Archive for July, 2012

The Guilt/Worry Continuum

For some reason during this past month, many of the patients who are finding me both at Visions HealthCare and in my private practice are caught in what I call the Guilt/Worry Continuum.

Let me explain where I got this.

I studied the mysticism of the Bible with some of the best metaphysicians of our age. One of the symbols that they spent a considerable amount of time on was the three crosses at Calvary. Picture it for yourself, or just look at the artist’s rendering above.

The mythos goes that on the day Jesus was crucified there were three crosses on Calvary. He was on the middle one. The two on either side were known thieves.

The mystics explain by asking a question: What, on either side of The Christed Jesus, thieves from us? They answer: The Past, and the Future, whose emotional equivalents are Guilt and Worry. Ergo, my Guilt/Worry Continuum.

Consider the most important words ever uttered from a cross.

By common translation (which is an incorrect one, but that’s another blog post), they are:

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

So for the past month, I’ve found myself quoting these words after asking my patients: What’s missing when you’re caught in guilt or worry?

Answer: Forgiveness.

Forgiveness really isn’t for the person you’re forgiving, Beloved. It’s for you. You’re the one who is hurt hurting if you’re caught in guilt from the past or worry about the future.

How do you get off the left and the right crosses?

Forgive.

Do it as an act of will. Even if you aren’t feeling so willing.

I’d bet a quarter (my top bet) that Jesus was grinding his teeth a speck when he said those infamous words.

Don’t forgive too early. Do the emotional work required at least to get to neutrality before you forgive, if you can. But otherwise, do forgive. Forgiving is a function of the Christ Within each of us—we’ve all got it whether we call it that or not—and it’s totally worth what it takes to forgive because what it does is release you into Now, where you actually live.

It’s so much easier to live where you are, Beloved. Believe me, I tried to do it other places for years. Besides, to quote that indomitable theologian Dolly Parton, “Get off the cross, honey, somebody else needs the wood.”

 

For spiritual nourishment, please visit www.susancorso.com

Self-judgment

Seeds XIV, 30

Seed: Self-judgment

Influential American author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader Howard Thurman wrote, “It is very easy to sit in judgment on the behavior of others, but often difficult to realize that every judgment is a self-judgment.”

Judgment is one of the bugaboos of the spiritual life. Spiritual teachers the world over mark a difference between judgment and discernment. Our Western educational system spends decades teaching us how to judge. Other words: deem, measure, figure out, adjudicate, quantify.

When all judgments are self-judgments though that changes the practice, doesn’t it? The thing is, we don’t see in others what we don’t have in ourselves, or, put in the positive, we only see in others what we have in ourselves.

If I think someone is being stingy, for example, the fastest place to heal that is not in that someone. Nope, it’s in me. Where is the stingy in me? The next time you catch yourself judging another, stop and find the self-judgment in the core of your being. Forgive yourself, let it go, and move on.

Be brilliant,

Susan Corso

Dr. Susan Corso

 

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

 

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Dreams Really Do Come True

If you’re a reader of this blog, you’ll probably recognize the image above. It’s the cover of my audiobook of the first book of my fiction series, The Mex Books. We put it out a few years ago, and it’s done okay on Audible.

In the meantime, I’ve been through another couple of agents. The response is always the same. “The writing is terrific.” “We love Mex.” “We think her adventures are swell.” Then they start to sell the books to publishers who also affirm the writing and the characters, but get stuck at the marketing step of the equation.

Some of the comments have gone like this: “You cross genres.” “We don’t know where to put it.” “We can’t pigeonhole it.”

No, you can’t. That’s why I wrote them the way I did. Pigeonholes are not for the likes of me. I never have fit in boxes of any kind—least of all those dreamed up by authors before me. So I finally took my books away from my last agent, and began to pray seriously and consistently about my seven completed novels in The Mex Books series.

Amazingly, on Friday the 13^th of this year, I had a meeting with a friend who’d read the first one and she made it clear that it was time for the books to go out into the world, and that she’d like to learn the epublishing stuff to make that happen.

We’ve been going gangbusters ever since and today I sent her the final MS of the first novel. Our goal is to get it up on Kindle for its first exclusive 90 days as soon as we can and then we’ll build a website www.themexbooks.com, and do all the other epub things required of us.

I AM SO EXCITED!

It’s never felt right to publish these myself until now. Once the Production Wizard signed on, so did a web designer and a public relations wizard so it’s a go. Mex is on her way.

I’ll keep you posted for her ETA, and if you feel the urge, send a prayer our way for grace and ease and mucho success.

Thanks!

 

For spiritual nourishment, please visit www.susancorso.com