Inspiration – Page 15 – KM Huber's Blog

Being Present in Healing

Posted on May 5, 2013May 4, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Inspiration, Lupus, Spirituality

My recent trip to the American West was, among other things, a test of the holistic approach to disease that I have followed for the last 33 months. My approach is perhaps best described within Deepak Chopra’s definition of quantum healing:

“…the ability of one mode of consciousness (the mind) to spontaneously correct the mistakes in another mode of consciousness (the body). It is a completely self-enclosed process” (Quantum Healing).

Essentially, this mind-body consciousness is a type of “intelligence” (Chopra’s term) attempting to restore balance in a body that is diseased. It was this “intelligence” that made sense to me when I first read Chopra’s book in the early 1990s and again in 2010 when I removed myself from medical care.

Undoubtedly, it takes a certain amount of desperation and frustration to walk away from medical science, which is not a route that Chopra, a medical physician, advocates. Rather, he argues that medical science can be a viable partner in working with the innate intelligence of the mind-body connection, with the following caveat:

“A man-made drug is a stranger in a land where everyone else is blood kin. It can never share the knowledge that everyone else was born with” (Quantum Healing). In other words, every cell in our body has a kind of intelligence with specific tasks and abilities. All cells in the body work together, ever adjusting to what is occurring.

The inherent intelligence within the mind-body connection is one that medical science has yet to duplicate but it does not mean that medical science cannot assist us in our healing. It can and does–for many. Regardless, awareness of the mind-body intelligence can change our lives just as being aware that every decision we make and every thought we attach to affects our physical body directly and immediately.

That is where stress starts, and with increased stress comes imbalance, and when the imbalance is great enough, there is disease and yes, sometimes irreparable damage. The state of disease for anyone is unique but also may be integral to the individual’s purpose as Anita Moorjani suggests:

“The reasons for…illness lie in [our] personal journey and are probably related to [our] individual purpose. I can now see that my disease was part of why I’m here, and whether I chose to live or die, I wouldn’t be any less magnificent” (Dying to be Me).

Disease as a state of health is how one has lived and continues to live. Just as lupus is not cancer—although in both the body is under attack and in both the autoimmune system plays a major role—directing disease is as unique to the individual as is the optimal level of health outcome.

What that outcome is and how long it may take is just as individualistic as is the degree of recovery. At the very least, an awareness of the inherent intelligence of the mind-body connection provides an alternative to dealing with disease. At the very most, it can change drastically the course of a disease.

“The reason why not everyone manages to take the healing process as far as they can go is that we differ drastically in our ability to mobilize it” (Chopra).

My experience with “incurable” disease is limited to lupus and Sjogren’s Syndrome, the current names for the disease that has been present in my body for at least 35 years. Some medical experts have told me autoimmune disease has been present since childhood. As I am now a sexagenarian, that’s a long time.

My last rheumatologist told me, “There’s just so much wrong with you and it’s been going on for so long.” That is probably still true for that rheumatologist and the entourage of doctors “on my case” but it was not true for me.

I was seriously ill, and I knew it, but I believe “when we get in touch with that infinite place within us–where we are Whole–then illness can’t remain in the body” (Dying to be Me). My intention is not to be smug or simplistic–nor am I speaking of mere positive thinking–my awareness of the inherent intelligence within my body-mind connection opened me to how I live as well as how I have lived. It gave me a place to begin some 33 months ago, and for me, it has meant drastic changes.

My life does not resemble the life I once knew, nor will it ever. It is not a life free of disease—not yet and maybe never will be–but it is a life aware of the possibilities in each moment I have. It is a life lived from within, and only now do I see the world as it really is, moment by moment, the only reality I ever have.

Thursday Tidbits: The Whole World That is Home

Posted on May 2, 2013May 1, 2013 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Oneness, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits considers home, in particular the miles and years that make up the distance between what was home and what is home. It is surprising how far one will travel only to discover that one was always home.

Just recently, I made such a trek, a physical distance of over 2000 miles, and a trip in the making for many years. Some months ago, I finally made the plane reservations and as much as possible, I went into training by increasing my daily exercise and experimenting with different foods.

There was never a doubt the trip would require much more of me than the everyday life I have come to know.

I flew across the United States, leaving the subtropical climate of the American South for the high plains desert of the American West. It is no exaggeration to say that I went from sea level to a mile high in a matter of hours. My body is still recovering.

Of course, there is no way to prepare for such a trip home, even one without such altitude extremes for what was home is now another place entirely with a life and tempo all its own. It is, essentially, no longer home.

“lift the veil
that obscures the heart
and there
you will find
what you are looking for”
Kabir (India, 15th century)

A visit to a location that was home requires us to open our eyes to what that hometown is now, a place we no longer call home and a place that no longer calls to us, save in memory. That is the veil we lift if we are to experience home at all.

There are streets not much changed and others completely new but already familiar to those who now make this town their home. There are new houses with new lives, making memories, and old houses no longer in evidence, not even a brick or board, but in memory they remain home.

The hours I spent in my former hometown— long enough to see the sun set and rise—was a constant barrage of sixties moments competing with the growth that marks us all, the march of time. The torrent of memories rained into the next few days, as we drove across one state into another, all familiar roads like the town that once was home.

For over four decades, the wide-open, windy vistas of the American West defined me–birth, youth, adulthood, and most of middle age—place was prominent in my life that was, often the only anchor in tempest-tossed seas.

It is not lost on me that I mix the imagery of that past life–so arid and wild–with the life I have now, not as wild nor arid at all.

The place that I call home has changed from desolate, vast plains and mountain slopes of snow to the verdant green carpet surrounding Waverly pond as well as the Gulf of Mexico, blue beneath towering palms. And I have changed with it.

Now a sexagenarian, home is among the live Oaks draped with moss, creating one canopy road after another. In every season, something blooms or yet another color emerges in the ever-changing foliage. There is lushness in my later years and for me, that is as it should be.

I came late to the realization of “If you look for the Truth outside yourself, it gets farther and farther away” (Tung Shan). Yet, without those early years of traversing the high plains desert that held my heart, I might never have realized that what I sought was always within me.

My trip home, these many years later, confirmed a life lived is just that, which is a lot. Driving across the desert plains in spring, I saw that old life in every sagebrush stock, rock outcropping, or hogback hill that whisked by my window. It all passed so quickly—just as it had when I lived it–vast and sweeping but complete in itself.

“The whole world is you,
yet you keep thinking
there is something else.”
~ Hsueh Feng

For years, I thought there was something else but as I have shared on this blog many times, what is inside each one of us is the whole world that is each one of us. What is inside us colors the way we are in the world, for our everyday lives are a mere reflection of what is in our hearts.

The two regions I have called home are worlds apart geographically and geologically, and I am grateful for the gifts of each, for only now is home no longer a location but the whole world that I am in any place, in any moment.

Thursday Tidbits are weekly posts that offer choice bits of information to celebrate our oneness with one another through our unique perspectives. It is how we connect, how we have always connected but in the 21st century, the connection is a global one.

Ringing the Bell of Uncertainty

Posted on April 21, 2013April 20, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Inspiration, Oneness

“Suffering is a meditation bell, not an enemy” appeared in a recent update on Jeff Foster’s Facebook page. The context of the quote is that in suffering, we identify ourselves as a single thing, image, or sensation, thereby confining ourselves to that single identity. It is only when we remember that we are “no-thing” do we discover our true nature, “which is everything” (Foster).

Suffering grabs our attention as a signal that our “okayness” is about to change. It is the ringing of the bell of uncertainty. We can resist and suffer or we can accept and “allow” as Anita Moorjani calls it.

Allowing or accepting is not passive in any regard but rather, an open-arms welcome to the uncertainty inherent in each of our lives. In allowing, we transcend duality, forgoing the labels that make us this or that. Allowing is discovering our true nature, and it is a lifelong trip.

“To access the state of allowing, the only thing I had to do was be myself. I realize that all those years, all I ever had to do was be myself, without judgment or feeling that I was flawed. At the same time, I understood that at the core, our essence is made of pure love” (Anita Moorjani).

Moorjani’s book, Dying to be Me, is a fresh approach to accepting ourselves as we are. It is also an accounting of her recovery from physical illness that includes a near death experience, which is not the focus of the book, at least not for me.

Quite specifically, she writes that her story is just that–her story—of recovery from cancer that led her inward to her true nature, which is entirely unique to her. Likewise, what her story may or may not mean to any of us is just as unique.

“I don’t advocate that if we ‘believe’ a certain way, it will eliminate disease or create an ideal life…. Having awareness, on the other hand, just means realizing what exists and what’s possible—without judgment. Awareness doesn’t need defending” (Moorjani).

Moorjani does refer to a kind of “clarity” that she had as she lay dying. In a coma, she considers where she was as a state and not a place. There are no conversations with God or with any other being just awareness:

“…I instinctively understood that I was dying because of all my fears. I wasn’t expressing my true self because my worries were preventing me from doing so.

“I understood that the cancer wasn’t a punishment or anything like that. It was just my own energy, manifesting as cancer because my fears weren’t allowing me to express myself as the magnificent force I was meant to be” (Moorjani).

Moorjani’s book focuses on present moment awareness of the self– the exploration of one’s true nature— and within that journey the necessity of loving ourselves unconditionally in this realm that is here and now. Repeatedly, she indicates her healing was not positive thinking or mind over matter but consciousness, which she calls “magnificence…a state of being…the part of me that’s eternal, infinite, and encompasses the Whole.”

Moorjani is well-versed in all of the Eastern traditions as well as Christianity. She is not a physician or a scientist but a woman who nearly died of cancer seven years ago and is completely recovered.

In previous posts, I have mentioned Deepak Chopra’s Quantum Healing and Perfect Health regarding the role of consciousness in one’s health, specifically the “intelligence” inherent in the physical body. I have read other medical and scientific works as well. In the 21^st century, there is a growing body of work in neuroscience—and to some extent, physics–that is exploring the role consciousness may or may not play in our health. I find it fascinating, all of it.

To me, it is increasingly evident that our level of health is inextricably tied to our true nature. Our physical and emotional health reveals our level of awareness of our true nature, in essence whether we resist or accept our lives. Who knows? Attaining our optimal health may begin with our response to the meditation bell of suffering.

In the coming months, I plan to explore optimal health and consciousness. As always, I appreciate your thoughtful comments and that you take time to read my blog. Thank you, dear reader.

Time for a break; regular posts will resume in May.

Thursday Tidbits: Unhooking the Pain

Posted on April 18, 2013April 18, 2013 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Oneness, Spirituality, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits considers “shenpa…the all-worked-up feeling of…getting hooked on a negative emotion” such as pain (Pema Chödrön). In order to unhook ourselves from shenpa, we must give our full attention to our pain and that includes physical discomfort as well. We must immerse ourselves in our pain in order to release it.

KMHuberImage; oneness; St. Mark's Refuge FL — KMHuberImage

In giving our full attention to our pain, we open up to the experience of it and not the drama or storyline we have told ourselves about our pain. Our storyline is what hooks us until we sit down in the middle of what is hurting us, forsaking its interpretation for its reality.

Anyone who has ever experienced chronic pain—physical, emotional or both–knows that this kind of shenpa can easily become the only story we ever live. Yet, when we give chronic pain our full attention, we change the idea of our pain. We are no longer content to live its story.

Unhooking ourselves from shenpa does not mean that we will be completely pain-free but it does mean we give our full attention to living the lives we have as the beings we are. Being in our pain completely is where all healing begins.

KMHunerImage; McCord Park; Tallahassee — KMHuberImage

Essential to all life is water, and it has more than one form, yet it is either flowing or frozen. Mark Nepo suggests that how we deal with our pain resembles the form water takes. “For when trees fall into the ice, the river shatters. But when a large limb falls into the flowing water, the river embraces the weight and floats around it” (Book of Awakening).

If we view our pain as ice, jagged and hard, we risk living shattered lives of fear and worry, holding our shenpa close. But if we give our pain our full attention and release it branch by branch into the river of life, it becomes a burden we can bear.

We release the idea of our pain and experience it as is, moment by moment, within our flow in our own time. “Once given full attention, you will come back—one drop at a time— into the tide of the living” (Nepo).

Like the river’s path, our lives wend in ways we never imagine. It is life’s way, and pain is only one part, although it can last a lifetime. It is up to us whether pain remains sharp or a bubble in our daily flow.

KMHuberImage; McCord Park; Tallahassee; Florida — KMHuberImage

We have to show up for every moment of our lives, pain or no, giving our full attention to life, trusting that we will absorb our pain and not be shattered by it.

For the people of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for the people of West and the state of Texas, we open ourselves to each and every one of you—victims and family members—for as long as it takes to absorb the pain. There is no limit on your courage or on our love.

Humility: The Art of Being Enough

Posted on April 14, 2013April 13, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Inspiration, Oneness

The art of being enough begins with the complete and total acceptance of ourselves (maitri), without labeling our shortcomings or our strengths. There are no credits or debits within the flow of life.

“All streams flow to the sea

because it is lower than they are.

Humility gives it its power.”

~Lao Tzu~

The art of being enough is accepting that we meander with the river of life on our way to the sea. Each horseshoe bend of life is the forgiveness of ourselves and others so essential to the flow of being enough. Each bend reflects a challenge met, yet another way discovered.

Bending with life rather than letting life bend us is the power of humility, a delicate balance of keeping our thinking subordinate to our heart. The strength of humility is not denying our uniqueness but in expressing it, although those waters seem murky at times. Ego will do that.

When we allow our ego to supersede our heart, we cut ourselves off from the flow of life. Essentially, we are saying we are not enough. Continuously, we add up what we are and are not—our debits and credits are never enough–and with our abacus of self, we total up the world’s worth, which also falls short. There is never enough for ego without a heart.

The art of being enough regards life as an adventure with infinite possibilities. Rather than adding up life as a positive or negative, in humility we pursue life for the pure experience of it. We are not trying to mold it to assure a certain outcome; we bend with the possibilities, trusting the flow of being enough.

How we live our lives is our unique contribution to the oneness of existence. Sooner or later, we become enough. Perhaps the best illustration of this is the story of the Hindu master and his apprentice.*

The apprentice is constantly complaining about life, how it measures up or does not. The Hindu master grows weary of the apprentice’s complaints and sends him to purchase salt.

Upon the apprentice’s return, the master tells him to put a handful of salt into a glass of water and drink it. Immediately, the apprentice pronounces the taste of the water as bitter. The master smiles and informs the apprentice they are going to the lake.

At the lake, the apprentice is told to throw a handful of salt into the lake and then take a drink from the water’s edge. The apprentice says the water tastes fresh. The master tells the apprentice:

“`The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain… remains…exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in.’”

There is a grace in learning to bend with life, and perhaps in bending, we just may discover that our unique purpose is to do just that, express ourselves in the meandering flow of life on our way to the sea.

In the words of the Hindu master, “`…the only thing you can do is…enlarge your sense of things….Stop being a glass. Become a lake.’” You are enough.

*The story of the Hindu master and apprentice first appeared in a January 2012 post; all citations are from Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening.

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