About 13 years ago I heard a few statements that altered the trajectory of my life.
They went something like this;
· We don’t find ourselves in any situation unless we’ve given ourselves permission to be there (unknown)
· The quality of your thoughts is your prayer (unknown)
· You are perfectly aligned to get the results you are getting (Dr. Stephen Covey)
· “You can't solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that created it.” (Albert Einstein)
Surrendering to the powerful truths in each of these statements, I began to look at my life, and the horror story I had written into my life’s manuscript very differently. Maybe it was being told I was dying. Maybe it was realizing my marriage was doomed from the beginning. Maybe it was the extreme fatigue and pain that had become so normal I couldn’t imagine anything else. Maybe it was the little voice inside of me that was whispering, “All of this can change in a moment, Anita. You can co-create a new reality.”
We all come to the crossroads of change in different ways. We all have a threshold of discomfort that becomes unacceptable. What we do about it, however, is what makes all the difference in the world. All I knew was that something needed to change. Back then I didn’t have any evidence that it could. No one in my life was saying “You can heal.” I didn’t have anyone saying, “You have a choice and I’ll show you the way.” All I had was a little voice that was getting louder and louder in a body that was losing its will to live, within a mind that had become tragically aligned with pain and limitation.
Looking back, it was two simple thoughts that shifted everything. “I can’t take this anymore” and “I’m going to heal.”
December 24, 1996 - Decision Day. Twice I had been separated from my first husband and both times, I found myself getting sucked back into my own self-created drama. Then, something inside of me shifted. I was done. I was done with the pain. I was done with the conflict. I was done with the emotional rollercoaster that had become familiar. Done.
December 31, 1996 - Truth Day. Although I could not find a place to live and my body was falling apart, I told my husband I was leaving. As much as I can now look back and see that he was one of my greatest gifts, I also know I would have never healed from Lupus if I had stayed. It was too toxic and draining to the very energy I needed to harness to receive the healing that was soon to come.
January 11, 1997 - Liberation Day. As my usual 90 minute drive from my house to my mom’s grew to 3 tentative hours in a blinding blizzard, I could feel the shift happening. The snow was so heavy and the skies were so dark, it looked like I was traveling through space, the snow flakes flying by me at the speed of light creating the feel of traveling through star fields. My tears were unstoppable. This time was different. Absolution. Liberation. Completeness. There would be no turning back this time.
January 12, 1998 - Break Down Day. There’s a joke that goes something like this. Where does one find God? In jails and churches, of course! Considering I had worked in jails since 1990 and had not yet found God (or so I thought), church seemed like my next best option. I stepped into the sanctuary needing desperately to find just that. Sanctuary. Hope. Peace. Relief. Faith. Home. I needed it all. I think I cried every Sunday for the first eight weeks. I needed to break down in order to break though. The divorce was soon to turn into an apocalyptic hell.
I was broke and any hope of getting my possessions had been lost. I was sharing two rooms with my two babies, both in diapers I couldn’t afford. I prayed. And then suddenly, my mom, who worked for Procter and Gamble at the time, began receiving boxes and boxes of diapers and baby wipes in the mail. I don’t think I bought diapers for the next two years. My ex disappeared. Oddly, I started to see that my prayers and needs were being taken care of. Parts of me were waking up. I was on the path to healing.
Spring 1997 – Radical Healing Day. It’s interesting that I remember the exact dates that lead up to the most radically important day of my life but the actual date of my miracle healing escapes me. It was sometime during the spring of 1997. Standing alone in the woods I had only what could be called an awakening moment. It was an indescribable flash when all of what I needed to know and understand flooded into my awareness like a rush of electricity passing through every aspect of my being. It was as if I stepped into a realm of consciousness that was not bound by time or space or common logic. Just like that I was healed. Just like that I knew information that could never be found in a book, a workshop, or any set of religious or spiritual teachings. Just like that I started to channel writing that was beyond what I ever could have written myself. Just like that.
Maybe this is what people called a rebirth, or being reborn. Yet, it was beyond a spiritual or mental shift. It was beyond the physical. It was beyond the limited possibilities imagined by human consciousness. It was, for lack of any other way of describing it, as if I touched the face and mind of God and nothing, NO THING, would ever be the same again. I also experienced what might be called a psychic opening. Personally, I think I just got out of the way of receiving and perceiving information we all have access to. I could feel other people’s feelings in my body. I knew things before they made any sense. I perceived energy in everything and everyone.
I also became less patient with the unimportant and frivolous. My faith became the central part of my existence and although I was hooked into an incredible spiritual community, I still felt a bit isolated in my experience. I had a foot in both worlds – the physical and the spiritual – and I saw everything differently. I was able to alter potentially violent situations in the jail by alchemizing the energy I was emanating in my thoughts and emotions. I started dating some wonderful men but needed a deeper spiritual connection that went beyond words. Although my personality was fine with never getting married again, my soul must have requested something different. And then. . .
April 3, 1998 - Reunion Day. The day I healed from Lupus, I also met an incredible family. Jeanie Law and I connected and she invited me to a weekly prayer group. For the next year, every Tuesday morning, before making my way to work, I gathered in sacred circle and prayed. Each week I prayed for Jeannie’s son Brent. She had watched him in a downward spiral into an addiction that needed to come to a halt and change direction quickly. Between our prayers and his decision to live, he quit drinking, and after a near death experience that required a few electric jolts into his heart to bring him back, he got the help he needed.
The first time I saw Brent in person, on April 3, 1998, something within me began to stir, in spite of all of the ‘reasons” it was a bad idea. He was blonde and I liked dark haired men. He was newly separated and I was in the tail end of a complicated divorce. He was just out of rehab and I didn’t want anything to do with someone in recovery. After all, I worked with addicts full-time in the jail. From Brent’s perspective, the idea of going out with an addictions counselor, after just spending 30 days with an army of them, was less than attractive. As much as I had great compassion for him, and was open to friendship, I quickly dismissed his sister’s hintings that we would make a great couple. We shook hands and said, “Nice to meet you. See you at church on Sunday.” We may have well as brandished crosses and flicked holy water on each other before high tailing it out of the parking lot, laughing at the insanity of his family thinking we belonged together. Little did I know, two days later everything would change.
April 5, 1998 – Upside Down Day. Thank God I had turned myself over to a higher intelligence. Two days later, as I introduced my new “friend” to my church circles, I began to feel the same electricity I felt in the woods just a year earlier. My whole sense of myself was turned upside down. I couldn’t control the uncontrollable. There was no escaping a fate that had been set in motion before I ever took my first breath. My soul (and God) took over and my heart blasted so wide open it was physically painful and emotionally freaky. I fell in love with Brent that day, and despite all common logic or practicality, three months later we were combining families (five kids in all), got engaged, and moved into together.
August 7, 1999 – Wedding Day. Married on the riverfront at my parent’s home, I recall the Hindu/Christian wedding and our vows to a marriage between us and the Divine Mystery that had brought us together. Last year, as we were packing up our lives and heading to a new state, I found the tape of our wedding. As I watched us leading one another around the sacred fire and sharing traditional Hindu wedding vows, I cried in the realization that what had been hopes and wishes were now unquestionable commitments.
Today – Every Day is a Miracle. Just over 11 years since our first meeting, I still look at him and fall in love again every time. He is the only person who can look at me and make me blush and giggle like a 13 year old. His mind is fascinating and his voice is captivating. As goofy as it sounds, we write beautiful music together. We create, serve, cook, and clean together. The first few years weren’t always easy. We both traversed deeper layers of healing and integration. We’ve endured losses and co-witnessed miracles that could not have been fully explained if we didn’t share the experience. We found our “selves” together, and as a result, stepped onto a partnership and spiritual path that is leading us, literally and figuratively, into the desert in service to a faith and commitment we both share and support in one another.
What’s Your Recipe?
A few years ago, people began asking us “What’s Your Recipe?” We were asked to teach and coach individuals and couples about spiritual partnership. Radically different, yet uniquely similar, we make a good team. Our retreats are said to be magical, and through our partnership with spirit, we create spaciousness for expansion and healing to occur. I could go on to define the commitments that have become the core of our work in spiritual partnership but I think one thing truly stands out. We don’t stand for oppression. Sounds odd, but in my reflection this morning, I realized this is quite foundational. Whether reminding each other of the choice to engage in an oppressive thought (towards self or others) or choosing liberation (again and again) from situations that stifle our creativity and expression, we also are secure enough to encourage flight in the other.
If something is good for one of us, it is good for both of us. We are very “free” with each other and have deep and loving relationships with men and women alike. To tell you the truth I don’t think Brent has ever gotten jealous, nor have I ever felt threatened by his growing fan club (he is a musician, after all!) of amazing women.
We love that other people love us. We love that we love others so deeply. We have parts of our lives that don’t heavily involve the other and others that are completely overlapping. And, at the end of each day (every day), we come back into the foundation of our active lives; the special places that are uniquely for just the two of us. We’ve agreed to never go insane at the same time and to love each other in each stage of our evolution. Therefore, the expectation of “sameness” just isn’t there. He’s often heard saying, “I’m never so in love with Anita today that I can’t fall in love with who she will be tomorrow.”
Personally, I love that we’ve agreed to evolve together and I am grateful every day that our spiritual path is one we walk together. Whether it’s showing up for ceremony, chopping wood and tending fire when the other can’t, taking the kids shopping for their upcoming dance, spending time with a friend in need, or cleaning out the litter box and unloading the dishwasher, we move in and out of supporting each other in the totality of our commitments and responsibilities.
It’s a good place to be. It’s a great place to grow. It’s a heavenly place to serve from. And, it’s a level of partnership that is not exclusive to romantic partners. The commitments we share and teach extend into relationship on all levels; within self, with Source, in partnership, and with every single being on the planet.
Traditionally we’ve always done this level of work and teaching in person. However, as we look at the opportunities we face as a human race, it is clear that this level of service is much needed and wanted. Long ago I heard that our passion is the world’s hunger. I think the world is hungry and open enough to see that we each have the power to influence great and lasting change in our lives.
And…everything exists in relationship – everything. I think at a soul level, we are ready to see and be with one another in the ways we were intended, as opposed to socialized and conditioned. It is time to share our recipe with others. Single people, couples, partners and business colleagues will all benefit from this way of living and being in the world. In truth, it only takes one person to change a relationship, just as it takes only one idea and vision to change the world.
Listen to part one of a three part series offered by Brent and Anita Law right here and sign up for the next two at http://www.powerofmyway.com/teleseminars.html
To listen to a series of audio clips from Brent and Anita Law on the subject of spiritual partnership, visit www.powerofmyway.com/home/spiritualpartnership.html
Join us for an incredibly impactful 4-day retreat in August of 2009.
For more information, and to listen to several audio clips with Brent and Anita Law on the topic of
Divine Co-creation and Spiritual Partnership, please visit www.powerofmyway.com/home/spiritualpartnership.html
August 21-24, 2009
A 4-day Retreat for individuals, couples, and partners
Seeking to Experience Divine Co-Creation:
The 8 Commitments of Spiritual Partnership
With Brent Law and Anita Pathik Law
Align and Co-Create within the 4 Dimensions of Relationships: Source , Self, Others, & the Global Community
Visit www.powerofmyway.com/home/spiritualpartnership.html for the details of this unique retreat with Brent and Anita Law, a.k.a. “The Spiritual Laws”
Anita, your story has moved me to tears. Thank you so much for the depth,honesty and transparency of the account of your transformation. You are truly an inspiration of what is possible when the time is right and one is willing to let go and allow the change to occur which is inevitable...Blessings...Sallie
Posted by: Sallie Binder | June 25, 2009 at 06:02 AM