I am, by profession, a ballet dancer. I have to maintain a fairly rigorous work schedule during the dance season, and in my "off time" I try to stay in good shape-- which was my goal one day while I was visiting Pasadena, California. I arrived quite early at the ballet studio where I was going to take class, and started warming up. Now, I was also in the middle of taking Christian Science Class Instruction, which is a two-week course on spiritual healing. In this class, we were coming to understand our spiritual relationship to God, learning that He is the One Mind and we, all of us, are the outcome of that Mind, or intelligence. So, I decided that while I was preparing my body for ballet class by warming up, I would also prepare my thinking. I started with simple truths: that God, Spirit, is all good and all power; that men and women are spiritual expressions of God’s goodness, and reflect His perfect being through harmony, strength, grace; and that I am included in God’s full expression of Himself.
      Earlier this year, I had discomfort in my knees and hips-- a common problem for dancers. Because I am naturally very flexible, I was told that I wouldn’t be able to use my body correctly in ballet until I developed strength in certain areas, and that until I had that strength, the incorrect usage of my body would result in serious injury. Unfortunately, I believed this opinion, although it didn’t seem fair that a blessing could actually be a curse, that flexibility should equal weakness. But I continued to accept this unjust thought and pretty soon started feeling evidences of it. Sometimes my knees would hurt so much I couldn’t stand or put weight on them, and other times I could only lift my legs a few inches off the floor because my hips were in so much pain. But until that day, I had simply brushed it aside, made myself get on with my work, and ignored the pain. Having been raised in Christian Science, I should have tackled this issue when it first came up, but until now, I hadn’t really taken it seriously.
      However, that day in Pasadena, I decided to put my Christian Science Class training to work and address this problem that had begun to impede my dancing. I sought to understand that a material, physically-based opinion could in no way impact my right to express God in my own, individual way, through movement. I knew that my real identity is not in this material thing called a body, but that my being is comprised of the qualities of God, good, that I express. Since God is Spirit, we reflect Him spiritually, and our material concepts of life are not the ultimate or highest reality. God is our true source of being.
      I thought about the different synonyms that Mary Baker Eddy, the author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, gives to God: Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, and felt that the attributes of Principle really applied here. God is Principle, the law that governs the spiritual universe in Love and goodness. I am a child of God’s creating, therefore I am an expression of Principle, and can only obey divine law, where there is no wrong or incorrect action. God couldn’t execute something incorrectly anymore than He could stop loving all His children, so I, as an individual reflection of God, couldn’t execute something incorrectly and suffer for it. I saw that my love for ballet, for dancing, is a direct expression of God’s love. God actually IS Love, and we, His children, are the emanation of that boundless, all-encompassing Love. My motive to dance is right and loving, so I should be free to dance without being afraid of hurting myself. In her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy writes: "Right motives give pinions to thought and strength and freedom to speech and action." She also says: "Whatever it is your duty to do you can do without harm to yourself." Those statements point out to me the total freedom in living according to God’s law. It would be horribly limiting to allow myself to believe that I could be hurt, and that my love of dancing could result in injury. I didn’t do anything wrong, my dancing wasn’t hurting anyone else. Also, I knew that I had made no mistakes since God, all goodness, health and strength, was the very Principle of my life and governed every action I made. I could only work correctly!
      I started feeling much better, but I still felt a twinge once in a while. I knew I had to very firmly deny the physical senses and rely only on my spiritual sense-- on my sense of the allness of God. I knew that realizing these truths about me would completely remove all the pain and evidence of injury. All I had to do was stand grounded on the rock of unchanging Truth. So I did.
      I went into an empty studio and started working very slowly at the barre; I wanted to really, thoroughly warm up and see that I was working correctly in ballet. Starting with the most basic steps (which any dancer will tell you are the hardest to master!), I not only corrected my body by changing wrong movements into right ones, but I corrected my thinking by changing wrong thoughts into right ones. I worked slowly and correctly for about half an hour. I saw that I still had a while before the ballet class was going to start, so I went and sat in my car and listened to a recording of the Christian Science Bible Lesson for that week. This Lesson is comprised of excerpts from the Bible and Science and Health on specific subjects that Christian Scientists all over the world study. As soon as I sat down in the car, I felt like I had pulled my hamstring, and strained a calf muscle. At first I reconsidered taking the class. The thought came, "maybe you should take it easy. You obviously worked way too hard just now, and you need to take time when recovering from injuries." I considered it for a second, but then realized that if I put up with that material belief, then I’d also have to put up with the three-month recovery period recommended for hamstring injuries. I definitely did not have time for that. Plus, was I going to waste all the spiritual progress I had made just a few minutes before? No! I finished listening to the lesson (which was on Life, and perfectly tailored to my needs), and then went into class. As I walked in, I felt absolutely no pain in my knees, hips, hamstring, or calves.
       I had to deny the thought of a little pain in my calf only twice, but by the time class was over, I was completely healed. And what a class it was, too! It was one of the most challenging ones I had taken in awhile. Afterwards, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction and enrichment-- I had challenged myself in ballet, and felt like I had grown in my dancing abilities. But more importantly, I had risen to the spiritual challenge of understanding my untouchable relationship to God, and grown in that understanding. The knowledge that we are always free from harm because our lives are governed by God, that we are constantly held in His Love, saves us from the fear of what material beliefs can do to us. Even when we seem hurt or are suffering, realizing that we are not subject to those material beliefs, that we can only obey the spiritual laws of everlasting health, peace and harmony, will uplift our thought and thereby change our experience for the better.

Heather
Ventura, CA  back to top

      Many times in the past I have gone through some very intense experiences with poison oak. I always seemed to make contact with it anytime I was in an outdoor environment with wild growth.
      Recently, my airsoft team informed me that we were to play another team at a certain barranca where I had been exposed to poison oak before. At first I was very upset, thinking I would not be able to go, and I would let my team down. It was then that I decided to make a definite stand against the belief of rashes. On the way to the game, I told my Dad where we were playing and he said he did not want me to go. In the past he had to completely take care of me because I would be almost entirely incapacitated. While listening to my Dad, doubt and fear began to enter my mind. I remembered past experiences and all the pain I had been in. The worst fear was missing school because I would have a lot of trouble making up two weeks of assignments. I put these thoughts from my mind and thought about something the Christian Science practitioner had shared with me at the Adventure Unlimited Camps. In a camp speech she had said, "It does not matter where we go, but how we go." I thought about that and realized I am free to do as I please as long as I keep my thought on a spiritual level. I stuck with this and went to the game.
      During the match I had lots of fun and was not inhibited in any way by seeing poison oak or worrying about it. A few days later I was up late working on a homework assignment for my government class. I was tired and felt stressed out by school. The assignment I was doing was about the election and the candidates. My parents were watching talk shows about the election in the next room and I was getting mad at the candidates, mad at my teacher for giving us this assignment, and mad at my parents for worrying about the election so much. I subconsciously scratched my arm and felt an itchy spot. I looked at it and it appeared to be what I recognized as the beginning of another poison oak rash. The first thoughts to go through my mind were hate and annoyance, then fear. I began to visualize in my mind what my body would go through over the next few weeks and what my family would have to deal with and everything that could go wrong.
      Then I decided now was the time to deal with it on a different level. I went into the living room where it was completely quiet. I began to think about different ideas from Sunday School. Having discussed some of these issues before, I calmed down considerably and truly began to relax. I went through some more ideas and one thought came to me: It does not matter what my body appears to do, it cannot affect me spiritually, and therefore cannot hurt. It was then that I realized the rash was gone and that I would not, could not, be affected by poison oak again. This entire healing took about two minutes.

Russell (Age 18)
Ventura, CA  back to top