It’s here, it’s here! The teleclass on Pain, Sickness and Death!!!
Kind of funny thing to announce with exclamation points, right?
We humans make a lot of jokes about death, getting old, getting sick, and going through very tough physical pain. We often joke about it because it’s so uncomfortable, so serious, and so incredibly difficult.
These things seem threatening. For real!
Feeling acute pain or chronic pain that doesn’t seem to end….having your best friend get terminal cancer…a child dying unexpectedly, or a parent…facing your own imminent death…
These are the experiences encountered in life that can bring the greatest suffering.
With great loss or shock, disease or physical difficulty, many of us think we can’t get through it….like it will actually be so painful emotionally that our lives will be ruined.
I once met a woman who had three boys who were all killed. I had the thought “how could she live through that?”
But of course, we do live through the deaths of people who are very close to us. There this woman was, right in front of me, living beyond her three sons.
Just THINKING about pain, sickness and death can produce the feelings of horror, or dread. Nothing has even happened yet, and we’re freaking out because of the pictures in our minds.
Turning and facing to look at all this, head-on, is not always pleasant. But sometimes, when the anxiety gets too strong, there’s no other way to go except to dive into the biggest fear.
As it turns out, when you look at the process of being human on this planet, it is not truethat parents should die before their children. It is not true that people shouldn’t get cancer. It is not true that people shouldn’t get in car accidents. It is not true that people shouldn’t have terrible pain in some area of their body day after day.
Because those things happen. All the time.
I figure, as Byron Katie has suggested all these years, you can either argue with What Is and suffer, or question your thinking.
How could that terrible horrible worst thing happening actually be OK? How can I accept it? How can I be comfortable with it? How can I stop worrying?
I have found that the way to stop worrying and being so upset…is to find out what I’m most afraid of, most against, and bring it to self-inquiry.
- It’s sad that I have a limited time on the planet
- Getting cancer is terrible
- It’s wrong and horrible when children die
- I need my leg to stop hurting
- Something terrible is going to happen
- Being young is better than being old
The mind will have a field day delivering horror-show images.
What if we can question and contemplate everything though….these very worst, worst experiences we’ve encountered, the things we most fear?
What if we could find peace right in the middle of mayhem, anxiety, or endings?
“The whole notion of death is a beautiful and very potent spiritual awakener….Even the very idea of death takes away everything we’re identified with. The body will go, thoughts will go, imagination will go….death takes it all away. For the mind, this is terrifying! But if you just imagine body gone, mind gone, feelings gone, memories gone…what’s left?….Death takes everything away except what’s essential.”~Adyashanti
As I turnaround all my thoughts about death, sickness, pain, accidents…all those “bad” things that can happen to a body….I find a foundation of peace that is startling. I think it’s been here the whole time, I just didn’t see it before with all the layers of fear piled on top.
- It’s awesome that I have a limited time on the planet..what, I want to be special and stay endlessly?
- Getting cancer is fantastic. It made me slow down, pay attention, rest, actually stop worrying…every day a gift.
- It’s not wrong or horrible when children die. They don’t ever have to go through all the crap older people do, they are innocent, they don’t think it’s their fault.
- I don’t need my leg to stop hurting. I’m breathing, walking…learning about pain.
- Something wonderful is going to happen…wow, bring it on! It’s OK if it’s over.
- Being old is better than being young, if that’s what you are. This body is incredible, it’s being the perfect servant taking me to the end zone slowly but surely.
“I see life and death as equal. Reality is good; so death must be good, whatever it is, if it’s anything at all.”~Byron Katie
If you’re ready to question your fears about the worst case scenarios….join me on Tuesday mornings starting 2/12. We’ll look at the experience of feeling physical pain, with awareness of illness and malady, and of course the top favorite….death.
I’d love company along this crazy upside-down journey of opening to what’s apparently difficult, in discovering what’s true.
Love, Grace