Surrendering the Body

Since I was a child, I had a strong reaction to seeing my own blood, or hurting my body, or seeing certain scenes in movies. Something was triggered in my mind by those scenes but I wasn’t aware of what exactly; maybe the fear of death, the belief that I am this fragile body, guilt… After I started practicing A Course In Miracles, I tried to be as conscious in those moments as possible. I was curious about what was happening in my mind so rapidly that my awareness couldn’t keep up with it. 

Then I started travelling and it activated my mind differently, so I completely forgot about this fear. One weekend Ken and I were going to do the gathering and we felt to show the movie to the group. Two days before, one movie came to my mind strongly so I thought that it was given for that gathering. Then the day before, Ken felt another movie called “Breathe”. I felt a bit confused because I was really feeling the first one. I sat and prayed to open my mind to what was really guided and given. As I released all the desire to have my own way and be right, there was a moment when it seemed like the thought about the movie “Breathe” sparked joy in my heart so I knew it was from Jesus. Little did I knew what it really was for.

On the day of showing the movie, I was so excited and ready to go. I thought it was the day of me teaching through words.😄 

Soon after we started watching the movie, the scene came on screen that triggered the same feeling I had with injures and hurts. I could feel how the fog was spreading from the corners of my awareness and I felt like fainting. First I tried to fight it, control it. I thought, “I am here doing the gathering, I can’t afford fainting or even leaving.” There was this initial idea that I had to be the teacher and I had to be “perfect”. But I couldn’t fight the fog that was activated so I whispered to Ken that I needed to go upstairs where our bedroom was. I got up and Ken followed me. As I was going up the stairs, I noticed that slowly I lost the control over my right leg. It felt like it went to sleep; it felt heavy and I couldn’t direct it. By the time I reached the room and tried to open the door, I could hardly move my hands. I managed to go in and just when I reached the bed, I lost the control over the whole body so I just fell on the bed. I could hardly hear Ken asking me what was going on. All I could do was to observe. There was a moment when I saw the sparkles of light flying before me. Slowly I managed to explain what was happening and I started coming back to the body senses. But with that I had such a profound sense of release; I lost the control over the body but because I managed to just stay aware of everything that happened, it felt like that awareness released the attachment to the body. If I was able to stay conscious even when I lost the ability to direct and even feel the body, it must be that I am more than this body- this was the feeling. I was just buzzing. I stayed in the room to take everything in and pray. I realised that gatherings or traveling isn’t about the body performing. It was for the mind’s awakening. Something happening or not happening in form isn’t the goal. My purpose and priority is awakening. Nothing else. And whatever is helpful for that is gonna happen. It was a deep surrender of the body and desire for the body to be a certain way. If something happening to the body is helpful for the mind’s awakening then I am gonna accept it and use it for the awakening. 

Still, there was the tangible fear to go downstairs and continue watching the movie. Whenever I would think of going down, the same sense of fainting and strong fear was coming over me. But I didn’t want to hide. I didn’t want the fear to direct me, so I decided to go down even if I fainted, or almost fainted, and continue going down to face everything that I would need to see. And I did. I didn’t faint but it was a powerful and intense opportunity of staying focused and choosing my state of mind. This time I could actually decide not to faint and stay aware. 

The whole day was so deep and mystical- the mix of deep insights and realisations and at the same time facing fear and resistance. The interesting thing is that I’ve seen the movie “Breathe” before and none of this was triggered. But this time Jesus had another plan for me of surrendering body identification and coming to higher awareness. We never know what is in our own best interests especially when it comes to the body that we all cherish so much, and there are clear moments when we choose whether we want freedom of the body or freedom of the mind for both we cannot have.