by Ross Bishop
When we become ill, we go to a doctor to get a prescription for pills or a shot to deal with the disfunction. In a tribal setting you would go to a shaman and he or she would identify the beliefs that have led to your condition. In the shamanic ways of understanding things, dysfunctional beliefs lead to physical disorder. Here are some comments on the subject from Catherine Ponder, from her book The Dynamic Laws of Healing:
“… disease is self-inflicted! Disease is caused by wrong thoughts, opinions, and beliefs, moving upon and within the body, constricting the life force . . .”
“People have long attributed ill health to everything but its true cause: their own wrong thoughts and feelings.”
“ . . . the shocking truth about disease is that it is self-inflicted! You inflict disease upon yourself by your fears, resentments, hates and beliefs.”
And as Andrew Bernstein said:
“Remember that stress doesn’t come from what’s going on in your life. It comes from your thoughts about what’s going on in your life.”
The thing is, it’s a lot easier to go to a doctor than it is to make a life altering journey to change your beliefs! With a doc, you don’t have to do anything but show up! But, fixing the problem doesn’t necessarily lead to healing the underlying cause that is driving it. And that means that whatever is driving your malady will either become chronic or come around again in some other form.
As a doctor friend of mine says, “We deal with what comes in the door.” Give docs a heart problem or broken bone and they’ll fix it, and they do a remarkable a job! Besides, the magic pills the doctor proscribes will eliminate many problems. And sometimes that is absolutely necessary!
If we were to trace your problem back, we would find that it began in childhood where your family entanglements led to the negative beliefs you hold about yourself. What you are experiencing is the physical manifestation of that deeply held belief. For example: “I’m not good enough,” or, “There is something wrong with me,” or, “I don’t measure up” – something of that kind.
These beliefs reside with your wounded inner child. You get to decide where to go for dinner or how to balance your checkbook, but when it comes to an emotional issue, that is your inner child’s territory, and he or she will take over with his or her fears and anxieties in a heartbeat. And as Ponder and many shaman point out, those beliefs, in addition to messing up your daily life, can have a significantly deleterious impact on your health.
You came to earth to resolve some aspect of your spiritual development, and your childhood wounding is an extension of that. So although this whole business is an enormous pain, it is also sacred work!
The first step in healing your difficulties is to deal with your wounded inner child. He or she holds your negative beliefs, and if you help your inner one to heal, then the subsequent negative life experiences you are hanging on to will daisy-chain up to the present. Ponder comments:
“You can begin to release the healing power within you . . . through the power of your deliberate, conscious thinking.”
“If you will stop nourishing the dark thoughts they will starve from lack of attention and fade away.”
One of the big limitations to our healing process is that we hang on to wounds long after the event in question has passed. It’s one thing to remember the event, it’s another to hang on to the wound from it for years. The reason we hang on to this wounding is that it resonates with the negative view we already hold of ourself.
The best way out of this dilemma is through the practice of “forgiveness.” Forgiveness is something of a misnomer, because this really isn’t about dealing with the other person, it’s what the process does for you. Quoting Ponder again:
“It is an immutable mental and spiritual law that when there is a health problem, there is a forgiveness problem. You must forgive if you want to be permanently healed.”
Forgiveness is sometimes difficult because we are still upset about what happened to us. We think that we are angry with them, and we may be, but what we are really upset about is that the incident tore the protective bandage off our childhood wounds and exposed our shame.
It may also be helpful to remember that this will have, in all likelihood, a lot more to do with their issues than anything you did. So, work to heal your inner child while you also deal with the wounds you carry from your life experiences. Affirmations are very useful in doing that:
“All that has offended me, I forgive, whatever has made me bitter, resentful, unhappy, I forgive. I forgive positively everyone. God is love, and I am forgiven and governed by God’s love alone. Realizing this, I abide in peace.”
“I am the radiant child of God. My mind, body and affairs now express this radiant perfection.”
“God loves me. God is guiding me. God is showing me the way.”
It has been my experience that accomplishing this requires a good deal of repetition. It may have do with the number of times your negative beliefs have been pounded into you by your life experiences, but more likely it has to do with you getting clear of the resentments and residual anger that you are hanging on to. A good proactive of fogginess will help tremendously. Remember, forgiveness isn’t for them, its for you.
Remember as Ekhart Tolle taught:
Anything that annoys you is teaching you patience.
Anyone who abandons you is teaching you how to stand up on your own two feet.
Anything that angers you is teaching you forgiveness and compassion.
Anything that has power over you is teaching you how to take your power back.
Anything you hate is teaching you unconditional love.
Anything your fear is teaching you courage to overcome your fear.
Anything you can’t control is teaching you how to let go.
Copyright 2022 © Blue Lotus Press
A CLASS:
USING YOUR PROBLEMS TO FIND YOUR WAY HOME.
What do you do when you are confronted with a problem? Most of the time we put band aids on situations but don’t really go much beyond that. The difficulty with doing that is that until you go deeper and seek resolution, your problems won’t go away. They will continue to confront you, often in another form. The reason for this is that your “problems” are linked to the reason you have come here, and they will not go away until that is resolved.
I have created a class to help you identify those deeper issues and deal with them. The class will run for about an hour and a half on 4 successive Saturday mornings beginning Jan. 6th at (10 AM est, 9 central, 8 mountain and 7 on the west coast). Fee for the class will be $500. To register you can send payment via Pay Pal (to Ross Bishop) or send a check (Ross Bishop, 690 Gonzales Rd. lot #12, Santa Fe, NM 87501.)
