Monthly Archives: September 2007

A few years ago I was on vacation with a couple of friends in spectacular Sedona, Arizona. We were at one of the famed “vortexes” in the red rock hills of Sedona, where there are widely publicized energy centers where people can actually feel the flow of some unique or specific energy source to varying degrees. Many have reported profound spiritual experiences there and/or have claimed to receive remarkable physical or emotional healings when they have located the vortexes.

So my friends and I were trying to follow someone’s directions to this particular vortex and not having much luck. The vortex seemed to be eluding us. After stumbling around the mountain for a while, one of my buddies called this friend of his on his cell phone to ask for more precise directions to the sought-after spot.

As he was on the phone, asking for guidance to this vortex, my other friend and I were joking around about the difficulty we were having finding this energy center and trying to get to it via someone’s cell phone . . . “Can you heal me now??” I joked to my friend on the phone as he was writing down the new directions.

We eventually found the vortex although none of us had what I would call a transformational experience there. For some reason I was remembering that trip a few days ago and something about the whole experience made me start to wonder about the process of actively and vigorously seeking something we really want that we can’t seem to find. We so train ourselves to believe that the only way to really have what we want is to go get it, and not to rest until we’ve hunted it down and held it in our hot little hands.

“Can you heal me now? Can you heal me now?” The question in that context was a joke, but I’ve heard a variation of those words ringing in my ears many times when I was frantically looking for healing of some sort. . . or looking for some other need to be met. Can you help me now? Can you give me what I want now? Can I have it now?”

I suspected that The Shower Team might have something to say about asking those kinds of questions . . . Much to no one’s surprise, They did.

We love the questions you raise for the opportunity they sometimes give us to steer your thinking in a different and hopefully more helpful direction. The fact of the matter is that when you are asking about healing, you are usually not in a very good position to be receiving it. Same thing applies to pretty much anything that you might be asking for. There is what we would call “asking mode” and then there is what we call “receiving mode” and it is relatively uncommon for you to be in both modes at once.

In other words, when you are asking for healing or for whatever else it may be that the contrast or variety of your experience has caused you to ask for, you are generally too focused in that moment upon the absence of what is desired to be able to allow the receiving of what is desired. For example, when you are asking for healing, you are generally focused primarily upon the experience of being sick. You are thinking of your sickness or your pain or your discomfort—anything but the wellness or the ease or the comfort that you desire. It is only when you are able to turn your attention more in the direction of that wellness or that ease or that comfort that you begin to move into receiving mode and to allow what you want to come into your experience. Another way to put it would be that as long as you are thinking about being sick, then you are resisting being well.

The key here is always the extent to which resistance is present relative to your desire. When you are focused upon your hurting, then the desire for relief is great . . . but it is very difficult for you to allow the relief to come until your focus begins to shift away from the hurting. You used to experience this personally on a number of occasions when you noticed that you had a headache (Note to your self: Have you noticed how rarely you have headaches lately?). The more you noticde the headache, the more your head would hurt . . . but on occasion, something would distract you from the pain you were feeling, and for as long as that distraction prevailed, you actually forgot that your head hurt. In effect, your headache disappeared because you shifted your focus to something else in such a way that you were no longer resisting the wellness or the ease that you were asking for.

We would encourage you to remember this relative to all your desires. When you are in the middle of asking for whatever it is that you want . . . you are generally focused primarily upon the lack of what you want. It is only when your attention turns toward something that feels better that you begin to experience the receiving of whatever it is you desire.

It is has been offered to you a number of times that when you ask, it is given, and this is entirely true. However, the way that you often experience the fulfilling of your desire is that when you stop asking, it is given. In other words, when you stop pushing against the absence of what you want, and relax again into the knowledge—always available to you—that all is well, then and only then do you allow what you have asked for to flow into your experience.

In short, the healing comes when you remember that you don’t need it, and therefore stop crying out for it. And while we acknowledge that this seems contradictory to you, we challenge you to put it to the test . . . and instead of repeatedly querying the Universe with, “Can you heal me now?” decide that instead of desperately hunting down the vortex you imagine you need, you will focus upon the beauty of the scenery and the satisfaction of the hike . . . and notice the wellness or ease or comfort or fulfillment that appeared when you stopped the needy searching for what you seemed to lack.

I take some perverse pleasure in hearing them admit that they like messing with me. Too bad I wasn’t hearing from Them so directly back in Sedona. . . they could’ve saved us an hour or two on that hillside.

But the better point is that we had a grand time on that hillside, vortex or no vortex. It was a magnificent view of those majestic red rock mountains and evergreen valleys and whether we were trekking around searching for energy centers or just gasping at the unbelievable beauty. . . we were feeling pretty connected. There were blissful moments up there—as many of them as we would allow ourselves to have.

I know from experience how hard it can be to be in pain and turn away from the pain toward something that feels better. I also can remember many many times when I’ve done exactly that—even before I had The Shower Team encouraging me to do so. It works. I’ve forgotten many a headache that way. Sometimes a little aspirin didn’t hurt either, but the point is I eventually focused on something besides the healing I was asking for . . . and the hurting I was experiencing . . . and what I got was sweet relief.

Sometimes I still feel like I’m on that cell phone calling from the mountainside asking, “Can you heal me now??” But as soon as I stop asking the question. . . turn toward something—anything—that feels better . . . the question and the reason for asking it are usually forgotten.

It’s the best way I’ve found to spell R-E-L-I-E-F. That leaves me feeling much readier to relax about where my vortex may be . . . and just enjoy the hike, which in turn leaves me feeling not only relieved, but for the moment—complete.

Most of us would probably agree that fear and doubt are not at the top of the list of things we love to feel. When I’m afraid or when I’m experiencing doubt, I literally feel it in my gut—sometimes to the point of stomach or digestive symptoms that you’d just as soon not hear about.

I feel myself clenching . . . I feel the tension of not trusting myself or the knotting of those faith muscles that seriously restrict movement and the flow of energy inside and outside. They basically shut me down.

All good reasons to loathe the buggers, right? Fear and doubt and all their ilk should be banished like the pests, like the plague that they are. We’d all be better off without them, yes?

Always question your assumptions, especially when asking The Shower Team . . .

Your desire to eliminate fear and doubt or any other uncomfortable feelings from your emotional repertoire would be similar to a desire to remove half the signs and mile markers from your highways . . . or perhaps more precisely, it is your wanting to shoot the messenger because you don’t care for the message.

Although we understand that these emotions are uncomfortable for you, it is your discomfort in their presence that is their service—indeed, their gift—to you. For it is the discomfort that you feel which you label as fear or doubt that is your guidance, your ever-reliable indicator that you are not pointed in the direction of your desires. Every time you turn in a direction that is different from who You really are or from where you truly desire to be . . . there are immediate indicators, immediate signals conveying to you that you are off course, that you have removed yourself from the path that leads to where you want to be . . . and that you are no longer going with the flow that carries you to your dreams and desires.

The tension in your gut, the clenching of your muscles, the heaviness or the knots that you feel in your stomach, the constriction and limitation that you find so uncomfortable, are all signals to you that you are no longer seeing things from the perspective of who You really are. What you label as fear or doubt or worry or anxiety is the clearest possible guidance saying to you, “Hey! You’re pointed in the wrong direction. What you want is over here!”

Your desire to inoculate or numb yourself to that guidance, while understandable on some level, is both pointless (as long as you’re still flesh and blood) and counter to what you really want—which is to know how to get to where you want to be. So rather than shooting the messenger, we would encourage you to pay greater attention to the message—and to adjust your navigation in relation to where your heart, your connection to Source, is calling you.

Notice the tremendous relief that you feel when fear or doubt are replaced with a sense of relaxation . . . Notice how good you feel when you manage to turn your attention away from what is worrying or bothering you . . . That relief—that feeling of relaxation—is you coming back into alignment with You. It is you letting yourself let go of the need to push against whatever you think you should not be experiencing or feeling . . . and recognizing that nothing you want is in the direction that you were heading when your stomach was in knots.

As long as you continue to label your negative emotions as foes and to blame them for bringing you discomfort you are continuing to miss the point of their value to you, similar to the way a good friend often tells you something that you don’t want to hear but that you later realize was exactly the message that helped you to move to a better feeling place.

We don’t blame you for disliking the discomfort that you call fear or doubt or whatever other label you apply to negative emotion, but we would encourage you to, rather than fighting the feelings, adjust your response in a way that allows you to acknowledge their service to you and to more quickly and easily shift your attention in the better-feeling direction that these friends, fear and doubt, are always nudging you toward.

At least They didn’t tell me to start chanting, “I love my fear and doubt, I love my fear and doubt . . . “

I do love the feeling of relaxation that comes when I’m no longer at a standoff with them. In fact that kind of relief sort of reminds me of make-up sex . . . almost worth the anger or frustration that preceded it.

We hear a lot about letting our hearts lead, but maybe there’s also something to be said for giving our stomachs their say. When those knots finally dissolve, the road ahead always seems a little less frightening . . . and a lot more inviting.

The idea of making friends with those former foes may take some getting used to, but if it cuts down on my Pepto Bismol bill, it will be worth it for the way that it leaves me feeling better in my belly, more willing to appreciate the guidance I’ve been getting, and for the moment, complete.