Guiding Thought

I am light. My Body is light. I am free. I know my fulfillment; I feel it rise within me and expand out from me.

Sharing

I feel like I have regressed. I know I haven’t—I know this is a new point in my progress, with different elements and energies which I am processing and assimilating—but it feels like I’ve gone backward.

I feel anxious. I feel anxiety. I feel some fear and near-panic about the future (that of course, in and of itself gives me a clue my feelings are unfounded). I feel like I don’t know what to do. I’ve been having a teenage-type existential crisis, asking, “Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What am I supposed to do?”

I’m not yet at a crossroads, but I see it up ahead. In my anticipation, I’ve been getting myself all worked up.

The good news is I am both feeling and observing; I am not wallowing, lost, or untethered.

In my observation, I am wondering, what is different about this situation that has me all worked up? When I look at each of the elements of “what’s going on”, I am absolutely certain that I have and can, at any time, confidently handle each one of the pieces when it shows up on its own, without the interaction of the other pieces. But for some reason, there’s a dynamic at work I am experiencing as tension, stress, and fear.

The other good news is that I have been able to pull myself out of it for periods of time. The anxiety shows up in my body as pain and tightness in my chest, in my neck just under my jaw (not my throat, more like where the glands are beside my throat), and in my lips and lower-face (this, by the way, is new: I’ve never before experienced emotional-tension in my neck and face like this). So far, with meditation, breathing, and taking baths, those pains disappear for 3-6 hours, and my body is relaxed and calm again as usual. This, by the way, is a great skill to develop: using your tools and practices to pull you out of your funk. Eventually, you live your life, for the most part, above the funk and stress, but when you do come across something that throws you off, you don’t have to stay there; you just do what you know to do, and get out of it…and keep going.

A section from A Course in Miracles (Original Edition) keeps coming to mind: “When you are afraid of anything, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you. Remember that where your heart is, there is your treasure also. This means that you believe in what you value. If you are afraid, you are valuing wrongly…That is why the Bible speaks of “the peace of God which passeth (human) understanding.” This peace is totally incapable of being shaken by human errors of any kind. It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to affect you in any way.” (http://www.jcim.net/acim_us/TxtChap-2-2.php; emphasis mine)

In line with the part of me that is observing and not lost in my fear, I read this passage, and I know it is right. I know that somehow, I am valuing wrongly, that this fear is baseless, and if I “just” trust the part of me that KNOWS, the part of me that Knows God, the part of me that has absolute confidence and faith…then there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of, nothing that is able to assail my peace.

But apparently, I’m not there (and that kind of pisses me off). Why can’t I just value “rightly”? Why can’t I just change my mind and make a different choice?

Unfortunately, I’m not sure what I need to change, what I need to shift because it’s not conscious.  I’m not aware of what it is—I just have these abnormal pains and tensions in my body. I am thankful for my practices that move me unconsciously (energetically) at times like this—that get me to a new place, without my mind having to figure it out.

That passage from ACIM is how I also feel about the Journey today: I KNOW the Journey is moving me, I KNOW the Guiding Thought is telling me the truth; but I don’t feel it, and I don’t know what to do with my mind to get it.

I’m very glad I have meditation, mantra, and baths to shift my energy, when my mind is not enough.