21: Tools For Dealing With Health Fears The ACIM Way

Fears surrounding the health of my body used to be my #1 anxiety trigger. Seriously, I mastered the pattern of being a hypochondriac! Having been through this fear pattern so many times, and finally having had enough of it, I applied the same effort to unlearning this pattern through the teachings of A Course in Miracles. In this episode, I share some helpful insights that you can use if you ever get freaked out about your health or if you are currently dealing with a health scare.

Transcript

This is from Anxiety to Love Radio,

The show about undoing anxiety through a course in miracles and other pathways of love.

Gain insights and tools to deepen your awareness of the peace that already exists within you.

I'm your host,

Corinne Zupko,

Author of the award-winning and bestselling book,

From Anxiety to Love.

Hello my friends,

Welcome to this episode of From Anxiety to Love Radio.

I love the topic of this episode because health scares used to be my number one anxiety trigger.

I could go from peaceful to panicked in a split second if I thought something might be wrong with my body.

My mind didn't just go to possibilities of what might be wrong,

My mind would go to the absolute worst case scenario.

And this pattern started at a young age.

It started before I was 12,

But I remember when I was 12 years old,

I was in the doctor's office with my mom because I wasn't feeling well,

And the doctor told us that I had mono.

Now,

That's not really an unusual diagnosis,

It was weird because I wasn't kissing boys at that age,

But when the doctor told me that,

I remember getting sick to my stomach,

I threw up and I didn't throw up because of the mono,

I threw up because of my fear,

I got so scared.

So health fears literally have been freaking me out for a very long time.

And because I've been through this pattern so many times,

And I'm still here,

I felt moved to share some deep insights that have been truly helpful to me in healing in this area.

I've done so much healing in this area.

By the way,

This podcast episode is actually based on an article that I wrote for Miracles Magazine.

Miracles Magazine is published by John Mundy and the One Mind Foundation,

And my article came out in the November,

December 2019 issue.

Now if you're like me,

You might benefit particularly from an episode like this in reading what I'm sharing with you.

So I'm going to link that article to the show notes page so you can get everything that I'm about to share with you in this article through the show notes at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash 21.

I also have a quick announcement.

I'll be speaking for the fourth time in the Community Miracles Center,

A Course in Miracles Conference in Los Angeles in May 2020.

These conferences are so much fun.

When was the last time you were in the same room with hundreds of other Course in Miracles students?

It's like a big ACIM party and it's just an incredible experience.

So if this speaks to you,

I would love to meet you in person.

You can go to my website fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash ACIM conference for more information and I'll link that to the show notes as well.

Now before we dive into Course-inspired tools for dealing with a health scare,

I want to give you a heads up.

I mentioned early on in my podcast,

I believe it was episode one and episode two,

That sometimes the language of A Course in Miracles can freak people out.

So for instance,

If you hear the name Jesus,

You might want to bolt in the opposite direction.

That's how I used to be.

It is widely believed that Jesus wrote A Course in Miracles through the scribe Helen Schuchman.

Now this might be surprising to you if you come from a traditional Christian background.

This might seem shocking.

If you don't come from a traditional Christian background,

This also might be shocking.

I just encourage you if you're willing to keep an open mind and if you're not a Course in Miracles student,

Take what works and leave the rest.

So in this episode,

I will be sharing some specific A Course in Miracles Jesus quotes that are super awesome in healing sickness fears.

Now if you used to bolt out the door with the name Jesus or if you still do,

It might be helpful to think of Jesus like an elder brother.

And if the name Jesus really bothers you,

Maybe you can just think of what I'm sharing as from the Holy Spirit or your inner therapist or your inner guidance system.

There are some very rich teachings in this podcast episode and I don't want names to get in the way of your learning,

But that part is up to you.

So I invite you to listen deeply and engage in a mind cleanse and allow these ideas from A Course in Miracles and also from my book,

From Anxiety to Love,

To sink into your being.

So here we go.

These are Course inspired tools for dealing with a health scare and we're going to start off with the first insight that has been truly helpful to me.

So insight number one,

Fear is presenting you with an opportunity.

First of all,

If you're currently dealing with a health scare,

You have an incredible opportunity that you don't usually have when things are going well.

So look at this time as a fabulous opportunity for growth.

This is absolutely essential.

Whether you're dealing with a tick bite,

A sprained ankle,

Or a scary scan or biopsy result,

You have a divine opportunity.

You have a chance to allow your intense fear to catapult you into peace by repurposing this experience so it leads to spiritual growth instead of letting the experience just yank you around from fear thought to fear thought.

Whatever you're facing,

Be determined this time to allow this opportunity to expand your awareness by asking truth to lead you deeper than ever before.

In other words,

As my friend Nook Sanchez says,

You need to train yourself to expect the miracle behind the form,

Expect the miracle behind the difficult situation.

That miracle is right behind the fearful experience waiting for you to receive it.

So that was insight number one,

Fear is presenting you with an opportunity.

In other words,

Allow that fear to motivate you to get to work.

Insight number two,

Turning to the Holy Spirit is everything.

An anxiety trigger such as a health scare is simply the ego trying to get you to forget your soul.

Fear is the ego's breeding ground.

And by giving your attention to what is false,

Which is fear in any form,

The belief in ego is strengthened.

I want to say that one more time.

Fear is the ego's breeding ground.

So when you give your attention to what is false,

The belief in ego is strengthened.

And there's a coarse quote that says the ego becomes strong in strife.

How true is that?

But in the middle of a health scare,

Everything that you believed that you knew of truth.

So for instance,

If you feel like you know that you're not a body,

You know that only love is real.

In the middle of a health scare,

All of this might feel like empty platitudes.

However,

The part in your mind that knows the truth,

And this is the Holy Spirit in you who I call your inner therapist,

This part in your mind that knows the truth remains unchanged and unfazed by external circumstances.

This part of you is undisturbed no matter what you're going through.

And with willingness,

You can begin to experience your inner therapist even during a health scare.

So it's your task to turn to the Holy Spirit and with as much willingness as can be mustered,

Give everything over to Spirit.

Everything.

Hand over what you are afraid of and what you love.

The Holy Spirit will then look past every illusion and uphold only the truth.

There's a Course in Miracles quote that says the Holy Spirit never changes his mind.

And just a quick insert here,

I learned that in the Hebrew edition of the Course in Miracles,

They refer to the Holy Spirit as she.

So the Holy Spirit never changes her mind.

I love that.

The Holy Spirit is always fixated on God.

Therefore,

You can be sure that even if you feel like you're lost in fear,

There is part of you that remains wholly steady.

Now,

As I dedicated myself to undoing the ego and the health scare pattern,

I began to notice that even though there was part of me that was terrified,

There was also a part of me that was quietly witnessing everything unfolding.

And this quiet part,

This witness in me knew that no matter what happens in form,

I am.

My favorite way of touching this quiet,

Still part of my mind is by utilizing the prayer,

Here I Am.

In A Course in Miracles,

This phrase was given to Bill,

Bill Fetford,

The co-scribe to focus on.

Jesus gave Bill this phrase,

Here I Am,

Lord,

But I like Here I Am.

And Bill was given this phrase because he was having trouble with mind wandering during meditation.

And this is from the CE edition of A Course in Miracles in Cameo number one.

So you can utilize this prayer by sitting quietly and repeating,

Here I Am to yourself.

Each time your mind wanders,

Bring it back to this phrase,

Here I Am.

Feel the meaning behind the words,

Here I Am.

You are showing up to rest in God.

So again,

This was insight number two.

This was all about turning to the Holy Spirit being everything.

So important.

Let's move on to insight number three.

Insight number three,

Give your body to spirit.

In A Course in Miracles,

Jesus says,

I can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them and lets me teach you their unimportance.

Isn't that great?

As our identity seems completely fused with the body,

We certainly make the body very important and thinking of the body as unimportant is almost incomprehensible or blasphemous.

In the Course,

Jesus says,

And I quote,

I could not understand their importance.

In other words,

I could not understand the ego and the body's importance to you if I had not once been tempted to believe in them myself.

This is saying that Jesus knows how mesmerized we are by the body because he was tempted to believe in the ego and the body himself.

But the bodily identity is not who you are.

It's just a learning device.

Your true reality has remained unchanged despite appearances.

Every moment when my fear grew strong during a health scare,

I didn't dismiss it.

I didn't minimize my fear and I didn't try to make myself feel better by telling myself that my body would be okay.

Instead,

And all this came after being through this pattern many,

Many times,

Instead with great willingness,

I gave my body and every aspect of my life as Corinne to my inner therapist,

Trusting that I can learn the unimportance of the body.

I asked to learn the right perception of the body.

And that is alluding to A Course in Miracles quote.

You can do this too.

As you do,

Your true identity will become clearer and clearer to you because you're not tightly holding onto ideas about who you are.

You are willing to be taught.

And again,

That's another Course in Miracles quote reference.

So the more that we are willing to loosen our grip on who we think we are,

The more space we let into our minds to allow spirit to teach us who it is that we really are.

So that was insight number three,

Which again was to give your body to spirit.

Let's move on to insight number four.

Insight number four is let Jesus or the Holy Spirit,

If you're more comfortable with her,

Be your model for how to think.

A Course in Miracles teaches us that you can learn to think like Jesus.

So let this idea sink in deeply.

The mind in Jesus that decided for God for him is the exact same mind that is in you right now.

In other words,

You and Jesus share the same mind.

This is unprecedented good news.

So Jesus in the Course says,

And this is a quote,

The mind that was in me is in you.

Even though Jesus was tempted just like us into believing the importance of the ego and the body,

He showed us that the decision for God can be made.

And so you can make the same decision because your mind is like his mind.

Isn't that awesome?

You don't even have to make this decision alone.

He's here to help.

So here's another direct Course in Miracles quote from Jesus.

He says,

It was only my decision that gave me all power in heaven and earth.

My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision.

So when you're triggered into fear,

Afraid for your health,

Remember that this is simply the wrong voice.

And again,

Jesus in the Course gives us instructions for what to do.

Jesus says in the Course,

When you are tempted by the wrong voice,

Call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my decision and making it stronger.

These quotes are so amazing.

And by the way,

On the show notes page,

Which is from anxietytolove.

Com forward slash 21,

I will have all these quotes and all of the references if you want to find them in a Course in Miracles.

So for this insight,

Take action by literally turning to Jesus or your inner therapist or your inner guidance system,

Whatever you're comfortable with,

And say,

Help me.

I am willing to share your decision for God.

Show me the way.

So again,

That was insight number four that was about allowing Jesus or spirit to be your model for how to think.

Let's move on to insight number five.

Insight number five is,

Remember that the miscreations of the mind do not really exist.

The miscreations of the mind are fear and guilt.

We are meant to create love,

So anything that's not love is a miscreation.

And I'll come back to this in just a moment.

But right now,

Take a moment to search your own mind for any beliefs that you might hold that sickness is somehow caused by your own negative thinking.

This is a very popular new age type of belief,

And this is not what the Course is teaching us.

A Course in Miracles is actually teaching us that all sickness comes from unconscious guilt.

Unconscious guilt is because we believe we actually separated from our source by coming into this world and identifying with these bodies.

So it's this unconscious guilt that the Course is saying that's the cause of sickness and the cause of anything is happening all at the level of the mind.

So one way that we can work with this is by being willing to look at our unconscious guilt in the mind as it arises,

As it surfaces with Holy Spirit.

And I teach this,

I have been very helped by this.

Yet at the same time,

A Course in Miracles says that there's a far better protective device when we realize that the miscreations of the mind do not really exist.

So this is a shortcut.

We can just go into this teaching that fear and guilt that we think we experience does not actually exist in truth.

So it's not part of us right now.

Again this means that guilt and fear and sickness and any form of suffering is a state which does not exist in truth.

It's part of a nightmare and that's all.

We believe in these miscreations,

So we make them real for ourselves because such is the power of our belief.

But again,

They do not exist in truth and in truth,

That's where we are right now.

We are whole and eternal and wholly innocent and we can drop into that knowing now.

So again,

Allow yourself to feel the power behind these words.

The miscreations of the mind do not really exist.

If they don't really exist,

That means that you remain exactly as God created you right now.

You are unchanged despite any appearances that might be showing up that would tell you otherwise.

You are unchanged.

You remain exactly as God created you.

I love that.

Moving on to insight number six.

Insight number six is be willing to stop worshiping the God of sickness.

Fixate on the truth instead.

So the quote unquote God of sickness means,

It's not a real God,

But this quote unquote God of sickness comprises our belief in bodies,

In illness,

In separation and in death.

Consciousness of illness or going through a health scare serves the purpose of simply keeping us loyal to the quote unquote God of sickness.

It compels our attention.

Now peeling your attention away from the God of sickness toward the truth can feel like an enormous effort,

But you have to remember you're not doing this alone.

So whatever your beliefs are,

You have God and angels supporting you.

You have to remember that you rule your mind,

Which you alone must rule.

That's a course lesson,

Lesson 236.

And you can choose again.

You are a holy son of God.

So thoughts about sickness,

Medical tests,

Test results,

These will seem to be utterly compelling witnesses that you have pulled off the separation from God and you have not.

So instead of thinking of yourself as a body,

Begin to think of yourself as a mind.

And instead of seeing everyone around you as bodies,

Be willing to see them as minds as well,

Not an ego mind,

But as the mind that you are in truth.

You as this mind are perfect.

You are exactly as God created you right now.

You are eternal,

Whole,

And wholly innocent.

This is who you really are.

There is no guilt in you and there is no guilt in others.

This makes sickness impossible when we recognize this.

There's no cause for fear.

Nothing you have thought or believed apart from the truth has had any effect on you.

And that's such a cause for celebration.

So it's your task to remain willing to allow your perception to be healed so you can teach others through your example that there's nothing to fear.

So again,

That was insight number six,

To be willing to stop worshiping the God of sickness and to fixate on the truth instead.

Because again,

We can fixate when we worry about illness and get tripped up by thoughts about bodily health.

It's like we're fixating on the God of sickness.

So instead,

This insight is about being willing to fixate on the truth instead.

Whew,

We did it.

That was a lot and that's why I'm so excited to give you the complete article from this episode so you can reference it and absorb the things that I shared.

You can access this complete article,

Including references to all of the quotes from A Course in Miracles at the show notes page,

Which is fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash 21.

Again fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash 21.

Thank you for tuning in as always.

I love you so much.

I am with you in your journey of undoing fear.

I'll leave you with the last few sentences from my book,

From Anxiety to Love.

I believe in you.

We're healing together.

Every gain that I've made is a gain for you and every gain that you make is a gain for me.

My gains are yours and yours are mine because we are one.

We're going to make it.

The light in you is too bright to fail.

If you buy a copy of From Anxiety to Love,

Make sure you take advantage of your free bonus,

The From Anxiety to Love Summit,

Which features six interviews with experts in undoing fear.

Get access at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash summit.

Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.

Reviews

So helpful. I’m going to listen again. Thank you.

Perfect timing♥️

I will be listening to this again to absorb all the insights. Thank you🙏✨💖