Releasing Attachment to Pain
Desperate times call for delusional measures
After nine solid days of vomiting through salmonella poisoning (even after taking antibiotics?!) I was suddenly graced with all of the symptoms of a heart attack and back in the ER. They couldn’t find anything wrong with my EKG or bloodwork, told me it was anxiety and sent me home. 48 hours later I still had every symptom and went back, assuming they’d now realize it wasn’t anxiety but something majorly wrong. But no, they again told me it was anxiety and encouraged me to see a psychiatrist. Insert the most violent eye roll.
My resting heart rate has been in the 90s and goes up to 130+ if I do even light movement for over a week now and no one can tell me why or will give me a prescription for anything to lower it. At this point, I have to spend most of my day laying down because standing up, walking, and even sitting upright spikes my heart rate so much that my extremities get tingly and I feel disoriented like I’m about to pass out.
In my last post, I unveiled my astrocartography theory that I am especially cursed here because of living on Jupiter and Pluto lines. I still feel like that is accurate and yet I had a sort of breakthrough realization about it all.
The unenlightened idiot’s view of astrology would be that difficult planets are all bad with no value. But the more enlightened, intelligent view of astrology is that all planets, especially the difficult ones, are always pushing you towards the growth and transformation that you most need.
It has been very, VERY easy for me to look at the insane onslaught of debilitating health issues and life crises I’ve had since moving here and say Jupiter + Pluto = BAD, EVIL, GET OUT NOW! But the other, much more challenging way of looking at it is that Jupiter (the planet of expansion) and Pluto (the planet of transformation and death) are putting me through a 6+ months long planetary ayahuasca trip in which I receive the maximum amount of transformation that is exhausting, painful, and terrifying but ultimately for my highest good.
At some point a couple of days ago a lightning bolt of an idea struck me while I was laying here struggling to breathe, my heart feeling like it’s exploding in my chest, feeling tingly, faint, and not having had anything resembling a real meal in weeks. I asked myself if I really thought I had a broken body that was fucked up in every way or if maybe, all or most of these things were a manifestation of something else deep inside me, emotional or energetic. My immediate answer was that 100% it was the latter. And then the next lightning bolt thought hit me.
If I don’t change my mind about my situation, I’m going to die here.
It struck me how intensely negative I’ve been since moving here. How virtually all I talk about is hating it here and everything bad that’s happened here. And it has been legitimately bad, but my attitude and internal state have been at an all-time most negative. I think I’ve known it wasn’t helping things, and yet it felt justified. Or maybe like a cry for help? Like if I expressed that I didn’t want any of this, someone or something in the universe would come to my rescue.
Two massive lessons I’ve learned over the years of inner work I’ve done is 1) that victim consciousness attracts more situations in which I feel like a victim. The more I focus on the moments I’ve been powerless in the past, the more new things happen to me that make me feel powerless. And 2) I am/we are often attached to pain and suffering. Sometimes on an unconscious level physical suffering is more bearable than the mental suffering of going after what we really want and possibly failing.
So the only way out is a radical consciousness shift.
Initially, it feels sort of delusional. moving from, “I have the worst luck. Look at everything that’s happened. What other terrible shit is about to come my way?” to “Everything is always happening for my highest good, even if it feels painful. These experiences are happening to me for a reason that I can’t see yet but that I trust will ultimately be the best thing for me.” Instead of laying here anxiously wondering when or if my heart rate and breathing will ever go back to normal, I mentally tell myself I’m releasing my attachment to suffering.
I have yet to see an immediate change in my physical symptoms from just a couple of days of round-the-clock affirmations, but I’m hopeful that they’ll come in some form eventually.
Looking forward to a day when I can breathe normally, my heart rate is back in a healthy range, I feel strong and have energy, Bearface and I are back in the US permanently, and I’m eating a Sweetgreen salad (the crispy rice one with spicy cashew dressing) alone in my car like the good old days.