Van Morrison just does it for me…what can I say…please enjoy the music as you read…

Last November I went through a health crisis. More accurately, my health crisis BEGAN…it’s been rather ongoing since. It started, instantly, at midnight on a Monday. I was SICK. Exhausted and in pain, “the voice” woke me from my feverish sleep at three a.m. of the third night…I mean, a BOOMING MALE VOICE woke me out of a deep sleep: “This is a gallbladder attack!”

THAT never would have occurred to me! I suspected some mild food allergies…but I have the constitution of a horse…so, I boot up and find a list of gallbladder symptoms…and, check…check…check…

When the symptoms had not subsided a week later, I went in to see a doctor. (Don’t use me as an example…) At this point, I was feeling much better. I was doing just fine eating nothing but beets, and having lost close to fifteen pounds now…but no more pain or fever.

Try to tell a doctor that you know what the problem is because A VOICE WOKE YOU AT THREE A.M. AND TOLD YOU…really, you try that…I’d be curious…and so, the tests, etc…I have gallbladder issues…but that isn’t THE HEALING this post is about…

That near death experience was just the beginning…I literally -physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually- became instantly intolerant of anything – food, words, people – that were toxic to my now acutely sensitive system. I would not wish this on anyone. Phew! My life changed that November night, and will not ever be the same.

About a week later I had what I only recently learned theologists call a “conversion experience”. Words will never describe it. It began as a hot flush, ears turned red and all…and as that sudden heat began to subside, an altered state of consciousness overtook me like a gentle, warm wave…and the ABSOLUTE peace lasted for several hours, until I fell asleep and woke the next morning.

And I have spent the last six months since in the discovery of a new life, a new identity…and it has been the most difficult time I have ever been through. My initial response to the experience was that I must be dying…and yet here I am…astonishingly intolerant of so much on so many levels!

And never better, Thank You! Would I go back if I could? Well, life was easier BEFORE the healing had begun…for one thing, I prided myself on being able to get along with just about everyone. Those days are over! My nerves are shot…I like to say that I am having a nervous breakthrough. I am learning how to “speak my truth”, and to be brutally honest (we might as well), and it is NOT PRETTY.

It is ugly precisely because I lost my co-dependence, my people pleaser…have you seen it? I wouldn’t pick it up if I were you…it’s lethal. Two days ago I alluded to this in my post “Show Me How Big Your Brave Is”…because if you are going to withdraw your co-dependent support from all of your relationships, if you are going to be honest with everyone all the time, you had better get your brave on…it is LONELY out here!

This is not to say that I don’t have any tact, or remember how to behave in public, but I am referring to my close encounters with family and friends. They changed that night, too…apparently, I threw up and off my old belief systems. Now I hear “the voice”…and I know it speaks the truth…as I said in another earlier post, “Maybe I’m Crazy…” (Post of March 15, 2013) Listen to the words of that song…they speak right into your heart.

All I know…well…it isn’t anything like what I used to know…as Oprah would say, “What I know for sure…” I know that ART matters. It heals. When I did not know what else to do with myself, I dug my old 1997 copy of The Artist’s Way out of a dusty box in the basement, and just coincidentally the next day Kelly Forrester sent an email announcing her class based on The Artist’s Way…

And now, months later, the class has continued with the sequel, Walking In This World. And the healing continues…Julia Cameron says:

“Sometimes when we get angry enough at being treated as if we are small, we get brave enough to trust those who think -and say – we might be big. One slight too many and we finally say our true name…”

Thank You for tuning in…S