the healing paradox: a key to remembering who you are
Some of you may have heard of EFT, a healing technique based on tapping certain acupuncture points on the body while saying phrases related to the particular physical or emotional problem being addressed. There's a touching movie about this technique, if you are interested, available here.
I'm not writing this to promote EFT, but to emphasize that EFT is effective because it is aware of the human mind's resistance to paradox, and it takes this resistance into account first and foremost. This is the exact same process as A Course in Miracle's idea of true forgiveness.
In terms of physical or emotional pain or trauma, EFT utilizes what it calls a set-up phrase, while tapping on certain points in the body. Say the problem is a headache. The set-up phrase might be, "Even though I have this beastly headache, I deeply and completely love, accept and forgive myself." If the problem is cancer, a set-up phrase (I'm over-simplifying here) might be, "Even though I have cancer, I deeply and completely love, accept and forgive myself."
The first thing that is taken into account is the human mind's tendency towards resistance. When anything unpleasant occurs, the human mind does not accept—it resists. And it is this resistance that keeps the object of resistance (the problem) in place—the way a steady wind might pin a fallen leaf to a wall.
To the human mind, to accept a painful situation as totally fine and worthy of love, is unconscionable. This is the paradox. This is also why it's so difficult to forgive people, places and situations—to see them from the safe-whole-and-healed point of view of the higher self, spirit, holy spirit, all-that-is. When we forgive and accept things, even though they seem to be impaired or injured or causing pain, we are viewing the situation from the point of view of that which is completely whole—that which knows it is not subject to this virtual dream scenario we are calling human life. This Self feels as safe and snug in relation to our human aches and pains as we do on the couch when watching a movie in which a character seems to be harmed.
Furthermore, it knows that the only way to heal what is not real is to see it as such, which is the meaning of forgiveness. Hence the "even though."
In terms of non-duality, the even though puts an end to seeking behavior. It allows the frantic, seeking, searching human mind to feel acknowledged and forgiven. Resistance to paradox is resistance to healing. As humans, in response to the feelings of separation and pain and loneliness and darkness, we are always, always, always heading in the wrong direction because to us the right direction feels wrong.
When we stop moving away from what we fear "is not it," something magical happens. We begin to see that it is the act of rejecting that creates the sense of not-okayness which characterizes our lives. In ACIM terms this is "making the dream real."
For the human mind it is very difficult to stop this knee-jerk resistance to what is. Fortunately we have those two magic words, "even though." For example: "Even though I am not enlightened and have indigestion, and am just a fucked-up human being, I deeply and completely, love, accept and forgive myself."