I-dentity Most of you who know me know my story, but for those of you who don't here it is (the short version). By the time I was in my early thirties I had done a beautiful job of acquiring just about every stress ailment you could think of (took myself and life way too seriously back in those days - still do sometimes). As a result of all this drama I was taking at least $300 worth of prescription meds a month. I walked down that road for quite a few years and then in 1988 two things happened that would begin the path that I am on today. I met my first healer and someone handed me a book called "The Nature of Personal Reality" by Jane Roberts (a Seth Book). I read the Seth book and spent the next several years really trying to grasp the concept proposed in that book, the concept that you create your own reality. For the first time in my life I felt that I had power. I had the say in my life. After 10 years of being on medications I got off all of them in spite of the fact that doctors told me I never would be able to (heart medicine you know, couldn't be without that!). The concepts that you create your own reality and that the present is the point of power are very common to most of us, at least to our heads. But it needs to be felt in our hearts, realized, and seen. My healing went so far and then stopped. I "knew" that I created my own reality, but what wasn't I seeing? I began even harder to search for the answers. By now I was a massage therapist/healer and so explored similar avenues for answers. The years of deep soul searching, bodywork, and hours of spiritual conversations were enjoyable times well spent. One day I realized what had been obvious to my friends all along - that my ailments were my identity. My name wasn't just Sierra, I was Sierra with "a stomach ache". I was so closely identified with my wounds and their manifestations that I had forgotten who the creation named Sierra was. Like everyone else who is ill, I hated and resisted the suffering but wasn't ready to stop feeding that I-dentity. As part of this new realization it became clear to me just how many relationships are formed around illness and how these relationships can further ingrain the illness identity. Take support groups for example. If the support group focuses on the illness, the illness becomes its participants identity. This is a hard place to move from. If the group focuses on health, then health is the focus from which the participants create. Ask anyone who has healed from a terminal illness and they will tell you it was the shift in focus, past their illness, that lead to their healing. So are you ready to shake up your identity a little? First thing we need to do is discover what your identity is and FEEL it and FEEL why and how it serves you. If your first reaction is "it doesn't serve me to be sick or in pain" keep digging. If it wasn't serving you in some way you wouldn't have it. A very dear friend said to me recently, "If I get well I will have to face my life!" I think that is true for all of us. Our illness keeps us safe from having to fully embrace life. Exercise Several times during the day say your name to yourself. Feel that feeling? That's the energy of your name. That's the collective consciousness of YOU. That's the joy of your being. Feel it!! Another piece of this is our belief in our bodies. The victim mentality, that we can easily fall pray to thousands of illnesses, is very strong. How many of us have the belief that a cold, or worse yet a fatal disease, is stronger than our health? How did we become so afraid? Health is not a victory against disease, it is the natural state of our bodies. Our bodies are glorious creations. Our immune systems have backup systems for the backup systems! The latest thing to further our belief in a powerlessness is heredity. We have blood tests that will tell us if we have a particular disease, and also if we will get one in the future. Are we not setting ourselves up for a disease process to take place by worrying that some day we may have a heart attack or cancer? I can guarantee you that more diseases have come and gone through your body everyday than you could imagine. While diagnostic tests must have a place somewhere I can't help wondering about the many stories you hear of someone feeling fine and going to the doctor only to find out that they had some terminal disease. What happens? They more often than not die right on schedule. Maybe they would have gotten sick sooner or later and ended up at the doctor anyway. Maybe they would have had a few extra years. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't have died from it at all. The point is to stop giving power to a set of symptoms that someone has given a name to. Shift your focus to the idea that you are healing. See yourself as healthy and well. Don't let that disease become your name. Don't believe in the power of illness over the power of your own body. Trust in the joyous process of life that goes on in your body every minute and most of all, remember your name! Many Blessings! Sierra Have you joined the newsletter yet?   © 2004, 2005 Trinity Healing Arts, LLC Copyright 2004-5 Sierra Lamanna - Some Rights Reserved: You are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work under the following conditions: You must give the author credit, you may not use this for commercial purposes, and you may not alter, transform or build upon this work. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Any other purpose of use must be granted permission by author. 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