Cuz I Choose To

(waking up at 4am on a recent Tuesday)

"What the FUCK!!!" "OWWWW!" My back is spasming in a type of excruciating pain I haven't felt since a reconstructive ankle surgery, circa 1992.

It's so early in the morn I think it a bad dream for a moment. I am a healer, and and an empath. In other words, it's real easy for me to "pick up" on O.P.P., other people's problems. To intuit other's people's energy. Intuition, it's all of our given birthright, and in many, it simply has been dulled by the static of our busy lives.

Me? Yeah, I'm down wit O.P.P. Except this time, this pain is all mine.

FUCK! I am in intense pain at this particular moment, and recall working out too hard yesterday and carrying my guitar and case 2 miles to the guitar shop because I was locked out of my house. Surely, it's neuromuscular, I say to myself.

FUCK! I can't feel my left hand. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Nope. Sorry. I'm a semi-expert at breath, I teach the shit, for fuck's sake, and the only breath thats seemingly gonna do any work here is my potential last one, or so it feels.

It's hard to collect your thoughts when your whole body is in massive pain. I have a high tolerance for pain. My left arm is numb. I have a daughter. The choice is pretty clear. I go to the E.R.

The intern nurse sees me and speaks up, "you probably have carpal tunnel syndrome"

Clearly this young female is some sort of Jedi master(sarc), realizing that nothing is going to take away my pain at this moment, but she can distract me by saying something completely asinine as suggesting people go to the E.R at 5 a.m. on Tuesdays to get carpal tunnel treatment.

I reply, "Listen bitch, I've been eating pain omelettes for breakfast for 30+ years, been to hell and back, and had demons rip off my head and shit down my neck, so put chapter 3 of your nurse handbook down and get me someone who knows what the fuck they're talking about" (on the inside)

My real response: "look, i highly doubt this is carpal tunnel syndrome, my whole left arm is numb, and I'm in unbearable pain. May I see a doctor please?"

I know the nurse is doing her best. I simply share my felt-sense of the moment and process in hopes in may add to yours. This notion of enlightenment isn't all faeries and pixie dust.

To be sure, the senior nurse, and the resident doctor were absolutely amazing. 'Becca', actually did keep me distracted with conversation as I was in agonizing pain, even though it was the end of what she said was a trying shift. The physical explanation is it turns out to be a massive strain, with some entrapped nerves. My ticker is fine.

My first hint is this is something a bit more metaphysical than that comes when the morphine doesn't dull the pain one iota. They do a neck X-Ray as a precaution, say I might need an MRI, and send me on my way.

Nine days later, 2 doctor's visits, 2 acupuncture treatments, and a shitload of self-healing and introspection later, and we come to the present day. I wake up and I'm still in so much pain I'm punchy. I let out a helpless chuckle. It's like masturbating with a cheese grater, slightly amusing but mostly painful.

This really has sucked. Haven't been able to strum the six-string, write, exercise, or most of all, engage in active play with my daughter.

I'm exhausted. And this exhaustion is actually a key component here in being open enough to receive the medicine, or wisdom from this particular situation. When one achieves exhaustion, the ego can't help but surrender. It stops holding on for dear life, trying to be relevant, and then, and only then can one receive the deeper message.

I've always had this spot under my left scapula(rear shoulder), and no amount of treatment, massage, reiki, acu, psych-k, or any other modality has ever been able to release this one knot, this one pain, this one trauma.

I realize this release is what is now occurring. I'm in the best shape of my life, pushing myself mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually over the past 15 months. I've finally peeled enough layers of the artichoke to get to the "tasty" heart. It's counter-intuitive, but I've finally become healthy enough to receive this pain. To be with it. To sit with it. To 'hold space' for this trauma to be released. So why 9 days of it?

Sometimes things are more of a process rather than a point. Each clue builds on another. One night, my healer friend Jess does some work on my emotional body through kinesiology. I muscle test weak for the statement, "It is OK to make mistakes." Which in lay terms, means I am "programmed" subconsciously, with a filter that says I have to be perfect at all times.

I don't know about you, but consciously I've come to associate perfectionism as completely fear-based.

Imagine being a DJ at a radio station spinning tunes, and your station manager says, "Spin the wrong tune and you're fired."

"How do I know what's a wrong tune?"

"You'll know it when you've been fired."

The good news is we can actually re-write the "softwares" that have been downloaded into the hard drive that is our brain. Yup, we can choose which program or belief, we want to hold onto or let go.

Argue for your limiting beliefs and fucking A right, you own 'em.

So I keep the positive polarities of all behaviors/beliefs, and release the negative ones. All of it is simple perception anyway, i.e., this thing called life is an illusion.

Jess and do an exercise(balance) to "take that tune off my playlist", and I'm one clue closer.

The exhaustion serves. The ego, which is holding on for dear life to be relevant, surrenders. Today I was exhausted mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, too. I literally didn't want to write, and questioned just about everything I was doing spiritually or artistically in the last 48 hours.

I also just got a job opportunity that were it a year ago, I probably would've cut a finger off for. I said no to the opportunity. It wasn't easy. The job would mean added levels of 'security' and financial freedom, but at a cost. To my soul. To my spirit.

How much is enough?

This opportunity was the equivalent of wanting to date that special someone, who you "know" you have a strong connection with but has been non-responding, then finally you just resign yourself to "it ain't happenin' ". You let go, you trust the lessons you've learned, and move on. And at that very moment, they call you on the phone, or show up naked at your doorstep.

Only you're not interested anymore.

That was then and this is now.

It's an exercise in what Buddhists call that place of non-attachment(to outcome). Letting go of the possibility that was, to allow room for the possibility that IS, with another. Oftentime, we'll rationalize a person's behavior because we think we love them, but what is really occurring is we love the thought of loving them. At the time, it feels like you are connected beyond belief, and that is OK---it is wonderful to see the possibility in anything. It is a gift to be able to view the world in that way.

The place I've evolved to is to choose to make manifest any possibility I decide. It's a subtle change, and one that has involved taking responsibility for my path, and responsibility for my own healing.

There is sometimes a moment of sadness in letting go, when you feel or see something that the other does not. We humans sometimes let things get or go too far before we realize what was right in front of us, and ultimately, that turns out to be an essential part of our growth. We all have our path, and we learn and navigate said path to the best of our ability, or at our highest level of awareness at the time.

Letting go is liberating.

Back to the present day: I serendipitously lost my car for 1 1/2 hrs today, and got tired physically as well from walking. This is a nice metaphor, to lose one's car, or "ability to drive" temporarily. I would find, that it wasn't until I re-planted my flag, or re-declared my intention to the universe that things would sync up again.

i will write in, as, and with Spirit

It's 4 pm on a Wednesday. I'm still in pain. I pound an ibuprofen or 7, and a shot of whiskey.

For just a moment, I feel like I'll never write another word. As if I'll never have the physical capability to pick up my guitar, or much worse, my daughter again. Like what's the point of all of it anyway.

AND THEN I REMEMBER:

I CHOSE ALL OF THIS.

It's been 9 days, and with that one recognition, the tears start flowing, and I have instant recognition where the trauma came from, what the lesson is, and the release occurs quicker than a female Asian blackjack dealer takes all of your money(trust me on this one).

Getting to that point, is the point. The purpose of the journey is the journey itself. It's not good or bad, it just is. There is no "right" way to be grateful. I am grateful.

And ever more so, now that my wing was 'broken' for 9 days. I am ever more grateful for the ways in which I am able to participate in this thing we call life. I have even more compassion for those who will never be able to pick up their child, or those who cannot exercise due to some physical malady.

Maybe next time I'll get the memo before this pain actually happens. But then again, the medicine, or wisdom, wouldn't be the same. I would find out later that astrologically, over the past couple nights, both Mercury and Mars have formed annoying quincunxes with Chiron the Wounded Healer, bringing up issues that make us emotional vulnerable.

Did that make the little dickhead gnome on my shoulder order the trans-fat philly steak rolls at dinner instead of the healthy collard green salad with avocado?

What the fuck is a quincunx?

Here's what I do know:

Muscle memory is greater than what we refer to as our normal, or mind memory. Translation: we may have traumas---emotional, spiritual, or physical, and they are stored at the cellular level, and we may have consciously forgotten about them, as a defense mechanism.

Western society has been conditioned to fear pain. To mitigate pain. To stay away from pain. That pain is bad! We receive this message from economic policymakers who try to stave off natural economic contractions. From doctors who write prescriptions for symptoms rather than addressing source problems. From an image-conscious society that creates false idols.

A shift in perception is needed.

Look, I am not into being a pain glutton, in fact, I think pain sucks the royal karmic ass. I'm simply acknowledging it's role in making us a concentric whole being. I'm simply discerning that we grow from pain, and pain can be healthily transformative, while suffering is oftentime a choice we make for ourselves to keep ourselves in mental prisons.

I may have allowed myself to suffer a bit.

In the past, I may have drank the pain away. I may have kept myself sooooo distracted I never had to face said shadow.

And if that was my highest level of awareness at the time, that's fine too. Wherever you go, there you are. (wow that's deep, Forrest)

This time I leaned into the pain.

Why?

My experience has been that when we are able to "lean in" to the pain just a bit, we are rewarded with oh so much wisdom.

I'll leave you for now with a quote from a movie I just watched again, Matrix Revolutions, one that resonates with me.

From the Matrix Revolutions, Agent Smith: why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something, for more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is, do you even know? Is it freedom or truth, perhaps peace -- could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself. Although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson, you must know it by now! You can't win, it's pointless to keep fighting! Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why do you persist?

NEO: CUZ I CHOOSE TO.

Peace,

Eric

(if you're interested in contacting Eric for a healing session or re-writing the limiting belief softwares of your brain, you may contact him at eric.majeski@gmail.com)