9 days … shifts perspective

Urgent care trip 1; then urgent care trip 2 and ER; landing me into nine days’ learning immersion ‘retreat’, growing, healing, and going deeper in a hospital cardiac care unit.  Interestingly, also, a deep calm and peace, a knowing I was supposed to be here, at this time — on a physical level, certainly–and also on a soul-path level.

Soul … is embodied.  It is down and in.  The Soul brings us into our bodies, and our bodies are where Soul work gets done.  The Soul speaks to us through our bodies.  And its lessons come through our bodies in many ways, including pain and illness.  These experiences are not punishment for being bad.  They are Soul-making opportunities.  Soul is the intermediary between Spirit and ego.  (Dr. Christiane Northrup, Making Life Easy. )

My reading companion through this was Making Life Easy by Dr. Christiane Northrup, where she writes openly from a place of wisdom years, all she knows and has learned about the multi-layers of women’s health and who we are.
Quoting Edgar Cayce, an early influence–of hers and mine–she references in understanding the inter-connected nature of Spirit, Mind, and Body:  The Spirit is Life; the Mind is the Builder; the Physical is the result. 
In her words,

Your physical body is just a small part of the vastness of who you really are–like a drop of water in an ocean.  Our bodies contain our Souls, which are connected to our Spirits.  Our Spirit–or what some call our inner beings or higher selves–lives outside of this material realm.  Tapping into the Divine is tapping into the highest part of ourselves.  We are all part of God.  And you get to call the Divine anything you want …   to access the Divine part of yourself, you have to raise your vibration and begin the process of remembering this and communicating directly.  Don’t make this too complicated.  Just know that you are part of God. …  The Spirit part of us is all-knowing and all-seeing.  It is crucial that we know this part of ourselves.  Our Spirits look on and remain above the fray–offering insights along the way, but not participating in the pain and suffering that are so often part of being in the body.  … (Dr. Christiane Northrup, Making Life Easy. )

Her life journey of knowing these spirit things parallels mine.  This was of course, the perfect book to be re-reading…on a Kindle… a few pages at a time… and that resonated with incredible timing.

More than physical causes

This wasn’t just a physical experience;  it’s causes and healing are also in the soul and emotional realms.  That played out as each test eliminated usual-suspect causes, and my holistic healer angel-team colleague friends shared energetic, intuitive, and knowledge-based insight into body locations and emotions connected to them–specifically left lung and heart–that seemed to be central players in need of freeing, healing, restoring.
Medically, the underlying cause is still unknown.  Virus is suspected; an inflammation somewhere.   I was given a secondary diagnosis and treated for that.  Heart and lungs are healing, returning to normal.  Follow-up appointments coming up.
Energetically, I’m  doing my part with food-as-medicine nutrition, a love-of-my-life earth angel Michael who’s been with me every day through this…and enjoys cooking and culinary creating for me; daily walks and stretches, tapping the services of my angel-team of body-spirit-energy practitioner colleagues: Kathy Kay for acupressure, an angel named Mary a cardiac-experienced RN / Herbalist friend whose expertise in both worlds has been invaluable; an angel named Lois, another Kindred Spirit and gifted animal communicator-shaman-medium.   It’s a time of inner and outer self-care, healing, integrating all of this, and opening to what’s next.  Listening, being happy, breathing freer and deeper and fuller, and letting a much brighter light lead the way.

Flowers, Journal, Reflective-writing time

I was gifted with beautiful flowers and a journal on one of my first days in–by an inspired soul sister who knows me well–an exquisitely perfect and beautiful place to write and record those deeper thoughts and insights and a-Ha moments that needed a sacred space to hold them.  Soothing soft-blue thought-processing pages to write on… and I did–still am.

Many layers and elements of timing and experience in this:

• I don’t get sick or take drugs.  I take care of my body–eat healthy, move, laugh, love, and play.  This was my first hospital stay as a patient.
• Physically, this filling up of fluids around my left lung and heart; putting a halt to free, easy movement; and landing me in the hospital, was a necessary surrender to a Source bigger than me and a system outside my usual comfort zone.  And it felt right and calm to be exactly where I was.
•  I listened, paid attention, asked lots of questions, followed my curiosities, and trusted my instincts.
• Today I am part of and have an earth angel network of complementary integrative practitioners in my circle, who bridge the medical world and complementary-integrative healing world and who have added precise insight and expertise into this.  Unexpected bridges have been built, and uncommon conversations started, in unexpected places, in this process.
• I was welcome to use my essential oils.  Learned many in the hospital are aware of these healing support oils and use some of them in the hospital.  A few of mine are always in my purse; I had them out, and used them, and answered questions about them, too.
• I discovered I need and require a conversation exchange about any drug or substance someone wants me to put in my body.   Drugs might be a first-response for the medical community; they are a last resort to me.
  • I had and asked specific questions, required printouts of what the drug was, what it did, and everything else about it; and then it had to feel positively right, beneficial, forward-healing moving.
  • I learned that I could decline / refuse drugs I didn’t want, or ones that showed up on my list UN-discussed and not agreed on ahead of time.  And a couple I did–ones that made no sense, treating symptoms I didn’t have.
  • In conversations about drugs, I was an adult-learner student:  their knowledge was important and I wanted to hear it, understand it, what it did for my health, and what else it affected in my body’s systems.  AND my knowledge and awareness of taking-care-of-my-body in all ways, and helping it heal in ways I knew, was equally and even more important.   I own this body; it’s where my soul lives and loves and walks in this lifetime; and I felt strongly responsible to a much brighter light to be its care-taker, advocate, and protector.
  • What I know, what I was reading, and my angel team of knowledgeable, credible resources provided needed alternatives information, all coming together in this time and place, to add clarity into any dialog and decision…which was ultimately mine.
    • Dr. Rose Kumar, Ommani Center of Integrative Medicine founder and author speaks of the Four-Body System and Food as Medicine.  I know Dr. Rose and her wisdom.  We have met and spoken of our shared interests and passion.
    • Dr. Christiane Northrup, a well-known author and expert in women’s health, body, soul, and wisdom.
    • An RN, cardiac care specialist, and master herbalist.
    • Energy medicine practitioners and soul work intuitives.  In traditional Chinese medicine, left lung is associated with sadness and grief–emotions I had unknowingly held in and festered, until they showed up here.  There was shaking and tears during these days, releasing old and deep emotions, some overlayed on top  of others; old stories to be transformed and cleared.

Draining those built-up fluids to free my heart and lungs medically, saved my life.  And medicine to help my heart beat easier during this healing time is working.

Spirit-soul level learnings:

That emotions held in find their way in the body to get attention; that inner peace and calm tend to be soul-led and soul-growing connected;  that earth angels are everywhere–lots of blue-eyed people and helpful teachers caring for me in that hospital; that I’m not in this alone and need to reach out to and tap into this amazing circle of healer angels I’m surrounded with and that I love; that being able to receive is equally important as giving, like inhale and exhale are both required for life–imbalance restricts life; to let go and trust that all is well and in divine order.   From my journal notes:

Give up control and flow with this River of Life.  Love that a wiser, divine soul in me knows the way and will guide me in this unfolding and healing.  Thank you.  (Sept 5, 2018)

Other learnings:

• There is no modesty in a hospital.  Gowns are functional; other clothes just get in the way.  Really unnerving that night it was all men who were doing the procedure to remove the fluid from around the lining of my heart.
• Everything is tracked and recorded.
• A shower after two days felt really good.
• A full shower on the 9th day–after all wires and ports and tape had been removed–and I was more-than-ready to go home, felt heavenly.
• Wearing my own clothes, walking outside, and breathing in fresh air and sunshine after nine days was savored.
• Hospital food was pretty good; fruit and plain yogurt Michael brought me from home was better than hospital yogurt parfait though.
• Good people are everywhere.  I appreciated all.
• I love my husband more every day; this was growing-closer for both of us.
• Good insights, new inspirations, ideas, creatings, relationships are evolving out of this.

Feeling much better; feeling blessed, loved, humbled, full of gratitude and love; still flowing with that river and allowing soul and heart to lead.
Anne