A house divided

I’ve been dealing with a flare up of rheumatoid arthritis of late, and when I checked in and asked my Spirit to help me understand what the current problem is and what it is I need to do to help myself, I started asking about diet, supplements, activities, therapies, etc., but I kept getting “No, that’s not it.” (I was using dowsing rods to confirm or negate my statements.) Finally, what dawned on me to check was my relationship with myself. What I got was that my own self-loathing was the issue I most needed to look at. Yoiks! Now, this is not a totally new concept for me—I’ve been dealing with this on and off for more than 2 decades, and I’ve looked at it from all sides. R.A. is the perfect metaphor for self-attack. It’s an autoimmune disease, and autoimmune diseases are about the body attacking its own tissues as if they were invaders. What more appropriate disease to manifest when you have a pattern of being abusive to yourself?!

But, while I've intellectualized about it, I haven't managed to really solve the problem. I think, however, that I've almost reached a new level of understanding with it. Today I realized that my schizophrenic way of treating myself (which I got from my upbringing—one minute, I’m the special princess, the next, I’m a screw-up who just can’t do anything right) does not allow for me to be okay. Having recently emerged from an immersion in the family dynamic, and having family patterns on my mind a lot since I returned a month ago, I realized that despite all the many years of inner work I’ve invested in transformation, and all the layers of the onion I’ve peeled, I’ve never managed to transform my way of relating to myself—never managed to shake that damaging cycle of swinging from one way of treating myself to just the opposite! I go from treating myself like a rarefied being, to treating myself like a repulsive, worthless screw-up (which, sadly, is frequent), with almost no time in the in-between place. My self-talk during the times I’m feeling like a screw-up is often quite abusive. The feeling I have is of being repulsed by myself and wanting to get away from myself, and since I can’t, I start beating up on myself, figuratively speaking.

As I was sitting listening to beautiful, frequency-raising music in the garden this morning (it was blessedly peaceful, with all the neighbors absent), I started seeing more clearly as I rose higher, and as I attuned with Spirit more closely, I had an epiphany. Yes, I’d had the realization before that my pattern caused my illness, but I hadn’t realized what a deeply-seated pattern it is for me. And never before had I realized that there was such an exact correlation between the way I've never allowed myself to be okay with myself, and my not being physically "okay." I had not fully realized how truly, fundamentally exhausting and stressful it is on me to swing from one attitude to the other. I had the sense of there being a huge chasm within me—not just a lack of inner unity, but a big, bloody rip. No wonder I'm sick!

“A house divided” is the phrase that had come into my head the other day when I was dowsing for answers. And while It’s what tripped the trigger to make me realize that the most important thing to address in my quest to feel better is my relationship with myself, I hadn’t put the whole thing together. Don’t you love that? “A house divided against itself cannot stand”—that, from Abraham Lincoln, about the situation in 1858 with half the states being for slavery and half for freedom. Believe me, there have been times over the last month that “standing” was very hard for me! And it’s for sure that there is a type of serious tyranny that has been going on within me that has kept me a slave to the old pattern. I have, for sure, been the epitomy of a "house divided." And it’s exhausting. You just have to love the way your Spirit gives you clues. SO very clever!

“Acceptance” is the other cue Spirit is giving me when I ask to be shown the way to heal this. I get the sense of some sort of energetic harmonization occurring. I trust that as I continue to walk as closely in alignment with my Spirit as I can, and rise in frequency, I will be shown how to love and accept myself as my Spirit does. I am happy I’ve made enough progress that I’m ready to see this about myself, and do this vital—if challenging—healing work with myself! After all, I am okay. (That’s an affirmation!)

Just so you’ll know, my ego so very much doesn’t want you to know that I haven’t managed to fully rise above the illness, and doesn’t want you to know how badly I treat myself! It really wants me to stop and not post this entry at all. But my guidance says to go ahead and share. If what I expose about myself can be helpful to someone else, I guess it’s worth the discomfort to my ego!