Full Moon Reflection
INSIGHT on Being Held
Dear Community,
Thank you for your messages and for walking with me these past few weeks. My follow-up scans are in, so let me get right to it.
The brain scan was clear. The PET scan showed no disease elsewhere in my body. We're dealing with a single recurrence in the lung that's grown from 0.4 cm to 0.8 cm over the last eight months.
I'll do a short course of immunotherapy, three infusions over the next few months. Then my medical team and I will see what's left to address. Alongside that, I'm back full-tilt on my practices: meditation, myofascial release, acupuncture, the shiftwave chair, digital fasting, and more time in nature.
That's the whole picture, in short form.
A Day of Joy
Here's what I didn't expect walking back into the Angeles Clinic. The day was joyful. Legitimately, an honest-to-goodness good time. I laughed a lot.
PET scans and brain scans aren't fun, and their impact is real. The next day I felt leeched, and a headache kept me in bed.
Still, the overarching feeling of that day was joy. And I wasn't generating it. I wasn't working an angle on my own mind. It was coming from the inside out.
I spent the morning in meditation, meeting all the parts of myself with attention and love. So many of you had written. I read those messages, breathing with them and really taking them in.
At the clinic, I had a great time with the folks at the radiology front desk and the nurse who drew my blood. It was a joy to press back into the system with my own ideas about healing, working through the plan with Dr. Hamid and his team until we landed on a path that felt coherent to all of us.
I walked out light and clear about where we're headed.
I've lived plenty of days at that same clinic that looked nothing like this. Days ravaged by fear and frustration. Those feelings deserve a seat at the table too.
Knowing Before I Knew
It would be disingenuous to leave out that I had the results before my doctors did.
In last month's Full Moon offering, I wrote about my reading with Lisa Viola. The guides' message was clear.
This is a small recurrence. Handle it now. Handle it swiftly. Do what you did before. Don't be stubborn. You can be stubborn. Don't be. Handle it now.
The guidance and the scans spoke the same truth in two different languages.
What I know is what I experience, and what I experience is that guidance is real information. It's that simple.
The reading doesn't replace the scan, and the scan doesn't replace the reading. I love being alive and awake to both the spiritual and the scientific.
After three decades in practice, I'm still learning how to receive. My protective patterns were well-worn paths, and I walked them right up until this year.
Listening on the level of the unseen asks us to let ourselves be held by forces we can't verify on a printout. That can be a big leap.
It was for me. Until it wasn't.
And Then There's You
Your messages gave me more strength to stand in it. I felt held by the heart of a community, and that holding is visceral.
A nervous system that feels held can afford to look directly at what's in front of it. One that feels isolated starts bracing and scanning for the next threat.
Receiving love and support wasn't always my M.O. I know how to shut it all down and go it alone. Much of my healing has come from learning to stay open when I really need it.
So thank you. You were part of how I met this well. And I offer that same thank you to the part of me that used to brace or scoff at support. That part relaxed this time and let love in.
An Invitation: Wednesday Club
In the spirit of not doing my practices alone, I'm offering Wednesday Club. Every Wednesday at 8:30 am Pacific, I go live on Instagram at @kevinjcourtney with a slightly pared-down version of the meditations I'm running through my own body right now.
Come as you are, even if you only have ten minutes. Every replay stays up on my grid if you can’t make it live.
Stay for the Afterparty if you can. For me, that’s where it’s at. Folks share what moved through them, and it turns into something like a group INSIGHT session as I offer perspective and insight into the practices.
The holding works in both directions. I'd love to have you there.
Full Moon INSIGHT in Practice
The full moon lights the entire surface at once. Nothing is left in shadow. This practice is in that spirit.
Take a few minutes somewhere you won't be interrupted.
Name what's actually true in your life right now. Say it out loud if you can.
Ask yourself: who has me? Start with the people you could call by name. Then let it widen to the support that has no form and no phone number. The ones who came before you. Your guides. Whatever word you use for the unseen presence that keeps showing up.
Put a hand on your heart and take three slow breaths. Let the support land in your body. There's a threshold to cross, where held stops being something you know and becomes something you feel.
Look again at what you named in step one. Notice how it sits in the light of being held.
We don't have to face the real alone. We never did.
I'm diving back into the book and my practices in the coming months. I may not send a letter every lunar cycle while I'm writing and in treatment. When I'm here, I'm here with all my heart.
With love,
Kevin