PD Revelation

I've recently experienced what might seem a short-term obstacle to recovery. A bit longer term, though, I think it will actually hasten pause turning off in a lasting way.

What am I talking about? Well, something over a week ago I experienced a medical issue requiring prompt care. It landed me in the hospital for a couple of nights, was fully resolved with proper treatment, and now I'm back to my routine. (I'll skip the medical details here, as I don't want to distract from the tight focus I like to keep on the JWH protocol.) Needless to say, though, the experience has had an impact on my work in the protocol. Not surprisingly it caused a bit of a shake up in my sense of safety.

Of necessity, this has resulted in repeated conversations with my Friend about whether or not she was keeping me safe, and how I should view this recent event in that context. I am revisiting the issue and navigating the questions it poses from different angles in order to settle comfortably back into the recognition that, “Yes you keep me safe.”

I've come to see navigating occasional obstacles like this as an expected part of the recovery journey, at least for those of us for whom the process requires some significant time. I am in fact coming to welcome this recent hurdle. It's giving me the chance to solidify my sense of safety in certain contexts. Doing that now rather than later hastens the time that, on some upcoming occasion, when pause turns off, it will stay turned off. And for me, that is currently key to my recovery. So I believe I will eventually look back on this recent obstacle as something that hastened my recovery!

In all of this a key is to stay positive:

By choosing to focus on the positive, many great souls throughout history have been able to bring seemingly impossible levels of peace and joy to themselves and others in spite of the karma – the perfectly balanced and ultimately fair lifetimes of karma – of themselves and others. (JWH in RFP, 2020, p. 207)

(More here on staying positive.)