Luminous Beings Are We

"Luminous beings are we; not just crude matter," Yoda profoundly stated to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. It is complete truth. We are matter and energy at our core, everything is, but we are also so much more. I've learned much about how our bodies function at the fundamental levels, and I've learned about the difficulties that arise when they do not function properly. Mine falls under the second category. Let me list the symptoms I am enduring, not so gracefully, currently. Headaches top the list, with migraines being the most painful. Pain in my gut, which is accompanied by bloating and stabbing discomfort, is likely my second most debilitating complaint. The aches in my left shoulder and neck area keep me awake, feeling like I've just been struck my a frightened porcupine. The weakness and fatigue clog my muddy thoughts and prevent me from "getting up like a normal person." Near constant nausea ensures I stay prone, not upright and moving around. My skin itches constantly and awakens me if I am even able to fall asleep in the first place. Insomnia has stolen many hours of recuperative sleep my body so desperately needs. The fight or flight response regulated by my adrenal glands keeps me as far away from peace as I can be. My friend today advised me to eliminate the word "stress" from my vocabulary, but it is my reality, and I refuse to be unauthentic. The two precious kittens we have now have been the target of my irritability I experience everyday. Anxiety creeps up on me in unexpected moments and only my sweet, patient husband's humor or touch can calm me. Feeling unfocused and muddled have removed my love of reading from me because I cannot concentrate on the meaning of the words on the page. Occasional fear and despair overcome my thoughts because of the constant and never-ending assault of all I have mentioned above. One of the most fearful times is when I feel I cannot get enough air, like my body have forgotten how to use the oxygen in my breath. I find myself gasping for breath suddenly, especially when I am sleeping or watching TV. I feel I have been stripped of everything I can control. I have a mix of ailments, diseases, and complaints, and I cannot control what is happening in my body. I cannot use positive thinking to change what I am experiencing, though I have tried continually and will always continue to use positive thoughts and energy. I do not allow negative thoughts or negative energy to take root within me. It will be so until my dying breath. Nevertheless, what I am going through is real and profound and the most frightening experiences of my life. If the reader knows me at all, he or she will know that is a powerful statement. I am entirely in the hands of my loving, understanding, omnipotent, omniscient Father in Heaven. I am using all the knowledge I've acquired these last 20 years, exercising all the faith I can muster, and humbly giving myself over to his care and keeping. He is aware of my situation. I know Heavenly Beings attend me. For whatever reason I am to endure this, so it is my intention to endure it as patiently as I can. I have given over to moments when I have felt like it has become too much, when I have prayed for miraculous relief and healing, and when I have asked the burden be lifted. My prayers have been answered immediately with a wash of love, peace, and comfort cleansing my body of despair and fear. It is very scary for me to be so ill. I have been ill my entire life, but this is whole body systems failing me such that I often can't be sure I am to see the morning light. I do feel sure and feel confident that this will not end in my death, at least not in the foreseeable future. Under the optimum and best of circumstances, my recovery period will be 18 months (per my physician, Mayo Clinic web site, and the Holy Spirit). Quite unfortunately I am not living the optimum and the best of circumstances, but the opposite of that. Under the conditions under which I now found myself, recovery is not even a glimmer or hope of light in the darkest of tunnels. I pray so very often. My prayers are only answered with the love, peace, and comfort I have mentioned. One pray is that I can somehow miraculously receive help so that I can improve my present circumstances and found myself in a peaceful, quiet, hopeful, happy, joyful, and financially secure situation. The Spirit answers loudly and surely that my prayer will be answered in the way I imagine and dream, but I can never pin the Spirit down to confirm just when that will take place. I am so very happy that my circumstances will change to allow for the healing I so desperately need. I can't help but wonder if this is my Job, Joseph Smith, and Jesus Christ experience. Faith, trust, and confidence in Father in Heaven are the keys I need to the open the door to my bright future. I will become whole and healed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. My weakness of being ill can and, I believe, will become a strength of a healthy and strong body. I cannot help but wonder if my answer is entirely dependent upon others following the Spirit's illogical prompting to help me, little ole nothing that I am. There will be no tax benefit to helping me increase my chance for a speedier recovery. I can tell you that my prayers are that the person(s) who do step forward to aid me will be blessed tenfold, hundredfold. I have had visions of my new life in the immediate future. I have seen my life (our lives-my husband and me) significantly improved so that I can receive the daily IV infusions I need. I am so ready and so desperate to step into my future filled with laughter once again. No man is an island unto himself. We are all connected on this planet. Your salvation is not at all connected to helping me, but your earthly state just may improve greatly??? There is pleading in my thoughts, which I must confess is humiliating. I wish I could do this for myself, but how? I do not see an answer. Please know we are luminous beings capable of the deepest love, devotion, concern, care, and giving. We are not just crude matter. We are magnificent intelligences filled with truth, light, and heavenly love.

Searching for generous souls!!

I desperately need someone to run my thoughts passed. I just don't have the opportunity to share them face-to-face right now with anyone. Perhaps someone reading this would be best suited to answer my question based on your life experience. I simply CANNOT give up on this thought, wish, desire. I've had it for years, but now I need it more than ever, I believe.

My health has culminated into a mass of total systemic failures. This has been an ongoing, building, and lifelong set of problems. They all began with the nightmare that was my early life. I have overcome and forgiven and been healed (to a certain extent) of my emotional and spiritual scars. The physiological damage was begun and continued without my knowledge or participation. Meaning, patterns were set at such a young age within my "fight or flight" responses, that what I believe to be "normal" is actually within the "fight or flight" reaction. They are automatic, sub-conscious, and apparently outside my control.

I understand in deep and profound ways how the Atonement has applied to me. I love Christ for all He has done, is doing, and will continue to do in helping me in my unique situation. However, I have come to a stage in which now that "fight or flight" response cannot be shut off. That response comes from our Adrenal Glands, and the relief from that response comes from our endocrine system. Both are functioning in an "out of whack" way right now. Let me just say this: I cannot mentally control the stress hormones that are being released or the "fight or flight" response that I feel every minute of every day. It's a physical thing, not a mental or spiritual thing for me.

I am currently on such a strict diet that it is actually nearly a starvation diet. I'm under physician's care and am getting what I need to stay alive. The medications, herbs, vitamins and minerals I am administering is providing the basic needs for nutrition and actually performing the job of my under and over functioning endocrine system. My immune system is fighting nearly everything I ingest because my intestines are unable to thoroughly filter my food intake. So, my body is attacking itself.

Let me interrupt by saying how much I am in awe of our bodies. Yours must be in perfect concert within all your parts to be able to do as much as you do. I have learned so much about our bodies and how they ought to work as well as learning why we have "dis-ease" and illness when our bodies do not work as they should. It is so very crucial that each body part function is a precise manner, down to the energy and matter exchange outside and inside our cells. The next body part, organ, system, cell is counting on the fact that the previous body part, organ, system, cell has performed its duty exactly as designed. If not, the domino effect can be devastating and catastrophic.

I have felt my life-force slipping away several times this year, and I knew that I was very close to death at that point. I believe it was only prayer and faith that took me through those moments. I have spoken to a few others who have had similar experiences so that I am quite sure of how close I came during several difficult illnesses this year. I know that my body needs a long rest and recovery period. Everything my doctor has said, everything I've read on the subject, and everything within me tells me this rest is CRUCIAL to my full recovery.

I'm not sure I've 'SET UP' my question to you properly. This is a long, detailed, somewhat complicated situation I am in. I hope the spirit of what I am trying to say to you will be felt by you properly. Also know this. I am bed-bound at this point. I am weak and fatigued to the point that a short three minute activity has me reeling and needing to rest for hours afterward. I am writing this to you only because my very survival is dependent upon my conveying this to you precisely. Normally, I cannot use my brain for any communication. Phone calls are exhausting. Doing the apartment managerial duties is far outside my capacity. There is NO WAY I can work as an interpreter in a few short weeks.

I promise I am trying sincerely to approach this situation as though there is a solution. I do not believe I have fulfilled my purpose on earth. I also believe I am learning through this experience many deep and powerful lessons about my purpose and about Christ's suffering while on the earth.

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Your friend,
Alicia