Loving Support for Those Experiencing Chronic Illness - Part 2
written by Julie Dittmar
on Wednesday, June 07, 2017
(PART 2, a continuation from the blog post on ”Loving Support for Those Experiencing Chronic Illness - Part 1.” Much of this also applies to ascension symptoms, kundalini awakening, and the death of the ego)
Feeling chronically, relentlessly unwell day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year can bring up a host of fears that trigger the deepest most primal and beautiful innocence from our inner child. It can bring up a very root fear of survival, and concerns about the quality of that survival.
We might find ourselves saying any or all of the following:
Will my friends stick by me through what feels so frustrating, debilitating, and relentlessly endless?
Will my friends leave me and go off to play with other friends who can better “keep up” and be more active?
If my soul mate appears now in my life, how will I have the energy to enjoy a blossoming romance and the joys of relationship-building when I barely have energy to get through the activities of the day?
Will my partner get tired of this going on and on, and leave me for someone else more well, fun, functional, and mobile?
Who would want to be a new friend or lover and come into this mystery and have the fortitude to walk this path with me (who’s not in the rescuer archetype!)?
Who would dare to sign up to walk in this mystery with me?
I don’t want to hold them back. They should go on without me.
How will I be able to continue to work and earn a living?
What if everything good, supportive, and stable in my life goes away and I lose my partner/marriage, my job, my company, my clients, my hobbies, my income, my home, my security, my status, my mind, etc. over this?
Maybe this is as good as it will ever get again. Then what?
The arising of these fears and the grasping at concrete answers to the question “Will I ever come out of this to be well again?” are QUITE the initiation into Buddhahood. It is QUITE the journey of awakening.
It can be very easy to go into the victim archetype. “This isn’t fair. I’m a good person!” It can be all too easy to go into blaming and complaining. When you already feel like crap, blaming and complaining are effortlessly right there at your fingertips, waiting to be called into action. The ego wants relief at any cost and looks around for where to project its frustrations.
You can get mad at your body for all the things it seems to deprive you of. You can get mad at “God” for the affliction. You can complain about all the things that are seemingly denied by your healing journey. You can get mad at life or your parents for being born and having to go through difficulties that have tested you to the very core and at every imaginable level. You could.
And perhaps you even should. Don’t deny the feelings. It’s okay to hate waking up to another day of “Are you kidding me, illness you’re STILL here?!”
You can hate the friends who never seem to say the right things or care in ways that feel good to you.
You can hate the medicines, supplements, or modalities that don’t make a difference.
You can hate the doctors who don’t listen to you or say irresponsible, potentially damaging things to you. Or hate them because they can’t figure things out and give you answers.
You can hate the tests that show something or don’t show something.
You can hate your guides, your intuition, and God for not revealing the “out.”
And you can hate that friends are having fun together while you’re at home not having an experience anywhere close to fun.
That’s all okay. Giving that scared, wounded, tender part of you a voice is very healing. At least then you are being real about it, and giving that part of you the chance to express itself and be heard. You can do this quietly by yourself; no one else needs to be involved in it. Or, if you need to express some of this with others, of course, just sharing your feelings from a place of consciousness and kindness, not with harshness, blame, or unconsciousness.
None of this means you are bad, are less than spiritual, or are fighting against anyone or anything. Consciously expressing what you are feeling doesn’t mean your healing will go backwards or your vibration will be lowered. You are acknowledging what’s real and true for you head-on with no denial, and are willing to move that energy to create more space for health and healing to open up in your reality. You are inviting more vitality into your life.
Then what? What if you’ve already expressed yourself and felt every emotion ad nauseam to the moon and back and “nothing shifts?” Sometimes that is the brilliance of life’s greater plan for our soul’s evolution.
You then deepen your relationship with self. You continue to face everything head-on. You nurture and love your inner child as never before. You dive deeper into the body, into the fears, into the emotions, and into the shadows with gusto and sincerity. You sink deeper into the body as your sacred space, as your sanctuary, as your ashram (even though it has felt like an unsafe place to be). By be willing to go there, you love it like a best friend. You love it like a saint, sage, or archangel, or God would. You love it AS God.
Illness, (ascension symptoms, or kundalini awakening for that matter!) as a master teacher has shown up. It has chosen your door to knock on. You can open the door and give it a deep bow of respect and say:
Thank you for helping me.
Thank you for showing me the ways I have felt limited, and how I truly am not.
Thank you for your expansive gifts even when I feel contraction, confusion, uncertainty, fear, and pain.
Thank you for polishing my heart with more understanding and compassion than ever before.
Thank you for these lessons in patience and trust in Divine timing.
Thank you for allowing me to release the notion that I am in control of anything. Thank you for showing me I cannot control – control.
Thank you for allowing this to be a time of fine-tuning my intuition.
Thank you for this lesson in what it means to be surrendered.
Thank you for showing me I am not weak by being vulnerable. I am strong, I endure, and how I am willing to grow.
Thank you for molding me like clay and carving me like a river carves a canyon. I am a work of art; nature’s finest creation.
Thank you for even the tiniest ounce of strength to somehow still be here to navigate this mystery and the great unknown.
Thank you for smoothing out my rough edges and giving me the chance to shine brighter than ever before.
Thank you for giving me the chance to intimately connect with my inner healer, my inner shaman, and the Grand Healer in the Universe.
Thank you for showing me the value of being at peace with life instead of fighting it.
Thank you for revealing to me the importance of quiet, stillness, meditation, and deep inner listening.
Thank you for not giving me all the answers I wanted when I wanted them and for all that has unfolded in that winding journey.
Thank you for showing me how supported and loved I am, and how life is full of surprises and endless resources of comfort, care, and healing.
Thank you for the knowing that I am not bad, wrong, broken, or left behind. My life is unfolding perfectly as it is.
Thank you for destroying me in ways, so that I can be reborn and learn how to truly live.
Thank you for crucifying me so that my arms are finally open wide, and my heart is open and exposed.
Thank you for showing me how to live with more trust and fearlessness around life and death.
Thank you for cracking me open to this love.
Peace, love, blessings, and perfect health to all,
Julie
Feeling chronically, relentlessly unwell day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year can bring up a host of fears that trigger the deepest most primal and beautiful innocence from our inner child. It can bring up a very root fear of survival, and concerns about the quality of that survival.
We might find ourselves saying any or all of the following:
Will my friends stick by me through what feels so frustrating, debilitating, and relentlessly endless?
Will my friends leave me and go off to play with other friends who can better “keep up” and be more active?
If my soul mate appears now in my life, how will I have the energy to enjoy a blossoming romance and the joys of relationship-building when I barely have energy to get through the activities of the day?
Will my partner get tired of this going on and on, and leave me for someone else more well, fun, functional, and mobile?
Who would want to be a new friend or lover and come into this mystery and have the fortitude to walk this path with me (who’s not in the rescuer archetype!)?
Who would dare to sign up to walk in this mystery with me?
I don’t want to hold them back. They should go on without me.
How will I be able to continue to work and earn a living?
What if everything good, supportive, and stable in my life goes away and I lose my partner/marriage, my job, my company, my clients, my hobbies, my income, my home, my security, my status, my mind, etc. over this?
Maybe this is as good as it will ever get again. Then what?
The arising of these fears and the grasping at concrete answers to the question “Will I ever come out of this to be well again?” are QUITE the initiation into Buddhahood. It is QUITE the journey of awakening.
It can be very easy to go into the victim archetype. “This isn’t fair. I’m a good person!” It can be all too easy to go into blaming and complaining. When you already feel like crap, blaming and complaining are effortlessly right there at your fingertips, waiting to be called into action. The ego wants relief at any cost and looks around for where to project its frustrations.
You can get mad at your body for all the things it seems to deprive you of. You can get mad at “God” for the affliction. You can complain about all the things that are seemingly denied by your healing journey. You can get mad at life or your parents for being born and having to go through difficulties that have tested you to the very core and at every imaginable level. You could.
And perhaps you even should. Don’t deny the feelings. It’s okay to hate waking up to another day of “Are you kidding me, illness you’re STILL here?!”
You can hate the friends who never seem to say the right things or care in ways that feel good to you.
You can hate the medicines, supplements, or modalities that don’t make a difference.
You can hate the doctors who don’t listen to you or say irresponsible, potentially damaging things to you. Or hate them because they can’t figure things out and give you answers.
You can hate the tests that show something or don’t show something.
You can hate your guides, your intuition, and God for not revealing the “out.”
And you can hate that friends are having fun together while you’re at home not having an experience anywhere close to fun.
That’s all okay. Giving that scared, wounded, tender part of you a voice is very healing. At least then you are being real about it, and giving that part of you the chance to express itself and be heard. You can do this quietly by yourself; no one else needs to be involved in it. Or, if you need to express some of this with others, of course, just sharing your feelings from a place of consciousness and kindness, not with harshness, blame, or unconsciousness.
None of this means you are bad, are less than spiritual, or are fighting against anyone or anything. Consciously expressing what you are feeling doesn’t mean your healing will go backwards or your vibration will be lowered. You are acknowledging what’s real and true for you head-on with no denial, and are willing to move that energy to create more space for health and healing to open up in your reality. You are inviting more vitality into your life.
Then what? What if you’ve already expressed yourself and felt every emotion ad nauseam to the moon and back and “nothing shifts?” Sometimes that is the brilliance of life’s greater plan for our soul’s evolution.
You then deepen your relationship with self. You continue to face everything head-on. You nurture and love your inner child as never before. You dive deeper into the body, into the fears, into the emotions, and into the shadows with gusto and sincerity. You sink deeper into the body as your sacred space, as your sanctuary, as your ashram (even though it has felt like an unsafe place to be). By be willing to go there, you love it like a best friend. You love it like a saint, sage, or archangel, or God would. You love it AS God.
Illness, (ascension symptoms, or kundalini awakening for that matter!) as a master teacher has shown up. It has chosen your door to knock on. You can open the door and give it a deep bow of respect and say:
Thank you for helping me.
Thank you for showing me the ways I have felt limited, and how I truly am not.
Thank you for your expansive gifts even when I feel contraction, confusion, uncertainty, fear, and pain.
Thank you for polishing my heart with more understanding and compassion than ever before.
Thank you for these lessons in patience and trust in Divine timing.
Thank you for allowing me to release the notion that I am in control of anything. Thank you for showing me I cannot control – control.
Thank you for allowing this to be a time of fine-tuning my intuition.
Thank you for this lesson in what it means to be surrendered.
Thank you for showing me I am not weak by being vulnerable. I am strong, I endure, and how I am willing to grow.
Thank you for molding me like clay and carving me like a river carves a canyon. I am a work of art; nature’s finest creation.
Thank you for even the tiniest ounce of strength to somehow still be here to navigate this mystery and the great unknown.
Thank you for smoothing out my rough edges and giving me the chance to shine brighter than ever before.
Thank you for giving me the chance to intimately connect with my inner healer, my inner shaman, and the Grand Healer in the Universe.
Thank you for showing me the value of being at peace with life instead of fighting it.
Thank you for revealing to me the importance of quiet, stillness, meditation, and deep inner listening.
Thank you for not giving me all the answers I wanted when I wanted them and for all that has unfolded in that winding journey.
Thank you for showing me how supported and loved I am, and how life is full of surprises and endless resources of comfort, care, and healing.
Thank you for the knowing that I am not bad, wrong, broken, or left behind. My life is unfolding perfectly as it is.
Thank you for destroying me in ways, so that I can be reborn and learn how to truly live.
Thank you for crucifying me so that my arms are finally open wide, and my heart is open and exposed.
Thank you for showing me how to live with more trust and fearlessness around life and death.
Thank you for cracking me open to this love.
Peace, love, blessings, and perfect health to all,
Julie
