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Friday, August 10, 2007
Healing Stories #1
This story of healing was written by on of my students some time ago, and I now have permission to post it on this blog. Some edits have been made as the original story was much longer. Because of prison regulations he must remain unnamed ---Judy
… sometime in August of ’04, I noticed a lump on the right side of my chest. When I first noticed this lump, there was a certain amount of pain associated with it anytime I brushed across my chest showering or laying on my stomach. This was quite alarming for me, as I believed that I was a prime example of excellent health; non-smoker, non – drinker, no drugs, no allergies and so on; a sense of panic set in.
A couple of weeks later, another lump appeared on the opposite side of my chest as the first one grew to the size of a large grape. Now I was dealing with two painful lumps, along with a foreboding sense of dread. I muster the courage to submit a request to be seen by a doctor in October … a doctor saw me in December and I was referred to an outside clinic for a series of mammograms and sonograms After I raised a ruckus I got the tests in February and the results in April.
Meantime, I’m involving myself in various forms of meditation to still my mind. I’m speaking with God more often while feeling chi, life force, spirit, energy move within me as I practice Tai Chi Chih.
Reflecting on my condition, I saw how overtime, I’d begun to get away from the “peace of self” and the love of “ALL THAT IS”, I’d begun to allow ill feelings towards my situation, my surroundings and the activities of my captors to seep in and turn love into hate. I’d grown used prison and allowed it to soak into my self. I’d begun a dark journey down the road towards becoming a prisoner. Not in the body; but in my soul. For over a decade, I had resisted this, but I lost my balance and this experience had begun to chip away at my self.
The cure was as simple as coming back to my center … listening to “all that is” and rejoining the group of “us’ who make up “ALL THAT IS”. It was akin to walking out of a pitch black room with no oxygen inside, onto the most perfect beach displaying a midsummer’s sunset. Words are wholly deficient to convey the epiphany … So I’ll not ruin it by trying.
Back to the medical condition of the physical … about a week after the tests were run, I went to bed one evening and woke up the next morning and the lump on the right side of my chest had disappeared. Not shrunk … not was getting smaller … it was gone … overnight. By the time I’d been taken back to the doctor to read the results and get a diagnosis, one lump had vanished and the other was shrinking. I’d been tested on 2/28/05 and by the time I get a diagnosis on 4/13/05, I was on a clear path to recovery … minus man’s medicine.
I had been stilling my mind. I had been surrendering to the flow of TCC. When I wasn’t engaged in my daily session of movement with the meditation, I was taking my instructor’s advice of “moving while sitting” and participating in the movements within my mind … visualizing the moves when I couldn’t physically move. While being transported from prison to clinic in chains and shackles … I was with the chi and moving in my mind and spirit. While sitting and waiting and wearing pounds of mental chains … I was with the chi and moving in my mind and spirit. This kept me centered in spirit.
Upon reading the test results, the doctor advised me that I had developed benign gynecomastra and surgery was the usual course of action to remove the lumps, more so for cosmetic purposes than of necessity, in order to relieve the pain and rid an individual of unsightly growths. I was told this condition arises when the body overproduces a particular hormone to battle an internal injury and a mass of scar tissue results. To determine a time to schedule surgery, I was directed to remove my shirt and as the physician began to examine me, he looked up in wonderment and asked if I knew why or how one lump had disappeared and the other was fading. I smiled and replied; “Don’t you know, you’re the professional?” With that, it was of course determined that I wouldn’t need to go under the knife.
As I write this on December 12, 2006, I have no signs of lumps, bumps or bruises in the physical and I continue to nurture my relationship with “ALL THAT IS”, and the mental and spiritual are relieved that I’ve deserted the path towards becoming a prisoner. I’m more myself more often these days and it’s a grand feeling … a grand feeling indeed.
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