There Has to Be a Payoff

Hello again, Everyone!


Recent visits by Lao Tzu have promoted my discovery process exponentially, especially around human symptoms, also called drama.  I am working this out for myself as I report to you who may also be engaged in becoming as authentic/transparent as possible.


Autoimmune disease came up in a session with a client recently, then again, grabbing my attention.  I looked up the subject on the internet and found I have one and had another years ago.  So, as I was talking out loud in the shower today about autoimmune diseases, Lao Tzu said, "There has to be a payoff, or you wouldn't do it."  'Do it,' meaning create it in the first place.  This surely sent me off into breathing and exploring any and all human symptoms.  A parade of symptoms marched through my brain: addictions, allergies, broken bones, cancers, viruses.....  But I was aware also that symptoms could be emotional and mental; whatever human condition is absent of balance.


Any symptoms, he says, are created because there is some "payoff" or benefit, no matter how convoluted that may seem.  We are a package of conundrums, aren't we?   We have love/hate relationships with lots of things in our lives.  We live in duality, or at least we have done.  So what is the benefit when I am so determined, consciously, to resolve my symptoms?


There are some obvious answers:  
Attention: so many of us are starved from many lifetimes for the comfort, the loving attention, of nurturing response. I'm reminded of the "bandaid phase" of each of my grandchildren.  And how many times I, as a child, fell going up the rough concrete steps of our home, skinning my knees and getting a reputation for always having scabby knees.  Not just clumsiness.  Attention.
Identifying with others: in our drama/pain we interact with others who either share our pain or sympathetically react and reassure us that we have value to others. 
Diverting attention:  in focusing on our symptoms, we divert attention away from even more uncomfortable aspects of selves we feel unprepared to address.  This could also be called:
Karmic Distraction:  We have so many layers to explore while we are here, and we can only do so much at any given time, so our symptoms/drama can give us a focus with which we deal on the way to even more significant discoveries on the journey.
Expanding Consciousness:  Our altruistic purpose here is to "expand the Mind of God."  Our disease, our pain, our drama lead us on paths of discovery through which we learn "human" most effectively because we are stretched farther than we often believe is possible.  How many people have you heard report that their lives were changed by their cancer?  The effect of all human experience reverberates throughout Consciousness.


As I was talking with my sister about this today, the inevitable question came up:  What happens when/if we release all symptoms?  What is the outcome of surrendering all imbalance?
Why, I suppose we are out of here.  We ascend, disappear, become truly transparent.  Symptoms seem to be the way we hold on to our human form.  Our beliefs, hidden or obvious, manifest as symptoms, some comfortable, some obviously not.  And once they are transformed, once we achieve perfect balance, we become the Master.  The Master may choose to continue the journey to offer the example, as have others before us.  The Master may simply have no further need to continue this journey, serving this 3-D realm from a dimension free of drama.


Phyl-EL


P.S.  After living with this post for a day, I feel like I left out a couple of things.
First, considering the question of our beliefs producing symptoms, it is not my intention to say we are "to blame" for creating our drama.  Experience simply is.  It informs us.  Holding ourselves hostage for not having created differently is punishment never intended in this perfection we call human.  Yes, we are in a perfect state of being, all inclusive, no exceptions. 


Second, I consider myself an explorer, a detective.  I'm always in a state of considering what it all means and where I can "solve" a mystery (as if I could!).  But the challenge intrigues me, as I know it does many of you.  On this topic of symptoms, then, I am excited by the mystery of it and the possibilities for resolution.  


Lao Tzu knows that my ideal is to live in the principles of the Tau.  And it seems to me that I am even closer to living that ideal as I open more consciously to this mystery.


Phyl-EL