I am not my body

Until a few years ago, I lived with debilitating anxiety. It wasn’t until I was in my forties that I even realized I had anxiety. I was getting licensed as a therapist and still had no clue I was anxious perhaps because I had never NOT been anxious in my conscious awareness. Only after some energy work done in response to a different matter did I come to know the state of non- anxiety. What an eye opener. I realize now that anxiety has been one of my greatest teachers. In order to keep anxiety at bay, I have spent years doing healing work, shifting my beliefs, allowing resonances to move through my body when they arise and so on. Yet anxiety has limited me in many ways, kept me out of crowds or noisy environments, kept my world small in some ways, kept me scanning and trying to control my world to prevent anxiety producing situations.

Then a few years ago I healed enough and experienced almost a year without anxiety. As the energy on the planet heated up, I would have bouts of anxiety again. So I would dig deeper, releasing whatever was required. Until July of this year. As we dove into the second half of the ninth and final wave of the Mayan calendar, a new dynamic reared its ugly head- impersonal anxiety, world anxiety, light increase anxiety, in other words, anxiety over which I had absolutely no control or seemingly no way to shift. Believe me when I tell you I freaked out when I first understood what was happening. I panicked, wondering how long it would last. Fortunately, it was only about a week. It has arisen again and again, usually in a pattern that related to the calendar. I learned to allow it without major terror until a few weeks ago. 

At that time the pressure on my body intensified, becoming extreme anxiety, the pressure squeezing my body in a vise like compression. I knew my beliefs and thoughts were affecting it so I didn't even call it anxiety- I am only doing so here to simplify what I am trying to say. Nothing seemed to diminish it, including a week at a spa with hot mineral springs. YIKEES! The only belief I could locate with this energy was the fear that it would never end and that I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like it would blow me apart. I had no clue what to do and was spiraling downward. I told myself over and over, I am not my body yet it was an empty thought with no reality to it. Until about a week ago. I was at my Way of Mastery group and one of the other students told me I had to surrender it. Well, the only other time I truly surrendered something was my marriage when I also came to the end of my ability to tolerate the suffering and pain of not surrendering. That radical surrender lead to two days of bliss and seeing angels before I dropped back into the bog. I realized my fellow student was absolutely right. I also was blown away by something my teacher said. He said that every movement, thought, gesture, word we make, think, speak declares our identity- are we moving, speaking thinking as the ego or as the Divine? Somehow that statement was the epiphany that led to a paradigm shift. I got it. I got that each morning I had been waking up and my first, or as he called it, sponsoring thought was “Oh shit.” I woke up fearing the pressure in my body, I woke up feeling absolutely limited by what happened in my body. I was defining my identity by what was occurring in my body. I surrendered deeply and woke up the next morning, sincerely (as opposed to by rote) declaring my unlimitedness, my Identity as a child of God. What a difference.

It is now a week later and so far so good, I have definitely had some tension but I have not slipped into that panicked terror. That first day I watched every thought, word and deed as much as possible. I was able to score about 85% showing up as Spirit rather than as limited, as just a body. And boy am I committed! There is nothing like acute suffering to ensure an irrevocable commitment. Way of Mastery calls it being “vigilant for the kingdom.” This pain sure got my attention and I am more than willing to remain vigilant. I no longer am willing to let my sloppy thoughts torture me, I am no longer willing to ignore my unlimitedness. Let’s just say I am highly motivated. The other thing this is forcing me to do is examine all they ways I try to control life and now choose surrender instead. (yes, I know, easier said than done.)

Yesterday I was given a new practice that is helping me. The second I feel myself slip into fear of any sort, I notice it and choose to trust and let go in the moment. I remember when I first realized what it would take to truly wake up. It felt like mission impossible- take TOTAL dominion of my consciousness!?!?, take TOTAL responsibility for every thought, feeling, word and deed- no way Jose. Let me tell you after this I am willing to do whatever it takes. Still seems a smidge daunting but I got say “yes, way.” O.K.?