Day 87: "The Fragrance the Violet Sheds"

A couple weeks ago, I woke up with the most excruciating pain in my upper back between my shoulder blade and my spine.  It literally felt like someone was driving a knife through my back.  And the worst part of it is that the pain radiates down my arm into my elbow making it impossible to move without pain.  I now have one sleeping position, (flat on my back), and it's not the way that I normally sleep--not comfortably anyway.  It's the only thing that relieves the pain, though.   I did see a chiropractor who said he felt like it was a pinched nerve which makes sense, but I know too much to accept that simple explanation.  

About 10 years ago, I woke up with hip pain that was so bad that I ended up dragging myself and my leg out of my Bikram Yoga class.  I have only left the room twice in my yoga practice, but the pain was so bad I had to leave.  The gift of that experience was that it introduced me to the work of Dr. John Sarno and his numerous books about the true source of back pain.  He felt that back pain and a lot of other types of body pain were due to really strong emotions that were too much for the mind to handle.  His theory was that the body would create pain as a distraction from the painful emotions and that the emotions themselves were repressed into the unconscious.  Therefore, the only way to handle the pain, was to consciously and intentionally feel the emotions.  In summary, Dr. Sarno felt that "chronic pain that does not take into account the role of emotions can too easily lead to unnecessary surgery and over-reliance on drugs and medication." (The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain by John E. Sarno (1999).  I second that motion.  So when this current pain presented itself, I immediately thought to look for deeper causes.

In Anatomy of the Spirit, Caroline Myss talks about the chakra system and how each of the chakras represents several organs of the body as well as the mental and emotional issues associated with each.  Her theory and that of others is that the mental and emotional issues associated with each chakra are the source of varying physical dysfunctions if these issues are not resolved.  My shoulder and arm pain fall directly into the category of the heart chakra which, according to Caroline Myss, contains issues regarding "Love and hatred, Resentment and bitterness, Grief and anger, Self-centeredness, Loneliness and Commitment, Forgiveness and compassion, Hope and Trust." (Anatomy of the Spirit, Caroline Myss, p.99)

The guidance that I have received in regards to all of this, which has once again been nothing short of miraculous, has directly reflected the ideas described in the paragraphs above.  I was directly informed last week in full sentences that I needed to begin a forgiveness process that I found a couple years ago while reading Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith's book Spiritual Liberation, p.33-34.  The essence of the practice is to visualize the person whom you are having trouble forgiving and to say to them in your mind, "I forgive you and set you free.  Your actions no longer have power over me.  I acknowledge that you are doing the best that you can, and I honor you in your process of unfoldment.  You are free and I am free.  All is well between us.  Peace is the order of the day."  

I was told that in order to survive everything that I went through, a lot of the emotions that I experienced over the last 7 years were repressed as I was in survival mode and that they needed to be excavated and released.  It was indicated to me that in regards to that time period, I needed to move toward forgiveness.  In addition to that, I was directed to begin a writing practice within which you say everything that you want to say to someone holding nothing back in order to allow the associated repressed emotional material to come up and out.  You don't ever send the letter; rather, you burn it and all the negative energy that has been processed through it.  It is both an incredibly liberating and healing practice. 

I was also instructed to replace my meditation practice with chanting and to practice kundalini yoga in the mornings to assist in freeing up my heart chakra.  I was guided specifically to the sacred music that I was to use during my chanting, and it has upleveled my morning practice into the feeling of a more profoundly sacred experience with God.   As I have mentioned before, words cannot express the depth of the gratitude that I feel for the guidance that I am receiving and the experience that I am having. 

I am three months into this project now and there are some things that I can now say that I know are true beyond a shadow of a doubt:  God is real, Jesus is real. They are pure love. Heaven is real. There are saints and angels that walk among us assisting where needed and guiding those with the courage and the faith to believe. 

I know that each of these statements are true because I have been directly witnessing miracles that have proven that to me for the last three months.

A couple nights ago, while I was involved in the writing practice mentioned above, I was working on releasing emotion around someone who has been close to me at different points in my life.  I haven't spoken to this person in several years, and while I have been praying and working the forgiveness practice around it, the hurt just would not seem to budge.  While I was doing the writing, I had an extraordinary spiritual experience during which it was revealed to me that this person was quite possibly going through a struggle in their life that was not exactly manageable for them and that our lack of communication had much more to do with that than it did with me.  As a reminder, A Course in Miracles defines a miracle as a shift in perception and that was exactly what I experienced. 

Just a few moments later, a song, featured below, once again, began to play in consciousness.  I took the cue and began to listen to it on my phone.  The song was a reminder that no one is guaranteed tomorrow and that life is incredibly short.  We should take the time to tell the people we love that we love them while they are still on the planet and able to hear us.  Hearing the song allowed me to experience and release what felt like years of hurt and grief in just a few moments.  It allowed the gentle balm of forgiveness to begin to heal my broken heart, and it facilitated the release of the hurt and resentment on a much deeper level than I have ever experienced so quickly.

Incidentally, my favorite quote on forgiveness is the following:

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."          --Mark Twain

That was certainly my miraculous, God-given experience that night.   I pray that you might experience the same.  Have a blessed and peaceful week!

                                            

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Eric Clapton, "Tears in Heaven"

Rush: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack, Warner Brothers, 1992