Death. The word itself conjures up the worst of all our fears and yet; it is the road that we strive to walk from the time we are born into this world. It is the afterlife that we seek for our safety, security, love, peace, harmony, abundance and happiness and to obtain all this positive energy in our lives, we will endure the worst of all situations and sacrifice even the thinnest strands of happiness, to get to the afterlife. The endurance of hardship, suffering, and the sacrifice of happiness are seen as virtuous traits to aspire to make us the holiest of the holy. Yet, there is always the pervading fear that we have not suffered enough to get us to our heavenly perch so we then compound the fear with worry and negativity and the breaking of all the Commandments if we think someone else might have found happines and love and peace here on Earth. We become judge and jury and hangman of anyone who might demonstrate angelic qualities reserved only for the afterlife.1
The worst offenders are, however, those who proclaim to have found heaven on earth and then proceed to tell the rest of us that we simply do not have the right kind of faith, strong enough faith or that we are living with some evil character flaw that will never allow us to achieve that level of heavenly happiness and love that they have attained here on earth. In order to achieve this status, we need to give more money to their cause and this will buy our way into the inner circle and will return financial abundance beyond belief and when this fails to bring us into that inner circle then we should rid ourselves of more of our earthly possesions because they make us too wordly and greedy. Once we have devalued the fruits of our labor here on Earth, and the inner circle still has not been reached, we must cleanse our bodies and soul by fasting and proving that we too can suffer to reach our goal of love, happiness and abundance. If then we have still not entered into the inner circle, then we have been born with such a serious character flaw that only through continued suffering and penance, renouncement of all wordly goods, and a life of self negative brow beating are the only behaviors that will bring us into the righteous glory that is ours to claim. 2
As our coffin is being lowered into the ground and we were never able to enter into the inner circle of the religious elite here on earth, it will be said: " They tried so hard and their suffering was so great; we can only hope they will have it better "IF" they get into Heaven." Obviously, we held on to some unholy belief or continued in some secret sinful behavior or we would have reached that religious inner circle here on earth and would not have suffered in order to die. As the well wishers look on and a goodly portion of them are leading exactly the same life that you led, FEAR wells up in the deepest core of their soul and the negative feedback cycle begins anew. We must find the right path of suffering and woe and scarifice so we can be assured to get into Heaven. We begin and end each day proclaiming the worthlessness of our existence so we can become a better person. 3
The word suffering brings fear and comfort to those left behind. "His suffering is over now " and the unspoken thoughts of begging that we never have to endure the same fate. Watching someone you love agonize in pain and loss of self, memory, bodily functions, and awareness of your presence, is an exercise in duality of the Spirit and the ego. The ego at the first signs of suffering jumps right in and leads the way to alieviate the suffering. "I" am the one who stopped his pain. "I" am the one who made his final days better. Comfort comes to the ego because "I" made his suffering less. It is the Spirit, however, that brings about true relief from suffering for the sufferer and those who must endure watching their loved one suffer. Spirit will connect the sufferer to the All with awareness brought to the sufferer of the Love, Compassion, and Healing that will occur when they decide to release the ego's hold on their spirit and the frailties of their human body. Spirit brings comfort to loved ones in the realization that the sufferer has transcended to a higher plane where suffering cannot exist and the relief that the suffering has stopped the agonizing physical and emotional pain that they as caretakers have experienced because the ego could not control the situation to stop the suffering for all involved. Spirit has protected the ego's fear of failure by allowing the ego to rationalize that their loved one is in a better place. The ego, however, curses the Spirit that allowed the suffering to take place at all and refuses to let the awareness that suffering and death are only illusions, come to light; so that the ego can use the supression of the Universal Secret of the Laws of Attraction to control the human mind and keep us separated from the unlimited abundance of Love, Peace, Harmony, Healing, Happiness, and Prosperity that awaits us when we are born into this life.4
It is a finely choreographically dance of interaction between the Spirit and the ego as we waltz our way through this illusion of life interweaving the light of Spirit and the darkness of ego. The ego wanting to take all the glory for enduring whatever pain and suffering it can think up to bring into this illusion of life and the Spirit ever so gently leading to the reality of enlightment. The dance of death spotlights each of us in alternating, starring and supporting roles. As we encounter each of these individual roles, Spirit continually directs us to the path we are to follow; leading us around the dance floor of life with a smooth, delicate, unconscious sureness of step that brings breathtaking leaps and swirls and turns of happiness and love that we are meant to experience in our lives. The stumble of such nimble steps comes only when we let ego intervene and we conciously think about what we are doing and it is the changing of starring and supporting roles that moves us from that place of certainty and assurredness that we each have when we have mastered the character we have played in this musical of life and into a new role that we in this human form have to think about the next step. When we have mastered the role, we can move and flow without thought to the next step we would take. The ego is satisfied that we are perfect and Spirit knows that it has the lead and can take the ego to the next scene.5
The ego, however, will like the critics of Broadway be ever present and watchful of our every move and quck to let us know when we have stumbled. It is these criticisms that leads us to illness and suffering as we enternalize these steps of failure and let these criticisms errode our mastery and confidence of life that we have accomplished. As the Law of Attraction states, you get what you think and say. When we play these criticisms over and over in our minds, we create our own pitfalls and miseries. It is not without a large measurable effort on our part that we can change the play line to the dance of Spirit and attract into our lives all the Love, Abundance, Heath, Prosperity, Peace, Harmony, and Compassion that has been given us all. It is the interweaving of ego and Spirit that allows us to appreciate the wonderfulness of the whole after we have awakened to the fact that we are Spirit and not this fragile human form subject to pain and suffering. When we learn to see in Spirit form, a stumble is a stumble and is not life threatening or life changing. The fear the ego can put upon us when we stumble is what blinds us to Spirit and paralyzes our lives into the deepest ruts of the road. We cannot see the beautiful path that lies before us with all the beautiful smells of flowers and trees and the delicate flight of the butterfly and birds and the wonderment of the life forms that we encounter. We let the fear control us and keep us from looking up and out of our holes. We let ego keep us weak and unaware that WE can move from the rut we are in without outside forces coming to our rescue. WE can fly and WE can leap and WE can BE all that there is to BE. 6
The greatest lesson we can learn in this life is to not be afraid. When we are without fear, we can love and forgive with ease because there is no threat to be felt when we open ourselves to another. The state of Love and Forgiveness brings us to the connection to the All and the unending abundance of love and forgivenvess so we can give and not be afraid that we will be lacking love ourselves. We can also learn that we are loveable enough to receive.7
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Chapter 19
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I have never fully grounded in this lifeitime. The result of this action, being that I have spent a good portion of this life always contemplating was to return to the afterlife. I have waltzed with both Spirit and ego interveaving light and darkness so that the interersection of each is but a brief connection. The Spirit and ego staying separated by the narrowest of measure, allowing the Spirit to herd the ego in the direction we have chosen to walk this lifetime. We each dance the waltz, lifetime after lifetime, until the Spirit and ego merge and we are no longer separated from the Al l.11
It is this merger with the All in the afterlife that we seek everyday we are here in this life. Should we be brave and let Spirit guide us, we live a blessed life and an uncompliscated life. The ego, however, interjects fear, doubt, and judgement into our lives. As long as we let the ego control us, we will always continue to miss the mark and will have to relive lifetime after lifetime until we learn the lesson of surrender, loose the fear of abandonment and separation, realize our true self-worth and forgive ourselves for the control we let these fears have over our lives. 12
It is these three fears that hold us hostage to this earthly plane lifetime after lifetime. Even when we reach a place of forgiveness and peace about our lives, there always seems to be a situation that is given us that always allows us to learn more about the fear that still lingers and we must learn to forgive ourselves, seek deeper into our souls for the memory of that first fear that relates to this situation and forgive ourselves, yet once again. 13
The example that I am faced with at this point in my life is the fear of having to a cardiac cathaterization, finding something that needs to be repaired and having to go through the procedure. One might think that this is a normal response and that the fear is death. It is not death I fear but the polongation of life in this fragile and frail body I inhabit which is for me the fear of being abandoned here on earth. Along with fear of abandonment comes the fear of being judged less than perfect by my former nursing collegues, because I have fibromyalgia and chronic pain and autonmatically being labeled as having inappropriate attention seeking behavior and a drug seeker. I have been abandoned by those I want to be a part of the most. 14
The fear of loss of self-worth is my greatest fear of all. I cannot see myself as valuable if others do not see me as valuable. I have such a need to be seen as a likable, lovable, and a needed person that I will go to any lengths to be liked . This warped sense of value only compounds the fear because of the guilt I place on myself for compromising my values as a person, to be well liked. This fear of being seen as worthless would rather let me die before I would once again subject my self to being treated as someone to be judged, scorned and treated as being unworthy to receive the best care that they automatically offer to someone without chronc pain. I am no longer worthy enough because I can not longer contribute to my chosen profession and I have allowed my self to get sick. I represent my collegues biggest fear; loss of their idenity because of an illness. How could I have let this happen to me? I am worthless. I am a nurse. I should have better control over my body. I know all the rules and I obviously didn't take of my self. They would never have let this happen to them.15
This , then, creates more of a fear of surrendering to Spirit and trusting that Spirit will protect us, heal us, give us peace, compassion, understanding and connect us with a health caretaker that will not judge us, treat us with respect and dignity and allow us to release the pain of suffering that clouds any stressful/trauma induced situation with increased pain that is not relieved by the usual comfort measures offered by the health caretaker. When the health caretaker cannot bring comfort to their patients, then they must deal with their own failure of not being able to bring comfort. This sense of failure on their part has to be projected somewhere and it is turned back to the patient for not responding to their interventions; when their interventions do not include the whole of the patient's condition. How can one surrender to Spirit when there is no trust between caregiver and patient? 16
Over the past nine years, the lessons of life I agreed to learn during this lifetime have been made clear as I cared for my husband who recently died. His deep seeded belief that he had to suffer before dying or he would not get to Heaven challenged my skills as a caregiver and a practioner of Healing Touch. The first lesson learned was the lesson of Choice. I as the caregiver could not choose the comfort measures for him. He had to choose to give permission for me to care for me and he had to choose to accept the comfort measures given and he had to choose to let these measures comfort him. So, although I had skills that could have eased his discomfort, I was not a failure because of his belief in suffering. 17
The second lesson I learned was that I am not a failure for getting sick. Had I not had fibromyalgia, I would not have been able to keep my husband here at home because I would have been working and he would have been placed in a nursing home. He would have died alone in a strange environment in the middle of the night. I can't imagine the fear he would have had. It would have been overwhelming for me and the guilt I would have had would have been unbearable. 18
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