Articles of Interest 

                                                               

      Being Love:   By Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D.

      Accepting Your Healing:   By Martin Brofman, Ph.D

 

                          

                                                                            

What, then, is love? Because it must be experienced in order to be meaningful, I can't define it for you except to say that it is the total absence of fear and the recognition of complete union with all life. We love another when we see that our interests are not separate. This is always a union of higher minds and not an alliance of egos.

It isn't possible to evaluate or prove love in the usual ways. The fact that we are not able to measure it does not make it less real. We have all had glimpses of pure, unconditional love, and there is unquestionably a part of us that knows it exists. We become aware of love whenever we choose to accept people without judging them and commence the gentle effort of giving without any thought of getting something in return. This means, for example, that true love is not giving in order to change another's attitude from a bad mood to one of lightheartedness or from ingratitude to one of thanks to us. True love is a completely pure and unencumbered form of giving. It is extended freely to the love in others and is its own reward.

The word love, as we generally use it, means something quite different from real love. It is conditional love -- giving in order to get. It is a bargain, a trade arrangement. This is often fairly obvious in romantic relationships in which each partner is giving with the expectation that it will be returned in the specific form that is desired. Conditional love is also what passes for kindness in most parent/child relationships. Here, the extension of love is contingent on approved behavior and attitudes. Parents frequently seek an affirmation of their own worth through the accomplishments of their child and through "payments" of respect. Children often love their parents only when they get what they think they want, whether this be a new possession or approval and praise. Such love is neither dependable nor permanent, and its temporary nature causes us to carry the underlying fear that we are about to be abandoned.

When we are giving true love, our concern is not with our own or anyone else's behavior. We feel natural because we recognize that love is our natural state. We are not aware of limitations. We don't question the possibility of devotion, and we are not preoccupied with time. We are only conscious of now and all it contains. When we are extending love, we are free and at peace. Attitudinal Healing shows us how to allow ourselves to experience this kind of love -- the only love that is eternal.

Love Is Our Essence

We all say that we want to have less conflict, fear, stress, and depression. And deep within our hearts we do want this. But on the level from which we function most of the time, we rarely choose peace over conflict and happiness over fear because of the sacrifices we believe this choice must entail. We also believe that there is satisfaction in revenge, that we can be right by proving someone else wrong, that to humble someone who is being difficult will give us "a little peace and quiet." It seems logical to us to be stern with our children in order to teach them gentleness. We think that there are people who deserve to lose because of their behavior and that the pain they receive is just. We try to increase love with one person by excluding others. We mistake guilt for attraction; we believe that pain can be pleasurable and that taking is getting. Then we are puzzled as to why this approach to life does not bring us peace, and yet we see no reason to change our basic beliefs.

It is obvious that we need an experience which will bring clarity to our mind. The experience we all need more of is love. In order to move more deeply into an atmosphere of love, we must identify less with the body and more with our love-related emotions. These are the feelings that speak to us of what has always been within us but what our shabby self-image has not allowed us to see. To recognize it we have to bring it forth, for only by extending what is good can we know and believe in the good within us and that we ourselves are good. However, to bring it out does not always mean to act it out but rather to bring it into our hearts and minds.

A preoccupation with the body and its behavior does not allow love to flood our mood, because the body is merely what is different and separate. In order to love, we must recognize what is the same within us and all living things. The love in us can unite with the love in others, but two bodies can never become one.

Emotions that center on the body and exclude others are negative or self-denying. As a first step, we must honestly and gently question our investment in how our body looks -- in how we have adorned it, honored it, and employed it and in how we calculate the fair amount of credit, thanks, influence, money, or popularity that our body should receive. To the degree that we value our body identity, we tend to downplay or ignore altogether our real identity, which is love.

This gentle questioning does not call for impulsive or drastic changes in behavior or lifestyle. It calls for nothing more than simple, calm noticing, especially inner noticing. Once we recognize our true value, if any external changes are needed, these will occur naturally and in their own time. If we become preoccupied with what we do rather than how we do it, we needlessly delay ourselves. Attitudinal Healing is concerned only with how. Are we acting with love, with peace, with happiness, and with certainty? If we are, whatever we do will promote those states.

A preoccupation with other people's bodies and bodily behavior leads us to believe that our body determines what kind of person we are and what kind of relationships we must settle for. We may get momentary pleasure from the fact that others seem less attractive than we do, and some people may be drawn to us because of our personality or special accomplishments, but we always know in our heart that relationships based on such things are shallow and fleeting. We really don't want people to be attracted to us because of our bodies but because of what there is about us that is changeless and timeless. We want people to understand us and love us because they truly see us. They cannot do this while relating to us only as a body. We want to be aware, and we want others to be aware, of the golden glow from within and not merely the glitter of surface appearances. The part of us with which we identify determines this outcome. What we put forth, mentally and emotionally, is what others relate to. We are either extending gentleness, joy, kindness, openness, and peace or we are hiding behind a purely physical identification. We can't do both, because one is love and the other is fear.

Many things we do not understand simply because we are not yet in a position to do so. This is why patience with other people's experiences and points of view is not only a comfort to them but a relief to us as well. Love overlooks differences, for it notices something of far greater importance: how much alike we are because how much like love itself we are. Once we see this honestly, we quickly begin to lose our fear of others and to gain confidence in our potential harmlessness as well. The more we enfold others in this harmlessness, through releasing our own mind of defensiveness and suspicion, the more we begin to glimpse the vast harmlessness of the universe and how utterly impossible it would be for any living thing to suffer for very long in any true sense. There is an end to pain. There is a point beyond which misery cannot go. Never are we left comfortless.

This article is excerpted from Teach Only Love, ©2000, by Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Beyond Words Publishing. www.beyondword.com
                                                                 

                                                                                

 

 

 

 

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 The Brofman Foundation

                             Accepting Your Healing

                                                    Article by Martin Brofman, Ph.D.

                                       

 

Each type of illness is associated with a particular way of being. There is a personality type associated with heart disease, there is another associated with cancer, another with nearsightedness, etc. The person’s way of being has had stress associated with it, and that stress has reached the physical level, manifesting as a symptom.

When someone wants to release a symptom, they must release the way of being that was associated with the symptom, and which, in fact, created it. Releasing the stress from the consciousness allows them to then have different perceptions, and a different way of being. There is a change in the nature of the bubble, the filter of perceptions through which they see the world.  Said another way, since our perceptions create our reality, there is a change or movement from one bubble to another, from one reality to another, from one paradigm to another.

Thus, we can say that the process of healing implies a process of transformation. In the experience of this writer, recovery from catastrophic illness is always accompanied by a change in the person's way of being. They change, or else continue to manifest the symptoms until they die. Those who change are able to see things differently in their life, and to notice that things happen in ways different from before.  They are able, through having different experiences, to define different beliefs.  Or, they are able to first define different beliefs, and then have different experiences.

The important thing, in either case, is to release old perceptions that have been based on old experiences, if those perceptions have resulted in a tense way of interacting with the environment.

One way to achieve this reprogramming, this perception modification, is by recognizing the element of time as a possible distorting influence in our internal programs and perceptions, and choosing to not prejudice our positive view of the present and future by our negative experience of the past.

For example, someone might have a program in his or her human biocomputer that says, “Every time I see that person, I get a headache!” Then, given the person, the headache is expected, so that the individual has a chance to affirm that truth, the program that is believed to be true, and therefore, is true for them. Unfortunately, the program always results in a headache, so although the program is very effective and efficient, the result is something unpleasant.

To release the program while still acknowledging what is true, we can describe it as having been true in the past. Then, the program would say, “Every time that I have seen that person,

I have gotten a headache - but the next time might be different. Perhaps the other person has realized the error of his or her ways, or has become enlightened, or transformed (it’s always a change in the other person). For the next time, I’ll see what happens and what is true then.”

Then, direct experience can show that something different is, in fact, true. “Wow! This person really is different - and actually, quite pleasant to be around!  I’m sure I will never again get a headache from being around this person.” From that moment, with those words, a new belief is created, and new perceptions are allowed, and a new reality is created with the new belief.

If you are interested in experiencing the process of healing, and therefore, the process of transformation, what is particularly important is the way you describe yourself to yourself.  This is because the words that you use to describe your experience create your reality, and you are interested in the creation of a different reality in which you feel better than you did before.

Thus, it’s important to pay attention to the words that you use to describe yourself. If you are describing some trait you do not find particularly successful (I’m shy, or afraid of success, or naturally irritable, etc.), then with your words, leave it in the past, making room for a different perception in the present, and also the future (“I was shy, or have been afraid of success, or had been irritable because I was not really being myself, etc.).

In that way, you will be able to more easily dis-identify with and therefore let go of old ideas, and old tensions associated with the symptoms to be released.

The same is true about the words you use to describe the symptom to be released. Consider the element of time, and be able to describe the symptom to yourself as you experience in the present moment.  If you say, “It hurts all day,” you may not be noticing that, in fact, it doesn’t hurt so much right now. If you say, “The symptom comes and goes,” and if you do not experience it right now, you expect it to return.  It is more effective to describe your experience in the present moment, acknowledging what is true now, and with a positive orientation toward a positive future (“It’s better now than it has been. In fact, it really seems to be getting better and better.”)

The positive mental attitude is, of course, an element useful for enjoying the best quality of life achievable. For the process of healing, however, it is essential.

Whatever you visualize, you improve the probability of happening.  The images or pictures that you put into your consciousness have more of a tendency to happen. If you continue to put into your consciousness pictures of yourself suffering, you tend to continue that condition. It does not even matter what emotion you have with the picture - it is the picture that is important. Thus, if you have a picture of what you do not want, you are still having a tendency to fill your consciousness with that picture, and therefore, to create that.

It is important, then, to have in your consciousness a picture of the final positive result that you are working toward, as a reminder of your goal.  When you are receiving a healing, optimally it should be with the expectancy of being healed. At the very least, it must not be with disbelief and resistance, which stop the process. 

You do not have to believe in the method or system, but you must remain open to the possibility of it working for you. If you do believe in the healing, then during the healing you can remind yourself that your healing is happening now.  After the healing has happened, you can see whether the results are partial or total, so far. Sometimes, the full effects of the healing are immediately apparent, although often there are continuing positive effects that manifest during the days or weeks following the healing act.

When the healing is total, and no symptoms are experienced, know that you are healed, and just get on with the rest of your life.  When the full effects of the healing have not yet been experienced, it is important to continue to remind yourself that the healing has happened, and that the effects are on the way.  Rather than continuing to see yourself in your old bubble, see yourself in your new bubble, the one you are moving toward.  See yourself healed, in the future.

In changing your bubble, or moving from any one reality to any other, there are three steps:

1. Decide what will be true in the new reality.

For example, you can decide, “In the new reality, when the healing is complete, the pain will be gone,” or “Reading will be easier,” or “The tumor will be gone.”

2. Encourage the perception that it’s happening now.

While it’s true that you are moving toward some goal in the future, and holding the perception of success at some point in the future, the process of reinforcement must happen in the present moment.  The idea is to examine your perceptions of what is happening now, in the moment of experience.  “The pain now is less than it was before. The healing must be happening now,” or “The letters I see are a bit clearer now than before,” or “Perhaps the tumor is actually a bit smaller now.  Anyway, my consciousness feels more clear now, so I know that something positive is happening.”

Positive thinking is not self-deception.  Even when there are highs and lows in the experience of the symptoms, it’s important to see that the lows are where the highs used to be, so that even on your current worst days, you feel better than you used to feel on your previous best days. In other words, even on days when the symptoms are being experienced, it can be noticed that they are not so severe as before (when that is true), and you are thus able to hold a perception of a positive direction.

The idea is to give yourself reasons to believe in the process, while at the same time, acknowledging what is true, on the physical level. It is, after all, the measurement on the physical level that shows the effects of the work being done in the consciousness. Each improvement in the condition on the physical level should be acknowledged, and owned, as evidence that the healing is happening now.

If the conditions on the physical level have been measured as continuing to deteriorate, it must be clear that something has not been working, so that steps can be taken to correct the situation, and continue the healing process. Even this necessary correction can be seen as part of the healing, and in fact, it is. It brings the person one step closer to the final result of being healed.

3. Decide and know that now, it’s true.

You continue the encouragement process until you experience yourself symptom-free. When that happens, you must consider the possibility that you may never again experience that symptom. When the pain is gone, it may be gone for good. When you see clearly, you accept it as your new normal state. When the healing is complete, you must see yourself as healed, and in that way, we say that you own the healing. You identify the state of consciousness you experience, and your view of the world from that state of consciousness, as normal and usual for you, even if it is your new normal way of being.

If the symptom was evidenced on the basis of medical tests, look forward to new tests that show you as free of those symptoms. After all, healed is healed, and on all levels.  If the tests show improvement, but not yet total results, know that you are moving in a positive direction, and that there is still a bit further to go. If you have been working on yourself, continue, accepting the progress you have made thus far. If you have been working with others healing you, you can know that it was a partial healing, and that the next one can take you further along, or be the one that is the last you will ever need.

When you have the feedback on the physical level that shows the effects of the healing work you have been doing, accept it and trust it, and when you have a clean bill of health, find other things to do with your consciousness than correcting problems. Get creative, and set goals, watching them manifest, creating with the tools you have learned to use, a life in which you are happy and fulfilled.

In fact, you may consider sharing your success story with others. Many healers and teachers of healing have started on this path through the necessity of healing themselves. Thus, when they share their stories, it is from their personal experience.

That was the way it worked for me. Perhaps it can work that way for you, too.

Let everyone know that anything can be healed.

(from Anything Can Be Healed, by Martin Brofman, Ph.D.)  http://www.healer.ch

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