As we live through this Corona experience, it can feel as if we are going through a tunnel. There is no certainty when we will come out and get to the other side. It can feel dark, confusing, lonely, and very sad.
Yet we never really learned how to be with our feelings and allow for healing. Certainly, learning about how our mind works and how to manage our mind was not part of our education. Even as a physician, I never learned any of this in my traditional medical school training.
So, instead of us being with our feelings, we often feel the urge to distract ourselves and blame or shame the outside world. Or we allow the feelings to fester and blame and shame ourselves.
Something must be wrong with me.
Something is wrong with the world.
Something is wrong with my healing because I should be healed by now!
I like to call these thoughts the ego storm that can often become a tornado inside our minds. All we can do is seek shelter and be safe until it blows over.
A Course in Miracles teachers that when our resistance is high, and our dedication is weak, that we must not push ourselves. We need to be gentle with ourselves; in fact, it is okay to step away and do whatever feels helpful and nurturing to us in that moment.
Then, when we feel ready, we can begin to truly receive an answer from our inner wisdom that can set us free.
So, why are we doing this deeper shadow work?
At some point along our life journey, we realize a fundamental truth: wherever we go, there we are. Meaning, we take ourselves, our minds and hearts, all of our memories, thoughts, beliefs, and past conditioning with us – into any new place we move to, into any new job or business we join, and into any new relationship.
I am responsible for the state of my mind
If we don’t learn to take responsibility for our state of minds, then how can we truly be happy and peaceful? How can we be helpful to our friends and family? How can we be of true service to our community and our planet?
We have become so accustomed to looking outside of us for all the solutions. We have so many expectations of others based on past conditioning: how others should be acting; how they should have behaved, or how things should have happened. Or perhaps we internalize our shame and blame so we have so many expectations about how we should have/could have/would have handled something in the past.
This can be like a never ending, constantly repeating movie inside our minds. It is the same show running 24/7. At some point, we all become tired of this! We want to see a different movie. Yet to change the movie we need to change the film inside our mind, and here is where we must do the inner work.
I am not a victim of the world I see.
This statement might not go down well with some of my readers who believe so devotedly in the idea of social justice. Yet if we can truly hear what is being said, I do feel we will see that this is our only ticket to ultimate freedom. I do not condone social systems that undervalue and harm another human being based on gender, race, ethnicity, social class, or sexual preference. Yet if we truly desire to empower ourselves and others in our human global family, we must realize that for true change to occur we need a change in consciousness.
Let me give an example from my own life where I truly learned about releasing the belief in victimhood. Many years ago, while being a single parent to my then ten-year-old son and working full time as an integrative physician, I faced severe chronic pain that would not heal despite my pursuing traditional and complementary therapies. During this time, I was also already a student of A Course in Miracles.
My experience taught me that I never had any control over my pain: all I could do was to do my best to manage it with whatever medications seemed to be helpful. Yet I always had a choice in how I would witness and interpret this pain. Would I see it as punishment? Would I feel it was happening to me so I was a victim and therefore helpless and powerless? Or did I want to see this differently? Was I willing to go deeper underneath the experience of pain and find healing at the source?
As long as I kept waiting for the pain (the external world of my body) to change, so I could be happy and peaceful (the inner world) – the pain not only persisted but seemed to escalate. And I remained very miserable and unhappy within my mind as well. However, once I made a decision to turn all my energy inwards towards the cause of my pain- which I intuitively knew lay inside my mind- I began to experience a cascade of miracles and my pain ultimately healed completely.
We don’t decide our curriculum; only when we choose to take it
The way I see it is that we really don’t have a choice of if we want to do this deeper work of going within to heal our minds. Eventually, everyone is going to come to this stage. The only choice we do have is when and how. I am choosing to do this now. And I know I cannot do this alone. That is why I am so grateful that each of you are with me on this journey. I am looking to see some of you at the Zoom gathering. All details are below!
Zoom gathering
Our Zoom circle is being held on Saturday May 30th at 11am to 1pm EDT.
We will join in healing, sharing our experiences, and gather for meditation/prayer as well. I know it will be a heart-opening and healing session for us all!
To reserve your spot, please send payment for $25 here. Once I receive your payment, I will add you to the list of participants and you will receive the zoom details the night before the online gathering.
If you prefer to pay via check, you can make it payable to Seema Khaneja and mail to PO Box 18373, Rochester, NY 14618. Let me know you plan to do this so I can add your list to the participant list.
If you feel inspired to attend the online gathering but need some financial help, there are some scholarships available so please email me soon so we can secure your spot. Also, if you feel inspired to pay-it-forward, and sponsor someone to attend who might not be able to attend otherwise, please let me know as well.
Thank you for those that have already registered. Thank you to those who also have offered to support another beloved brother or sister to attend.
I love you all and I am so grateful you are on this journey of healing with me!
