This year in July, I experienced a spontaneous spiritual healing. It has been so profound that after 43 years as a person with bipolar disorder, I am going to talk to my doctor about reducing my medication, maybe even eventually ceasing it. I wanted to share this story with you in case it helps someone.
I’ve worked on myself spiritually for most of my life. I never expected religion or spirituality to effect my condition, however, which I inherited from my father and grandmother. Then about a year ago I started studying Shamanism. Among other things, they taught us to trust our spirit guides, and to live more in tune with Nature. Shamans believe that everything has a spirit, from a growing flower to an airplane, and we live best when we show respect and attunement to these spirits.
The next piece fell into place 4 or 5 months later, when Margaret took me on as a student. I started seeing her once a week, usually for 2 hours at a time.
Change happens gradually, and often unconsciously. I went on for most of a year without noticing anything much different. I read a book that recommended sitting with a tree on a regular basis, and started doing that. I noticed how completely integrated into its surroundings the tree was. It was not just one thing; it was part of the web of all life in the area. And then Margaret loaned me a book called Hands of Light. In that book I read that the cause of all illness, ultimately, is the false belief that we are separate from God.
It didn’t hit right away. But a little while later, walking home, I looked up at the tree tops and suddenly understood that I was as integrated into all life as those trees. I understood at a gut level, at a soul level, that there was no separation between me and God – that it was not even POSSIBLE to cut me from God or God’s love, ever. We are, every one of us, the exact mirror image of the Universe looking back at itself with approval.
And just like that, my misery of 43 years was over. Now, when I look back, it seems my whole life was like being dragged backwards through a thorn bush by my hair, kicking and screaming. Who can live with that? What had happened? My deepest wound had been healed.
What was my deepest wound? Well, I bought my parents’ story at a very young age. They taught me that I was a Sinner, and God could not ever really love me because my basic nature was wrong, evil. It was a wound so deep and primal that I had spent thousands of dollars on medicine, and been hospitalized 7 times, but was unable to heal it. All from believing the big lie that God did not love me.
There are some things I understand now. The Universe is not my enemy. Life is not going to randomly throw pain and emergencies and disasters at me. Either I have a lesson, or I have some karma, and in either case I can participate to clear it up. Otherwise, everything will be fine. And I no longer need to criticize my self, which I used to do to the point of deep and constant pain. If I am totally acceptable to God, then I can accept myself. I can trust myself. What this means to a person who was told she could not trust even the thoughts in her own head, I cannot begin to tell you.
What can I say? Before, I was mostly miserable. Now, I am mostly happy. And all it took was a shift in my point of view. If you have any doubts that God loves you, work on that. The difference is breathtaking.