Lisa Natoli Notes on Healing, Awakening, Integration & Embodiment

YOU DO NOT NOT HEAL. The body/person is NOT a healer.

Healing occurs naturally as an extension, expression and expansion of love. 

Everyone has had moments of awakening – moments of peace & happiness  – because our natural state is peace & happiness and is always here.

The reason people think happiness & peace “comes and goes” is because their attention “left” stillness (which is not possible, since this peace & stillness envelops everyone and everything completely) but because of deep conditioning, we believe thoughts when they arise, we attach ourselves to them, and our attention goes there. And boom, it appears peace and happiness have disappeared.

Peace & happiness has not disappeared – you simply took your attention off it.

The primary way of operating for most people is “I am a body”  – which is the belief in separation.

Going through life reacting, suffering, in doubt, worrying, thinking.

What you are does not think.

Thoughts come and go – and they are not “your” thoughts – but when you think you are a body, you believe this is “my” thoughts, “my” problems, “my” sickness, “my” symptoms, “my” pain.

When the “I” becomes identified with thoughts, you think you become them: “I am worried.” “I am depressed” “I am sick.” “I am dying.” “I am alone.” “I am in lack”

What you are is never sick, was never born and never dies. It cannot suffer. It cannot be depressed. Or sad. Or lonely.

In healing – or awakening – the human conditioning comes to an end. 

The stillness is here – it is before the mind comes in and say “oh beautiful” or “I don’t like this”

This stillness is before the mind starts naming, labeling, judging, organizing, controlling.

And as soon as the mind comes in – the stillness which is ever present goes into the background – and the thoughts, feelings, sensations take over.

There is being – pure beingness – and then the commentary comes in

So “the trick” is to stay as the beingness – as the stillness - and not get pulled in by the commentary

Don’t try to have a quiet mind.

When you are simply still – there it is – here it is.

It’s always here. You don’t have to reach it. You don’t have to attain it.

Awakening out of the dream of separation

Healing & Awakening is when you see the commentary – the mind activity - but you are no longer affected by it.

Thoughts appear and disappear. They come and go. 

And you remain as you always are: whole, complete, perfect, changeless, body-less, genderless, age-less. 

Usually because so many people think awakening and enlightenment is some “big thing” they don’t recognize it. It’s just this stillness – before the commentary – between the commentary

You begin to have a sense that this stillness is moving more and more to the foreground – and the commentary is no longer of interest to you. You are alert, awake, aware, present

Healing is recognition of wholeness

It can be very helpful to be nurturing of this new unfolding – supportive – encouraging

So you move into a CONSCIOUS RECOGNITION

So often the stillness is not recognized as the Self, as an awakening.

The mind even gets in there and goes “I’m bored” – it wants to do something, spice things up, feel entertained.

We have these moments of: I am not this body. I am not limited. “Inside” you can feel that you are capable of so much more – but then something stops you – the commentary, the beliefs, the thoughts, the “logic” of the mind

You have moments where you experience oneness – you can feel others happiness, pain, suffering, joy.

So you have these realizations, these moments of stillness or clarity – and then what happens? Often it doesn’t last. It seems to “go away”

It does NOT “go away” – but your attention went elsewhere. You started thinking about your problems, sickness, pain, the news.

Then the commentary starts up

You start “thinking” – thoughts come in and … off you go.

You “lose” the stillness – but in truth, it didn’t go anywhere. You didn’t lose it. It’s still right here.

So the mind then is active in thinking about problems, how to fix things, heal things and get back to a place of feeling happiness & peace.

The mind firmly located as “I am a body” experiences disappointment, suffering, frustration – and wants/tries to “get back” to that experience  – trying to “make it happen again”

And for most people – because they have no clue what it is or how it happened – they try to “get back there” through doing – meditation, trying, being more committed to your spiritual practice, being more devoted to the workbook lessons of A Course in Miracles, efforting.

And this does not work – because this is just the mind.

We try to arrive at this state again – realize it – reach it – attain it – when all along, it’s right here. It’s our very being. It’s what we are.

Doing, Efforting, Trying keeps the difficulty right in place.

It’s in resting, relaxation, stillness that What You Are comes to the forefront of experience.

You “quiet the mind” – and even that’s not accurate – because you do NOT need a quiet mind for the Self to become evident to you.

All that is needed is stillness, quiet, rest, relaxation.

Thoughts can come in – no problem. You remain as the stillness.

In the beginning, this can look like “the observer” or “the watcher” – watching the thoughts, watching the commentary, watching the judging, watching the reactions, watching the mind. Without reaction.

And this is the Self. The stillness.

People think: It can’t be this simple.

Nothing is happening.

EXACTLY.

That’s it.

So then what? How to live this stillness, to be in the world, to be in the midst of all your busy doings.

How do you LIVE your true nature?

How do we live as wholeness?

What many attempt to do is be happy, be nice, be innocent – and quite often that’s just adding another image onto the body.

You will know if you have done this if there is struggling and effort.

If you feel exhausted from “being nice” then know: that’s not it.

That’s just the mind that picked up an idea it read somewhere and then trying to be a good person, trying to be a kind person, trying to be a helpful person.

It’s a whole other thing to see things differently, to see from wholeness and holiness.

Then there is no doing, no trying.

Are you seeing through the eyes of separation?

Or are you seeing through the eyes of holiness?

Now of course everyone would love to just say; Oh, I would love to live life through my holiness and wholeness – yes please – where is the sign-up button?

What most people do not really realize is that a lot is going to come up – all the place that need healing in you – all the places where you put up a “way of being” that kept your safe, kept you protected, kept you from being criticized, punished – of the opposite – ways you live life to get love, to feel valued.

So when the stillness comes to the forefront of your experience, there is a lot of patterns that arises – and it can look like situations that bring up your worst fear sometimes.

It can look like something that you thought was healed that is suddenly back.

And the mind comes in with the commentary again: do something. Make it go away.

So the path of healing – which is the awakening – requires one to be okay with discomfort.

We are so used to trying to make ourselves comfortable – distracting ourselves, numbing ourselves to not feel, to not look at things.

A Course in Miracles tells us that “sickness is isolation” – and this is true.

It’s where we isolate from what we are and “hide” in the body, “hide” in our stories, hide in our masks and image, hide in our excuses.

There is a sense of withdrawing, attacking, defending, putting up a wall, a boundary – mostly to stay safe.

A Course in Miracles also calls sickness “a shutting off from others” – and this is true also.

We shut ourselves off from oneness – which is impossible to do. But we think we do this.

HEALING IS A WAY TO START TO NOTICE.

Like: Okay, what exactly do I do? What am I doing?

How do I isolate? Shut myself off?

What is my mask? What is the image I have made to “stay safe”?

What are the things I do specifically so I don’t get hurt?

What exactly is going on here?

If it’s true that I asked for the sickness and exact symptoms I seem to be experiencing, okay, then. Let me look at that.

I want to look at that.

I want to see what are the benefits, gifts and advantages to this condition and problem.

And what are the disadvantages of total health and healing and freedom?

Okay. Let me look.

I am willing to look.

I am willing to go there.

How do I protect myself?

How do I hide?

In quiet, you experience that “inside” is all this creativity, brilliance, power and light. Everyone experiences this.

For some it’s been shut off for so long that it’s just a spark.

But for many “inside” there is the thought: I’m right here. I know I am capable of so much more.

And because we are hiding inside – we are holding ourselves in a pattern where we hold the light and creativity and brilliance and love inside – we “act out” in other ways: blaming, shaming, feeling guilty, judging, attacking.

We project it onto ourselves and we project it onto others.

We shut ourselves in – which feels bad – it feels limiting – because what you are is all encompassing – so you feel the restriction and limitation and lack – and because we don’t like discomfort – we lash out, we act out, we go hiding further inside.

And there can be thoughts: I just wish someone would notice me, see me, recognize me, appreciate me, love me.

We’re like a child inside, just longing to be seen and heard.

Healing means you need to start being honest with yourself.

Healing requires courage – the courage to look within yourself and see what you have been doing.

It requires one to take 100 percent responsibility for whatever seems to be happening – to stop blaming.

To stop being confused. That’s the mind determined to keep you from looking within.

Each and everyone one of us has the ability to be still and come into clarity – about our defenses, our patterns, the ways we self-sabotage, the way we crouch in fear, the ways we attempt to protect ourselves, the way we hide and isolate.

Everyone can see what mask they put on, to get by in this world.

It takes absolute honesty to see for yourself

-where you shut down

-isolate

-hide

-defend yourself

-suppress emotions

-distract yourself

-pull away

-push away

-lessen the feeling

-try to “feel better” by turning a negative feeling into a positive affirmation

-escape from the discomfort

HEALING IS AN ABILITY

We all have the ability to stay present, no matter what arises.

We have a choice: to keep doing what we’ve always done and stay asleep or to wake up, to take the healing journey, to investigate and discover for yourself What You Really Are.

Healing is to be welcoming to everything exactly as it is – to love all. To stay present, even when things you don’t want to face come up. Even when you’re scared. Especially when you’re scared.

A lot of people think that awakening is perfect bliss and there is no fear. That’s not been my experience.

My experience is that presence never goes away, but things still arise – things that are shocking, disturbing.

The difference now is that my attention doesn’t go to the disturbing thing and get lost in it anymore.

I stay as the presence and from “this place” (which isn’t a place), there can be a response which comes from peace and happiness.

Actions are no longer made in conflict and doubt.

That’s the difference.

I no longer deny anything. I push nothing away.

I don’t need anything to be a certain way. I’m at ease with uncertainty.

And what happens in stillness is the light of your being begins to flow – and what happens is that it flows through all the places you set up to keep yourself safe- all the conditioning, barriers, blocks. It exposes your patterns, fears, plans, strategies for safety and comfort.

A Course in Miracles says that as the light comes to you, you will rush to darkness.

This is precisely what almost everyone does. They say “I want change” but the instant change comes, then want the familiarity of conflict.

Love comes closer – and it instantly feels scary – and so we rush back to separation, which is familiar. Our walls are familiar. Our attack thoughts are familiar. We don’t like them but at least we know what to expect.

When one intentionally takes a journey of healing and awakening (which is nothing more than the realization of your true nature, which is found in stillness), there must be a willingness to let things change, to let go of defenses.

And the way out of separation is through our relationships, through joining, through being in the world – with a willingness to see it all differently.

Healing is not done in isolation. It’s done though being present to everything that arises.

To be “fully realized” and to absolutely free is to be able to be anywhere, and be established with your true nature, at all times.

Many people find peace – and are able to stay in peace - when they are by themselves but then “lose it” when they are in the world or with other people. So obviously, that’s not it. Peace doesn’t come and go.

Peace doesn’t need the world to be quiet. You are peace – no matter what the body does, no matter what thoughts arise, no matter what happens.

Many people have read in spiritual books that the world you think you think you see (double think) is not there, but only a reflection of where you hold yourself in mind.

When you hold yourself in beliefs of separation, believing you are separate and alone, the world reflects that.

In The Healing Cure, I call this “your location” – where you have located yourself – in body-identification or Self-identification.

If you are located in wholeness, that’s all you see.

If you are located in love, that’s all you see.

If you are located as a body, that’s all you see: a world of bodies, all separate from each other, with separate interests.

Every situation that you seem to find yourself in is inviting you to look and see and to wake up to your true nature.

It almost always requires you to show yourself, to be seen without the identity you have made for yourself.

This requires openness, honesty, courage.

Healing requires you to come out of hiding, to lay down the defenses, to see what you have been doing.

Once seen, these “I am a body, separate & alone” patterns and conditioning are already dissolving into the nothingness from which they came.

And what remains is the peace, love & happiness that was always here, but which you couldn't see because of the constant attention on the body.

Then the "process" of coming back into the body, knowing you are a not a body - with the ability to be in the world, as the light of the world, no problem.

-Lisa Natoli