “evidence of effectiveness of treatment” — something that would feel like confirmation, that I’m on the right track.

The right track to where, exactly?

“You should be happy that you are stable, this is good news,” says my doctor as he ran his pen to speed-read over my result. “You have no new spots, and the spot on your sternum seems a little better. Although the diminishment of disease is minuscule, we have to assume that the treatment is helping.”

Seems. Assume. I don’t like those words. Not solid enough where my life hinges.

“But what about the areas where it has enhanced slightly?” I asked.

“It’s not a lot,” he said. “PET scans can be ultra sensitive, even to a fault, affected by your lifestyle, what you’ve eaten, and metabolic shift on a daily basis.”

Then what can we make of any of this, if all it gives me is a weird grey zone? My mind circles around a child stomping her feet. So what does this mean? Is it working? Do I need the full dose? But… I’m leaving for Spain next month…

Thoughts that feel like a noose tightening around my neck.

On the outside, I’m looking healthy and strong. Even my doctor notices it. As I rest my arms behind my head, taking the weight of it — so full of heavy thoughts — my biceps flex and bulge, bare out of my sleeveless vest.

“Wow, look at you looking buff!” he says, trying to lighten the mood.

“Ya, I’ve been working out,” I reply. But the outside is the easy part. It’s the inside that persists.

My main oncologist was supposed to go over the results before proceeding with my 4th round of treatment. She was on holiday, and I felt slightly annoyed to be put on the back burner without her to consult. We’d hoped the scan after 3 rounds would give us something to work with. Instead I’m left squinting at ambiguous data, trying to find a foothold.

“Let’s just keep going with the current dose for 2 more rounds until I go on my trip. No point rocking the boat before I go,” I said. By now I know I have the power to shape my treatment plan. Every case is uncharted territory. No two bodies, no two paths, the same. To my doctor, stable is good enough. My glow and zest for life tells him what the scan cannot, and he knows I need this trip to keep the lamp of my spirit brightly lit.

And yet, the pain in my spine is becoming more noticeable. Is it more noticeable because I’m paying attention to it, or because it’s where the cancer is most active?

What happens next is my choice. I can sabotage it with thoughts that spiral and lead nowhere. Or I can exchange them for something that keeps me free.

Where is my peace? Not in the mind where there are land mines everywhere.

I must have been in my mid-twenties when the title A Course in Miracles first grabbed my attention. What enticed me then was my perception of what a miracle would be, some grand act of supernatural power that would give me what I wanted. The miracles I wanted at that time were nothing but ego boosters: recognition, world goals, jet-setting around the world as a wellness leader of some sort.

It wasn’t until the framework of my own making had to be examined, when my physical framework began to break down, that I finally began to understand what a miracle truly is. The book landed in my life at exactly the right time. It is saving my life by teaching me how to live no matter what is going on.

A Course in Miracles is not a religion. It is a retraining of the mind, teaching us who we really are as love created us. The Course comes with 365 lessons, one for each day of the year. On the hard days, I hang onto it like a lifeline. It has given me an antidote to every fear I could ever conjure, and the steps to help me solidify it. Some days I have to come back home every thirty minutes. That is the power of fear. But fear is no match for Truth.

The Course truly landed for me in 2022. On my birthday, January 7th, I wrote this in my journal, a line from the Course that felt like a direct message from God:

“You are perfectly safe as long as you are completely unconcerned about your readiness, but maintain a consistent trust in mine.”

My mind accepted it as Truth. I no longer felt I could trust my own way. I am made up of temptations and contradictions that will snatch my peace away. The judgements I hold and the identity I’ve constructed always want more, and are never satisfied, no matter how much I feel I’ve accomplished. I need help to walk my walk, so I’ve entrusted the way to the One who knows.

This forgetfulness is a cloud that would have me wandering aimlessly in its shadows until I remember that I am still shining bright, as I have, and as I always will be, forever unchanged. I do believe that our earthly experience is designed only for our awakening. We each gravitate towards a life and a path that will bring us home to our godly state when we are fully awake. To realise that the safety of our true home was always within reach.

There is no right path. Only that whatever way we take, we recognise that truth is truth and it is the same for everyone. There is never a sacrifice in reaching truth. The only things we sacrifice are the things we cling to that were never real to begin with. What we release is what was standing in the way of really living, the kind of life that doesn’t end.

I feel this in the tears that stream down my face, love’s guarantee that nothing can take away what I already am.

It is not God that sets our curriculum. It is our soul that chose to forget, so it can experience God through remembering. Why on earth did I choose to have this earthly experience? Perhaps in the ultimate power of creative expression given to me, I wanted to play God in the world of my own making. Who needs God when I can be my own God?

And the light of me that is always connected to my creator is nudging me, sometimes shaking me wildly, to wake up from this dream I am dreaming. And when I land home, even if only for an instant, my heart bursts into an expansiveness that is not of this world. I’ve landed in this space through connection, not just with others, but with nature that reflects the purity of my mind so beautifully.

These are the miracles I now speak of.

God reminds me that my only job is to love another as I am loved. When I feel my Creator’s love, I want to collapse into the immensity of that gentleness, that eternal patience, those arms always open for me to fumble into, with just the slightest willingness to reach for truth. This is the true meaning of forgiveness: to forgive the world, to forgive all outer appearances and actions, and to remember we are all just waiting to fall into the most perfect embrace of who we really are.

And because that love is so kind and generous and gentle, its way brings me peace. Difficult decisions become easy, because the fears that are amplified dissolve, knowing that ultimately none of the problems I think are an issue is really a problem. No matter what, my safety is guaranteed, and nothing in this world can offer me that. It is only the split mind that suffers. The return to wholeness is only one thought away.

In the modern world, there’s so much focus on self-care and building boundaries to keep us safe. What I love about the Course is that healing often comes through relationship.

I am in a beautiful position through my massage work. I am constantly reaching strangers through my touch, where my hands become an expression and an extension of my heart. If I am struggling, it is evident within the first moment of contact. Perhaps I’ve had a hard day. Perhaps there is a judgement. Perhaps my client said something that made me shut down. And in the time we have together, I return to my lesson for the day and remember that my only job is to love them as love meets every single one of us.

When I am there, I know it is accepted, because it is returned back to me. In those moments on the table, I reach for a meeting place in our minds. A place where I can say, without words: there you are. I see you. And in that timeless space of connection, we are both being nurtured by something far deeper than touch. We have landed in peace.

So I invite you: the next time you’re stuck in the storyline of discontent, go out into the world and extend your love to someone else. I’ve found it surprisingly easier than sitting with my raging mind. The act of getting up and giving to someone else, when I can barely give to myself, is how I paradoxically give to myself.

If we pray to be of service to others from a place of genuine care, integrity and authenticity, truly miraculous things can occur. Not just for them, not just for us, but for everybody. Because we are one.

Even if you are not physically with someone, place somebody in your mind who is struggling. And instead of trying to fix their problem at the earthly level, hold them with all of your mind to the perfection of who they really are, as love created them. Hold them in the light of their love, healed, untainted, pure, and whole.

Hold them there until you can really feel it.

This is how I touch God with my hands.

LESSON: I RECEIVE WHAT I GIVE