apply your own oxygen mask first

There is a level (and its the fourth dimension, where ideas about ourselves become reality...) where we have to be fully prepared to heal, at a moments notice, and no "ifs" and "buts" about what that leaves us holding in our hands or who we would let down or leave behind when all we have been for a number of years simply vanishes as if it was never even there. Its only once we are fully accepting of this possibility and all its ramifications, as laid in front of us on the table of all potential, that it can get even close to us (though this is the territory of spontaneous remission so allow some excitement to come into it since this is its very rocket fuel). If you are serious about this, you have to feel into what it is that is keeping you attached to this thing that has so-long defined you and make sure you are 100 per cent happy to let it go...and this can take some serious amounts of inner probing but once those sacks of ballast are identified, you can find yourself in an upward spiral that will blow you away and leave others watching you with their jaw-dropped.

Consider this; for whom do you stall your own recovery? Who in your world would not know how to handle a new and vigorous you; what decisions have you made on the back of your illness (perhaps huge ones, like giving up a career, selling your house, raiding your savings) that would now look fraudulent or unnecessary in the light of how you would be if this thing was suddenly gone in a nano second. So who do you think you are paying back, with interest, through your suffering? What hobbies, communities, friendships, routines, lifestyles, identities have you built around being in this club of the chronically unwell? What inner sanctum would you feel you no longer belonged to if you tore up your lifetime, long-service, membership card? Are there family members you long to be close to, perhaps ones that are no longer here, that you would feel less close to (you think) if you did things differently to them? Do you feel like you would be abandoning others to their fate if you got better "without them"? Can you allow that none of this matters…that everything can recalibrate and take on new and wonderful shapes on the back of a recovery that would have everybody clapping and cheering for you, at least at the highest level of their being. Do you fear going back into your old life, a previous career perhaps…rather, can you allow that this thing has changed you so utterly that you don’t have to do that but can actually reinvent from scratch now? That you have earned the right to call your own tune, having been through what you just went through? That the best rope you can throw anyone is to be the example of all they can look forward to themselves, just as soon as they want this enough for themselves to reach out for it? That the future this holds is so unexpected and new that you can’t second guess it and just have to summon the courage to go along for the ride. But, whatever, its got to be better than the predictable plug-hole future of “more” illness, surely....(read more).