I had never experienced this level of physical pain before. My stomach felt like a raging bonfire. Each time the car hit a pothole on the way to the emergency room, I felt a log being added to it. Five minutes in the waiting room felt like five hours. I distinctly remember despair setting in as I began to cry – not necessarily from the pain but from a feeling of hopelessness that nothing could be done about it. It was just a few minutes later when the CT machine hovered over me and I heard a chilling, robotic voice utter the words “breathe in, hold your breath” that I felt I was watching the events unfold from somewhere outside my body. The doctors injected a substance to “light my body up on the inside” so that the CT machine could take a picture. That bonfire turned into a raging inferno. I watched my body vomit. For the next few hours, I drifted in and out of consciousness as the doctors performed tests, administered morphine, and flushed IV bags.

Later that afternoon, the doctors informed me that I had suffered a gallstone attack. They said it would likely require surgery to remove my gallbladder – an “unessential organ” – and several weeks of recovery. They prescribed some medication to deal with the excess bile in my stomach and sent me home where the pain continued into the night. Luckily, my amazing wife, Dawn, was there to care for me. Dawn is clairvoyant and well versed in many forms of healing massage. She performed Reiki on my stomach, helped me into warm baths, flushed my body with natural juices, and catered to my every need. I had never received this kind of love before – a devoted love that drops everything to care for another person in need. Dawn filled my body with a potent healing energy, intuitively feeling where I needed to be touched and loved. I had learned my first of many lessons from this experience – what it means to truly love another.

Besides the considerable discomfort that I was feeling, something else had changed inside me. For years, I had an intention to reduce the amount of meat in my diet. In fact, just days prior to this incident I had told Dawn again of my desire to stop eating meat. I knew all the reasons why I should. I had seen Food Inc. and Earthlings and was cognizant of the horrors of factory farming. I believe that animals have a soul, and that when we torture them through the inhumane factory farming techniques, we are at the same time torturing ourselves. Despite having a conscious desire to stop eating so much meat, I could not escape the craving for cheesesteaks. I had always loved cheesesteaks ever since the time I worked in the corporate world, fully enslaved by the hedonic treadmill and a default disposition that I was separate from the rest of life.

“Cheesesteak, provolone, ‘wit onions,” I would order. I preferred provolone but always admired those that ordered the whiz. Back then, I didn’t think twice about eating some kind of meat in every meal. Bacon or sausage for breakfast, a turkey sandwich for lunch, a steak for dinner – days like this were common.  During my “awakening” over the past few years, I had realized many other unconscious behaviors, but this meat-eating habit persisted. In between meetings or when Dawn had other lunch plans, I would look for opportunities to stop by the cheesesteak shop. Some part of me still wasn’t ready to give it up.

But the gallstone attack unexpectedly changed everything. As I lay there with the prospect of surgery and a pain that would not go away, belief suddenly gave way to knowing. Prior to this incident, I believed that eating less meat was the right thing to do. Now I knew it was what I was going to do. It was as if the crisis had suddenly shifted me into alignment between intention and action.

This sudden gift of clarity was not limited to my diet. As many Sustainable Man subscribers are aware, I have been advocating the work of Charles Eisenstein who speaks of “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.” Underneath our deep cynicism lies an idea that the world should be a lot more beautiful than what has been offered to us as normal. This world might be achieved if only each of us decided to be of service to one another and join the gift economy – an economy based on our inherent desire to give, taking only what we need instead of as much as we can get. Prior to my health crisis, I believed in all of these ideas. Now, deep down, intuitively, I knew them to be true. External, objective evidence – something that had been a prerequisite for belief before – was no longer necessary. I had found what many describe as “the source” – a place where anyone can tap into to find Truth. Instead of seeking “expert” opinions to help me decide a course of action, I now felt confident to trust my own intuition. Tuning in to this “source” required humility, the abandoning of control, and allowing my mind to trust without having all the answers. While trusting our intuition may not work if our goal is to build complex machines, we must remember that the human body is not a machine but a living organism, which has an inherent purpose to love, to create beauty, and to give our gifts to the world.

On the second night home, a miracle occurred. It was the middle of the evening and I was resting in bed when Dawn and I heard a sudden thud downstairs. Having little energy to investigate, I didn’t pay much attention and proceeded to drift into a sound, restful sleep. In the morning, Dawn recounted a story about our 10 year old cat, Milla. Shortly after I fell asleep, Milla stoically stared in my direction on the bed with a blissful look of pure awe and love as if she was witnessing the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She kept looking at Dawn as if to say “do you see this, do you see what is happening?” Dawn also told me that she had an intuitive feeling that my grandmother was there to help. Admittedly, I felt a million times better that morning than at any time in the past two days. Did my deceased grandmother come to heal me? How could I possibly verify this information? When we came downstairs in the morning, we discovered the source of the loud thud we heard the night before and all the verification that we would need. On the floor was a picture of my grandmother and me that had been knocked off our family picture wall. No picture had ever fallen off the wall like that and it could have been any one of many pictures. This is a scenario that would be impossible to replicate, but does that mean it wasn’t true? Thank you, Grandmommy. I love you.

The immense pain was gone. I went back to the doctor who was amazed at the progress I had made. She took a blood test which confirmed that my gallstone had indeed passed. Still, she recommended that I undergo surgery to remove the troublesome organ. Viewing the body as a mechanical and the Universe as purposeless, modern medicine would have no explanation for the healing that took place. Through the lens of science and Western medicine, the gallstone had acted up, was “unessential,” and needed to be removed. Intuitively, I knew that surgery was not necessary.

A few days later, I experienced another miracle. It was a beautiful, warm, Sunday afternoon, and I was lying in bed with Dawn sharing some quiet time while reflecting on our recent experience. As I gazed out the window at the many beams of light illuminating the room, I suddenly became aware of a presence. It did not feel like the presence of any kind of supernatural being, but instead felt like the presence of all of life. It was as if for a moment there were no more boundaries between my body and the rest of the Universe. I felt an incredible energy flowing throughout my body, supporting me like a hammock. I intuitively sensed a deep connection to the web of life that surrounds us all yet is invisible to the traditional five senses. All of this would have been impossible to understand using my rational brain, which had been deceived into believing that evidence was a prerequisite for any kind of truth. The immense beauty and love present in this gift overwhelmed me with tears of joy. I felt for the first time fully connected to All.

By this time, I was physically feeling like my old self. But inside, something was different. I felt so much more secure in the knowing of my purpose in this moment – to continue creating video stories that help me and others understand and embrace this collective transformational process that we are all living through right now. In doing this work, I feel connected to something much larger than myself. When the hair on the back of my neck stands up – which is the metric I use to feel when a video is done – I feel connected to the source of Truth within. The ever present anxiety that came with the self-imposed burden of trying to “save the world” was lifted. I sensed that I do have a unique role to play in the transition but so does everyone else. Instead of worrying about coming up with all the answers, I trust that others will fulfill their unique purpose when the time is right. For now, the most important action I could take is to write about my experience and the lessons I learned in order to empower others to reconnect to and trust their own intuition.

A few days later, as my appetite returned, I was finally ready to try the new (for me), vegan restaurant. For a meat-eating addict, this is no small accomplishment. The taste of meat all of a sudden began to smell foul. Dawn and I went to Herbivore, which featured a menu that looked very similar to a traditional restaurant except it was completely vegan. “Beef” fajitas, “meatloaf”, and yes, a “cheesesteak” – “grilled beef, grilled onions, mushrooms, bell peppers and melted cheese with dijon and vegenaise on french bread.” Well, I knew what I was ordering.  Here was my favorite food – a delicious cheesesteak – without the meat and cheese. I started feeling anxious as the plate arrived and I lifted the sandwich to my mouth. Let me tell you that I am not exaggerating when I say it was the best cheesesteak I had tasted in my life. Full of spice and flavor, this cheesesteak was the real deal. Maybe my taste buds changed along with the new awareness, but it felt so good to return integrity to my food consumption.

All of us have had crisis moments in our lives. It is in these moments that we are forced to abandon our seemingly constant obsession with our past or our future and deal with the present. Crisis is how the Universe wakes us up. Crisis puts all of our ego’s silly ambitions and desires on hold and refocuses us on what is truly important. However, we have a choice to listen or not. We can choose to be stubborn, remain closed-minded, and try to overcome the disease (or gallstones) with more control, in which case it is likely that the crisis will either intensify or repeat. Or, if we choose to see the crisis as an opportunity to reflect on the present moment, ask ourselves if we are being true to our soul’s desires for our life, and be open to trusting communication from within, then we may be open to receiving the healing energy of the Universe. Abandoning control in favor of trust allows us to tap into synchronicity.

This experience affirmed an intuitive knowing that each of our small acts, our gifts to one another, can and do make a difference. I sense this whenever I do something however small to help another living being – even just offering a smile as I meet people on the street or in an elevator. I have an inner knowing that it all matters even though my mind wonders how something so small can possibly make a difference given the coming ecological, social, and economic crises that seem to be written in to our collective future. You might be wondering the same thing. This is because our minds are operating from an antiquated story. However, our hearts know of another story. Our hearts also know what we are supposed to do. It is my hope that each of us listen to that source of goodness deep inside us, the voice that tells us it is okay to help others, to treat strangers with loving kindness, and to ease the burden of those suffering nearest to us. We already intuitively know what we need to do – all we have to do is trust and listen to that inner goodness deep inside each of us. If we do, we will literally co-create Heaven on Earth.