Today’s post is from a special guest. It’s Monique Chabot; a Facilitator and Personal Growth Consultant to Inner Peace in Costa Rica. Monique’s vision is helping people become co-creators of a peaceful and loving world, and making sure that people can actualize their potential and purpose. This is inspiring and she is achieving this goal in her blog which is why I couldn’t help myself but make sure that she shares her message on this blog.
She has just written an inspiring story in a book about how she overcame Fibromyalgia which is a must read for anyone who is struggling with such condition (For Friends, Family and Health Practitioners).
Now over to Monique as shares the concept of ” Catch 22 Love”
After receiving a message from one of my friends in which I read the following, I thought I would use it as an introduction to talk about what I mean by “Catch 22 Love”.
“So I have had to put my life in the physical world on hold while I complete this healing journey”. Anonymous friend
That same morning before opening the email that included this sentence, I came to understand one of the many possible reasons why we might consider a withdrawal, even if temporary, from the human experience. Is it possible that we might not have yet wholeheartedly accepted its challenges? That we consider these as hardships instead of opportunities to grow? More often than not, we judge what is happening as being good or bad but rarely think about asking what we can do to take responsibility for the experience by fully embracing it. Actual human experience is what will bring us closer to the real “I am”. What, or who is this “I am”? What if the discovery of this “I am” would be the opportunity to find a way to go back “home”? Some will call “home” heaven, illumination or spirit; others will call it God, the universe and so on. I call it a return to God, so I can unify my will with His.
Let’s face facts, it’s impossible to avoid physical experience while we are alive. So why not make our life a joyful and extraordinary journey? The sole idea of a withdrawal, or the desire to put a hold on the human experience, is a double-edged sword. Firstly, we don’t know what will happen after the death of the physical body. Even people who have had a clinical death experience and who have come back to tell us about it, do not really know. It is still part of their human experience since they came back to life after receiving a luminous wink from infinity. People who have had out of body experiences without being declared clinically dead will report similar occurrences. The other edge of the same sword could be that in not facing “what is”, we delay the journey to consciousness and extend our learning curve. But it could be that we also postpone what we are called to bring to the world, the sharing of our full potential that can make the world a brighter place.
However, this doesn’t mean that we cannot consciously take a break from daily activities by giving ourselves the time to feel and integrate the lessons gained from our experiences. Quite the contrary, to stop, to meditate, to ask for guidance and to question what is happening, these are steps towards opening our eyes to consciousness. We don’t have to withdraw to do this, just to look closer and to listen. The next step that we need to take will be revealed to us.
So what I did that morning was to look closer. I asked again – What could be another reason for us to wishing to withdraw from our human experience? Suffering. What could be the source of this suffering? What came back as an answer was: the search for love, or better stated, the love that has not yet been found. Another reason for withdrawal might be the underlying belief that love might not be possible to find. I am not talking about the love of a partner or friend, or even of a parent, but of unconditional love or divine love. We often confuse the search for love in a person with what we are really yearning for – boundless love. The love that can carry us through wherever we go or whatever we do, whether we perceive our experiences as good or bad, or whether we are with or without a partner. Divine love is not tangible, has no color or smell, it is therefore difficult to recognize. Some people even find it hard to believe that it exists at all.
Divine love could be seen, for a non-believer, as the biggest conspiracy of all times, a “Catch 22 Love”. On the other hand, there are people who see divine love (or infinite love) as the key that could open the door to go back home, to find unity. There are also people for whom divine love is easily accessible in the here and now because they recognize that they are already part of the divine itself, loving and being loved with the infinite potential of creating a better world to live in. But deep, deep down, isn’t everybody, even the non-believer, looking for love, or to be loved? Isn’t this the force that will bring all of us to work together to create a different world and to bring a new meaning to the human experience?
And then, I asked the following questions, what would be our choices?
– To continue to sabotage our efforts to be at peace by refusing the gift of love that is inherently ours?
– To refuse to go on when everything around us is calling for change and transformation?
– To let other people (government, authority figures) decide what is best for us or to become fully accountable for each breath we take?
– To fully accept the physical experience seeing our challenges as opportunities to grow or to slip back to darkness and despair?
– To choose to see human experience as “Catch 22 Love” or as an extraordinary opportunity to transform ourselves into love for the sake of others?
What will be your choices?
The only thing that I am certain of right now, is the uncertainty of the human experience. The universe, the planet, you and I are in constant transformation. Nothing is static. We are all part of the collective evolution. An exciting moment to be alive even if it turns out that the actual experience can bring us off balance and that we are only certain of the uncertainty. I consider this as being a good thing, it permits and obliges us to constantly reinvent ourselves at each turn.
What do you think? What will be your choices?
Psst, psst. By the way, if we could only be brought to recognize that our “I”, as a body, is not really who we are… we would begin to look at life very differently – an illusion in need to be transcended in order to reach home. Wouldn’t this be nice? No need anymore for questions, only the time to be… in love. A beautiful and joyful journey. I like it, I want it, don’t you?
Monique grew up in Montreal, Canada, but moved to Costa Rica in 1992. This was when she embarked on a spiritual journey leading towards recognition of the self. Her path was strewn with challenges but also with joy and finally with a deep sense of inner peace.
“Once I understood that the body responds to the mind and that disease implies the presence of an unconscious sense of guilt and separation, I resolved to fully support myself through self-assessment, daily contemplation and forgiveness. Following these practices has led to my recovery.” M.Chabot
Monique’s last book How I tamed fibromyalgia is a story that can help many individuals: the person with fibromyalgia, her/his family, friends and health practitioners. Her principal aim in sharing her approach is to encourage us to reconnect with ourselves.
