Sticking a Knife in My Eye

In 2005, I began to have severe cluster headaches to the point where I felt like someone was sticking a knife in my eye. No matter what I did, including seeking help from doctors and pleading with God to take the pain away, the pain only increased. Even prescribed strong painkillers could not alleviate the pain. I felt hopeless and ready to give up. My religious upbringing made me think that it was God’s punishment in my life, because inside I felt like a failure who had disappointed God.

Then one day in 2006, I had a deep inner unexplainable prompting to close my eyes and meditate on divine love. It was outside my comfort zone. But there in my car, I closed my eyes in stillness and relived with my imagination, Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ. The story of Christ’s death communicated the profundity of unselfish, sacrificial and unconditional love.

Suddenly my imagination turned intimate, and I felt like I was there…

…in the presence of Christ while he carried his cross.

It was an awareness, deeper than thought, where I was conscious of a Presence within me…

Indescribable love rushed over me.

With it came a shift in consciousness. We could call it awakening out of a deep sleep. I had been imprisoned within the confines of my own thoughts, but suddenly I was aware of a sacred Presence within me that permeated with love.

Within mere moments, the pain subsided. Since then, I have never had another attack of cluster headaches.

Adapted from Beyond Limits: 7 Steps To Create the Life of Your Dreams by David Youngren