THE HOLISTIC LAWYER

 by Mindy Hitchcock

Remember the old cowboy movies? In a rough and ready frontier town, the sheriff was the guy responsible for keeping the peace. He kept the cattle out of the saloon, locked up the town drunk and had exciting gunfights with dangerous “hombres” – all to make sure the townsfolk were safe.

In a slightly newer version of this theme from my childhood years Andy (Griffith) of Mayberry kept the peace by quelling squabbles between townsfolk and using his calm, easy style to rein in unruly visitors or help out at a church picnic.

These days, we don’t have a sheriff we can call by name to come and help keep the peace in our neighborhood. Or do we? Well, in fact, we do. We can call upon ourselves.

T. Harv Eker, author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind says “Your inner world creates your outer world.” Louise Hay teaches us that our own thoughts create our future. And Les Brown tells us, “Wherever you find yourself in life, at some point in time you made an appointment to be there.”

So what does this mean? If we are not experiencing peace in our outer lives, we need to pin a tin star on the sheriff within ourselves and ask him (or her) to keep the peace.
Are you feeling overwhelmed with the problems you face? Is your life filled with people giving you grief? Turn your attention away from these externals and go to the Source.
Now that spring has finally sprung in beautiful Michigan, I recommend that you take a few hours to go off by yourself. Before setting out, sit quietly and think about the things that are stressing you. Put them in the form of a question. Then go out into the beauty of nature and find your answers. This is a clever way of accessing our inner wisdom.

For example, I once suffered from a constant feeling of pressure in my eyes. The eye doctor said my eye pressure was so high that I should have glaucoma, but I didn’t – yet. I treasure my vision and so the doctor’s words frightened me.

I looked up the probable metaphysical cause for this condition in Louise Hay’s Heal Your Body. The diagnosis was: “Stony unforgiveness. Pressure from longstanding hurts.”

Instantly, I knew just what and who, had brought about the longstanding hurts that were causing the pressure in my eyes. How amazing that these emotional pains were now threatening my sight. So I wrote down my question, “How can I forgive this one who has been so unkind?” Then I set out into nature to find my answers.

As it happened, I found myself in a high place that overlooked a harbor full of sailboats. Down I sat in the grass and gazed out at the sails below, wondering how to let go of my pain. Suddenly, my focus went to the sailboats’ reflections in the water.

Then I understood: I was like one of those sailboats. My “stony unforgiveness” of the person who was unkind would be like one of those sailboats becoming angry with the water because it was displeased at its own reflection. The water was merely reflecting the boat itself, just as this person who was unkind was merely reflecting my own beliefs about myself. And if the sailboat wanted to see a different reflection in the water, the sailboat, not the water, had to change.

If I wanted to see a different reflection of myself in this person, I had to change the way I saw myself. He was merely reflecting my own self image.

Reflecting further, I noticed the water flowing past the boats. I saw that the reflection or image, of the boats did not change with the water. Just so, in my own life, getting rid of the unkind person in my life would not change anything until I changed my own self image. When he left, someone else just like him would come alongside me and reflect what I believed about myself. On and on it would go, until I decided to change what I believed about me.

The dawning of this insight completely changed my understanding of the person who had offended me. I realized then that it was I, not he, who had done me harm in reflecting my self back to me. And so it followed that he was my teacher and I had nothing to forgive him for. So I kept his lesson and then, I let him go. He slipped away into the waters around me and I have not seen him since.

A few weeks later I went back to the eye doctor and learned what I had already guessed; now that I had learned to keep the peace in my own mind, the pressure in my eyes was normal.

Try it yourself. Sit quietly until you clarify what your question is. Then go out to a place where things are growing and wait for your lesson there. Ask the question and quietly observe what is going on around you. Be detached about the result; just observe.

Soon you will begin to access your own inner wisdom, played out on the landscape before you. The universal laws of life will provide you with your answers. Like me, you may be surprised by the answers that come, but don’t let that deter you. Listen with your inner self.

Put on your tin star and obey the law that is presented to you. You will find that you are rooting out all the “hombres” that are causing you so much trouble in life and you will restore peace in your life. As you ride off into the sunset, acknowledge yourself for a job well done and know that tomorrow will bring new challenges.

© 2008 Mindy L. Hitchcock