I have written in the past, and it is contained in the Recipe for Recovery, the meditations, affirmations, and prayers that were part of my recovery. On the issue of fear, I have explained how I gave away fear to God, which I use as a reference point for everybody to include the Higher Power, the Divine, the Greater Consciousness, the Universe…whoever or whatever it is that you reach for when you need help from some power greater than yourself. Recently, a gentleman explained to me that he has no sense of something Greater so he has no sense of the ability to give away his fear. Here is where things went.
I asked him to envision being in a small boat in the middle of the ocean and suddenly it starts taking on water from a hole in the bottom.
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I start bailing water.” He replied.
“Why are you bailing water?”
“Because I do not want to sink and drown.”
“Oh. Well let me ask you this? ‘If you do not want to sink and drown, is that because you realize you are worth it?'”
He paused. Then he smiled. And then he said, “That must be so. Apparently I do feel I am worth it.”
I then explained that he needed to bail like he had expressed, like his life depended on it…because it did. And I explained that he would not just sink and drown, the quick and easy way. No, too easy. You see, there is a shark called Parkinson’s swimming around the boat, so if the boat sinks, Parkinson’s gets him, and life will be very unpleasant. Bailing faster than the water is coming in is the key to survival.
And, he is not bailing water…he is bailing fear and FEAR and negative thoughts and self-doubts and self-criticisms, and they keep coming and coming and coming…relentlessly. So he needs to keep bailing and bailing and bailing…RELENTLESSLY!
Oh, yes, and the boat is actually a vessel, and the vessel is your heart. And you need to bail out your heart from fear and FEAR and negative thoughts and self-doubts and self-criticisms. Then you can fix the leak at the bottom of the vessel and you can have compassion for the rotten wood on the floor and feel love and joy as you varnish the teak, and feel compassion for the water-logged seats and feel happiness as you bring them to a state of repair. This is how you fill your heart with compassion and forgiveness and love and peace and joy and happiness. Only then can you re-open the valve on your dopamine faucet and let your dopamine flow. Only then will you reach full recovery.
And as you repair your vessel and fix everything so that your vessel is in mint condition like the day it was born and put on the showroom floor, the old-you is gone, and the new-you-essence-of-who-you-were-the-day-you-were-born, is liberated from Parkinson’s and feels the freedom of a Parkinson’s-free life…full recovery.
Here is a reminder of how I gave away the fear and negative thoughts:
“I adopted the following prayer for when I felt negative thoughts or fears coming into the forefront of my thoughts: ”Dear God, I have this fear and I do not have time for it to bring me down. I need to stay focused on positive thoughts. You are in a much better position than me to deal with negative thoughts and fears, so I am giving you this negative thought and fear and thank you for taking care of it for me.” The first day I did this, it must have been 100 times I repeated this phrase. After four or five days, the negative thoughts and fears diminished, and then they went away.”
With today’s post, you now have an additional way to get rid of fear and FEAR and negative thoughts and self-doubts and self-criticisms.
What are you waiting for? Start giving away the fear and bailing your boat while you still have the strength to do it!
I know you can do this!
You are worth it!!!
All my best,
Howard
Thanks, Howard. you hit it right – negative thinking is like walking with a 100 lb bag on our shoulders. We deserve to be happy and I thank God for making me happy.
Again, I want to express my deep gratitude to you, Howard…. of course, having traveled this road with you for a while now, I have heard the gist of this message again and again. That being said, it is so very helpful for me to receive it in all its creative and various garb because, after years of being conditioned to fear, I need the repetition to maintain focus – a reminder to keep on bailing this leaky old boat – and then to lovingly restore her.
I am so grateful for this journey… it is a necessary one for me, very much tied into meaning, purpose, and discovery. Your guidance makes all the difference….. so much easier to stay the course when I have confidence in the direction in which I am paddling.
Penny, thank you for your thoughtful comments to Howard’s amazing posts. You have such a beautiful way of expressing yourself. Are you a professional writer?
I am encouraged to witness your perseverance and your openness to the deeper messages, there to be embraced, as Howard shares them with us.
I have not been on the journey as long as you have, thanks for paving the way by your example!
Gosh Pat…I’m touched my writing lands as it does with you…. no, I’m not a writer by profession. I think this work with Howard encourages us to get real and hopefully my writing reflects that. Authenticity and inner trust are aspects of my life and my work that are very important to me…of course, being human, I’m not always on track with those qualities but PD is a bit like an invitation to sharpen up and attend to them with a little more diligence (and perhaps a lot more self compassion than I’ve been offering myself). So giving away negative thoughts and fear seems to me to be a good start!
Dear howard,
its a magnificent post. i love the way you explain everything.
truly our hearts are filled with compassion and forgiveness and love and peace and joy and happiness all the more after reading your posts.
What wonderful imagery! Thank you, Howard
Interesting. I think I’ll go out and get a stainless steel bucket and write that prayer with a marker, on the outside of it. That will serve to remind me of what I need to do about 100 times each day. Thank you again, Howard.
Thank you. Your posts arrive just when I need to hear them. Bailing…bailing here. I certainly yearn to get that boat to an island, where I can take a break from the journey, get it out of the water and repair it in peace!
Likewise, Karen…….. I’ve bailing fear for months now — about 6 mos. to be more to the point……”Misery loves company…” or however it goes. I’m glad others are doing it as well…………
The Road Not Taken
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there’
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference….
How loong have some here been “bailing”? I’m curious……
In answer to Trudys question. I have been bailing using Howards methods for 11 months and am really starting to make progress with it. I am getting better and better at recognizing the fear when it comes up.I am becoming more conscious of all my negative emotions and judgements and I must say I am making good progress now.Still having dark moments and doubts but having more of the opposite.
Keep up the good work…we are worth it.
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