What if ?
What if there is nothing wrong with you ?
What if you don’t need to do anything ?
What if it’s all been a huge distraction ?
In the Matrix when Neo goes to visit the Oracle, there’s a young monk boy with a spoon. He says to Neo, “Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth”. To which Neo replies, “What truth?” The Young Monk replies to Neo, “There is no spoon. Then you’ll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself”.
In short, the message here has it’s roots in Buddhism and is telling Neo to let go of logic. To open up his consciousness and therefore better understand the Matrix. Only then does he realise that he is “The One”.
Looking back on my journey I can see countless examples of where I’ve been distracting myself from the truth. Each new fad, exercise, diet and so on has been yet another distraction. My “ego” saying, “Hey, look over here, try this”. All the time chasing solutions to a problem which doesn’t exist. My ego has been doing this for over twenty years now. Yes, that’s a long time. A self perpetuating merry-go-round of distractions keeping me away from the truth.
It’s easy to see through the illusion now, but at the time it was the most dominating thing in my life. You have a condition that the Doctors do not understand but they label it and give you a diagnosis and prognosis. You then keep this alive by constantly searching for the cure.
By having this quest, this goal to heal yourself, your dominant thoughts are completely focused on fixing the “problem”. This in itself just re-affirms to your subconscious on a daily basis that, there is a problem !
So, what was it that my own mind thought was too painful for me to deal with and therefore required some sort of distraction ? A smokescreen to protect me from something too painful to experience? By keeping me busy chasing a cure for something that was really painful, but was of my own creation to distract me from other things considered even worse ! You can see how easy it would be to get lost down this Rabbit hole.
I first discovered the mindbody connection when I stumbled across Dr John Sarno. He was Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York School of Medicine and attending Phsyician at the Howard Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York Medical Center. Dr Sarno developed a concept known as TMS – Tension Myositits Syndrome. Over decades of treating people with back problems he found that the traditional practices were not working. When he started looking into his patients lives he found evidence to suggest that maybe the pain was created subconsciously to distract them from past trauma. His concept (TMS) is well documented and 1,000’s of success stories can be found online.
Does this mean there are two forces at play here ? Kind of. It starts with symptoms which are really painful. Naturally you think there is something wrong. Then you get a diagnosis confirming that there is something wrong. This is then followed up by a prognosis telling you that there is no known cause and no cure. This is only because the medical world doesn’t understand what is causing the symptoms. The seed is now planted and you immerse yourself day in day out thinking about this problem you have. Next, you start looking for answers and this is where you go off in all sorts of directions – the distraction.
Now the difficult part. After 20 years of searching for answers, 20 years of life limiting pain. Note, this “condition” is really, really painful and life limiting, not life threatening. I could be doubled-up in pain for hours at a time and the minute the pains subsides there are no after effects, no symptoms, everything goes back to normal.
How do you then simply stop everything ? Stop the research, stop the treatment, the medication, the diets and so on ? It’s f**cking hard obviously. But, I now know that it’s all a smokescreen. I have pain because I think I have something wrong with me. Or, I have pain because my mind is distracting me from some past trauma. Either way, the longer I hold onto these ideas, the longer they continue.
It makes sense then that if our mind and our thoughts can make us sick, then they can also make us well. Positive thinking, Law of attraction, call it what you will. If my thoughts can create these symptoms, then surely if I think different thoughts, thoughts that I am pain free, then I will be pain free ? In fact, what if I just let go, let go of trying to fix myself.
What if there is nothing wrong with me. What if i’m not broken. What if there is nothing to fix ! Even with letting go, you can still fall into the trap of “I need to let go of everything to fix myself”.
Letting go isn’t about fixing myself. Letting go is about realising there is nothing to fix. It’s letting go of all the lies that I bought into that are telling me i’m not good enough.
What if I’m not broken ? What if there is nothing to fix and it’s all an illusion, because it is. That’s what i’m letting go of. Letting go of this illusion and realising underneath it all, I was good enough to begin with.
Just a Thought 