This writing is intended for anyone diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the caretakers and families of those with Alzheimer’s, those who have lost loved ones to Alzheimer’s, or those fearing they may one day be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
What I am about to share with you are messages from spirit that I have received for a client of mine as she has navigated the journey through fear of diagnosis, diagnosis, and now learning to make peace with her diagnosis as she moves through the early stages of dis-ease progression.
Ann first came to me nearly seven years ago, when I started my private Physical Therapy practice. She was one of my very first clients. We worked initially through various physical aches and pains in her shoulders, neck, lower back and knee. Each physical ache representing mental and emotional blockages that were mirrored outward into her relationships as well as how she related to her own sense of SELF.
Many of our conversations centered around becoming her most authentic SELF in her life and relationships. She not only watched her mother suffer with the dis-ease, she was also her mother’s caregiver. And then later witnessed her sister’s diagnosis and decline as well. This resulted in tremendous internalized fear and aversion to the possibility that her own body and mind would succumb to the same dis-ease. Last December, her greatest fears materialized when her neurologist diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s.
This fear functioned in great opposition to her desire to become her most authentic SELF in her relationships. The fear that she may one day lose her independence and need to be cared for prevented her at times from choosing the path that her heart called her toward. This is when I began to see the “purpose” of Alzheimer’s as an answer to a prayer to be free from the constraints of fear imposed on us by our intellectual mind.
In the year or two before her diagnosis, I relayed to her that spirit was showing her two paths and that she had choice to which one she traveled down. Both would have the same outcome - removing the barriers to her process of self-actualization. One involved making bold choices to step out of her comfort zone at the expense of belonging - this was the path of choosing to become her true authentic SELF willingly. The other path allowed her to stay within her comfort zone, but would require an external purification process that she had no control over (dis-ease).
When we won’t allow ourselves the freedom to choose the path and destiny that we are inherently worthy of, yet we pray and long for this freedom, eventually the prayer wins. When the prayer wins, the limitations of the human body succumbs to the human spirit. This is what is happening when Alzheimer’s or any dis-ease for that matter takes over our bodies. No one can say for sure, but a part of me will always wonder if choosing that other path would have prevented the diagnosis - if liberating her freedom of choice would have rendered the dis-ease process no longer necessary. I can’t know for sure, yet I believe in my heart that restoring the power of choice to the spirit changes everything.
Most recently, Ann’s intention during our sessions has been to move into more acceptance and peace with her diagnosis. Today we talked about facing the fear around knowing that the day will come when she loses her ability, freedom, and independence to drive. She voiced again the fear she has about following in her sister’s footsteps. (Her sister is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s dis - ease progression.)
To which spirit said, “are you kidding, your sister is the most free she has ever been!”
Her sister is free because she is no longer trapped by her intellectual mind. She is free to react and feel and respond to life as it suits her in each moment. Her sister is no longer confined to the limitations of her human body. As the significance of this message settled into the space between my client and me, I smiled as I remembered a client I worked with years ago in a nursing home who had dementia. She was one of my favorite clients. The staff all thought she was incredibly difficult to work with because she was very moody, but I loved the way she would flip from one emotion to the next, never holding back and never caring what anyone else thought. What a gift it must be, I thought, to never worry about how what I said or did made someone else feel?
I’m not talking about the eradication of any sort of moral compass where we go around ruthlessly hurting other people. I’m talking about the restoration of internalized freedom to simply unapologetically be who we authentically are because we are so tapped into how we feel all the time. We don’t inhibit our emotions, we express them. We live them.
Alzheimer’s sets us free from our intellectual mind. It returns us to the consciousness that we are. The essence of our spirit presides and our childlike sense of curiosity and deservingness returns.
It’s absurd that our intellectual mind ties our sense of freedom and independence to things like driving, remembering, or being able to think logically, rationally, or analytically. These things are not the cause of our freedom. The cause of our freedom is the permission we give ourselves to feel our way through the world and through life.
Spirit let us know today that the gift of Alzheimer’s is the purification process that happens to our consciousness (our spiritual mind). It cleanses us of the limiting beliefs and fears that are contained in our intellectual mind and prepares us for a new level of consciousness in all future lives. What we perceive as a horrible dis-ease is a beautiful blessing and gift that benefits all of humanity.
If we lean in close enough, I believe we will begin to feel that all dis-ease serves this singular purpose - to be free from the constraints that fear imposes upon our body and mind.
Comments