Dr. Judy Morley - 5 Spiritual Steps to Overcome Adversity: How to Use the Cosmic 2x4 to Hit a Home Run

HOW TO USE THE COSMIC 2X4 TO HIT A HOMERUN

DR. JUDY MORLEY

Published 2021 by Gildan Media LLC

aka G&D Media

www.GandDmedia.com

FIVE SPIRITUAL STEPS TO OVERCOME ADVERSITY. Copyright 2021 by Dr. Judy Morley.
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. No liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained within. Although every precaution has been taken, the author and publisher assume no liability for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

FIRST EDITION 2021

Front cover design by David Rheinhardt of Pyrographx

Interior design by Meghan Day Healey of Story Horse, LLC

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request

eISBN: 978-1-7225-2678-8

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

C ongratulations. Youve just been hit by a cosmic 2x4! I bet you never saw it coming. Although it probably doesnt feel like it, youve just been given a great gift. It is by overcoming challenging situations that we build our confidence, learn our resiliency, and deepen our appreciation for our abilities. You hold in your hands the secret to overcoming any challenge life can throw at you. Challenges open the doorway for you to express yourself fully, release old fears that have been holding you back, and go for the dreams youve been putting off. Once you realize that lifes cosmic 2x4 is your ticket to happiness, youll be able to turn it around and use it to hit a home run with your life! This book will show you how. I ask only that you approach it with an open mind and entertain the possibility that your current adversity was sent to actually improve your life. All the answers you seek are already inside you; you just need to access them.

First, you must define what success means to you. That may seem like an unrealistic activity, especially if youre mired in a serious challenge, but you cant take a step in any direction until you know where youre going. What does success look like? How does it feel? The journey from where you are now to where you want to be will provide the spiritual healing necessary to live the life of your dreams!

I have had multiple opportunities to overcome significant challenges, but perhaps the greatest came in 1998. I remember exactly where I was when I found out I had cancer. After six months of trying to figure out why I had a lump in my neck the size of a walnut, the doctors finally performed a biopsy in May of 1998. My family and I left on vacation the next day. Later that week from a hotel room in Cody, Wyoming, I called to get the test results. My three-year-old daughter and her father were swimming in the hotel pool, and I looked out at the majesty surrounding Yellowstone National Park while the doctor told me the news. I had Hodgkins lymphoma. I was thirty-three years old.

That day started the greatest journey of my life. At first, it seemed like one shock after another. I returned from vacation, and we began the staging process. I figured that the cancer must be in the early stages, because the doctors had such a difficult time diagnosing it. I was wrong. I was in Stage 4, the final stage. I started a regimen of chemotherapy, only to learn that I was allergic to one of the drugs, and it burned my veins the entire three hours it dripped in. I had a mediport placed in my chest to mitigate the problem, but halfway through my six months of treatment I got a major bacterial infection in the port. The doctors decided to treat the infection with intravenous antibiotics, so I had a needle and tube in me, 24/7, for the last two months of my treatment. The mixture of chemo and antibiotics made me so sick that I almost landed back in the hospital because I couldnt stop vomiting. My white blood cells couldnt keep up, so I gave myself daily injections to build my immune system, just to have the chemo kill it again. I was sick, bald, scared, and fed up with doctors, nurses, hospitals, and anything that looked like medicine. On many occasions, it felt that it would be easier to die than continue the treatment.

Then, in my darkest hour, I had an epiphany. The answer to my problems didnt lie with the doctors, nurses, or drugs, but rather within me. I began to wonder, why do some people die and others live? What is the intangible element that causes some hopeless cases to fully recover, and other less severe patients to deteriorate in a matter of weeks? In a larger sense, I was asking the universal question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Then, it came to me. I realized I wasnt suffering because of the cancer as much as I was suffering from my own resistance to well-being. I decided that, regardless of the prognosis, I was going to live. There were so many things I still wanted to do! I wanted to see my toddler grow up, write a book, go to Europe, and have fun again. I began reading everything I could about cancer, medicine, the mind-body connection, non-traditional therapies, spirituality, and ongoing wellness.

All that reading taught me that people who allowed cancer to bring meaning to their lives survived longer and in greater numbers than those who gave up. I realized that I had been denying myself the things that mattered most to me, and consequently Id sucked all the joy out of my life. My sickness was an outgrowth of my attitude. But I also learned that I had powernot only over my cancer, but over my life. Cancer wasnt about dying, but rather about changing the way Id been living. That realization was the beginning of my healing.

In the years since I overcame cancer, I have recognized that all of lifes curveballs serve the same purpose. They are the way that life tells us that we have strayed from the path of our highest good. The great mystical teacher Emma Curtis Hopkins claimed that God is Good, and said, There is Good for me, and I ought to have it. Every major religion teaches about a benevolent deity but frequently fails to extend that benevolence to humanity. The spiritual truth that transcends all dogma, however, is that God is Good, and wants us to have Good as well.

Often, we are taught differently, however. We learn we are unworthy and must prove ourselves before we can get our Good. However, if we are truly created in the image and likeness of God, as the Hebrew Scriptures claim, arent we already worthy of perfect health, financial security, relational harmony, and career fulfillment? If no one tells us this when we are young, we frequently take the wrong path with our life and end up unfulfilled, unhappy, and unhealthy. How do we shift this? We have to begin making different choices. How do we know if we are not making choices that allow Good to come to us? We know because the universe sends us a challenge to help us examine and alter how we live. That challenge could be health-related, as mine was, or financial, relational, or career-based. Regardless of its origin, the adversity is really an opportunity.