Healing is much more than eliminating symptoms. It is a path that can be embraced - a path toward wholeness and oneness. It is a process of re-integrating or re-membering all that one is and all that one can be. Here are some features of the healing path.
Desire and Intention. Desire is the motivating force for everything. A strong desire for healing, no matter how it is felt, is absolutely necessary. Intention has to do with maintaining this desire consistently. Consistent desires maintained by intention lead to consistent results.
Discipline. Healing often involves developing discipline. The word discipline is derived from the same root as the word disciple. Discipline is not so much a harsh striving to achieve a goal, as it is the honing of one's skill in an area.
For healing to occur, forces that controlled the body and emotions have to be brought under conscious control. Regimens that retrain the body and brain have to be pursued. One may indeed choose illness to learn discipline. Discipline can be as simple as following a diet and doing some exercise. It may involve years of working through emotional traumas, following the threads of intuition to their sources deep within the psyche. The discipline may be simply learning to follow one's intuition, instead of being distracted or caught up in ideologies and concepts.
Allowing and Surrender. Allowing and surrender are also critical for healing. It is often necessary to allow symptoms to play out as part of healing. It may also be necessary to allow emotions to surface, or to allow oneself to undergo unusual or uncomfortable experiences or therapies. Allowing also has to do with permitting a process of healing to occur, when the mind is looking for healing to be simply an event.
Surrender is the outcome of allowing. When faced with difficult decisions or conditions, one learns to surrender to the higher will or God's will. Eventually, one surrenders it all - fears, feelings of smallness, symptoms and even the ego's feelings of despair.
Surrender requires digging deeply into oneself. Here lie great power, strength and mystery. The ego, with which most people identify most of the time, is but a small part of who one is. Peak experiences or enlightenment are when one transcends the ego part of oneself.
Near-death experiences often touch this vast and mysterious part of oneself. People returning from these experiences are often transformed. Their lives change dramatically and their illnesses and neuroses often vanish. Excellent books about these experiences include those by Raymond Moody, MD, Damian Brinkley and others.
Writers from biblical times to the present have described vast realms and dimensions inhabited by incredible beings, places one visitd while asleep, and so forth. Most people do not give themselves credit for the beings they are. While symptoms may be addressed along the way, the challenge is to remain aware of the complexity and mysteriousness of human life.
Reclaiming Power. Healing requires giving up the victim mentality, and recognizing and reclaiming power. The ego part of oneself is a fearful victim that seeks safety and security. The grander part of oneself is powerful, adventurous and unafraid.
Taking Responsibility. With power comes responsibility. The attitude of taking responsibility for whatever exists in one's life is very empowering. It should not create guilt. If one created a mess, one can un-create it. No need to waste time and energy in self-pity or blaming others. Even if one does not know what to do, just the idea that one has the power to alter one's life is new for many people and most empowering.
Developing a Sense of Humor. Some people are familiar with Norman CousinsĪ experience with a crippling form of arthritis. When his doctors told him there was little hope of a cure, he cured himself watching humorous movies. At first, laughing gave him temporary relief from pain. After a while, the relief lasted longer until the pain did not return.
Laughing breaks one out of the negative thought and belief patterns that often created the illness in the first place. It is hard to laugh and be depressed or angry at the same time.
Humor temporarily detaches one from predicaments, reduces stress and releases beneficial substances into the blood.
Detaching Emotionally. Emotional detachment allows one to examine beliefs and behaviors without defensiveness or guilt. It helps one explore new ideas and therapies, avoid resentments and guilt, and stay calm in the midst of chaos.
Exploring Healing Modalities. The same condition can be approached through physical, biochemical, electrical, emotional, mental, spiritual or energetic means. Looking at a beautiful sunset, petting your cat, sitting under a tree, talking to a friend, and thousands of other experiences can also facilitate healing. I tell clients they can and eventually will heal, but I am not sure how it will occur, or how much effort and searching it will take.
The multiplicity of healing methods reflects just how complex one is. It also reflects how exotic and remarkable is the universe in which we live. Healing is in part about opening oneself to unlikely and unlimited possibilities. Some would call them miracles. Knowing the limitless possibilities for healing in itself facilitates healing, as it helps release fear and despair that are often at the root of what must be overcome for healing to occur.
Participating Actively. Research reported by Dr. Bernie Siegel indicates those who question and even disobey their doctors, taking back control of their healing process, fare better than the 'good, cooperative' patients.
Exploring healing at a distance. There is now scientific evidence that healing occurs at a distance. Double-blind scientific experiments prove that prayer at a distance, for example, can affect the outcome of surgery and other medical outcomes. This is explored in detail in an excellent book entitled Pray Well by Walter Weston and in Space, Time and Medicine by Larry Dossey.
This means it is possible to receive help from a distance, as well as to offer help at a distance. This can be a great comfort, and most useful in many situations.
Understanding Collective Consciousness. An idea related to healing at a distance is the collective consciousness. It is the idea that we share a knowing at some level. What happens to any one and what is known to anyone affects all others.
As one person heals, insights and information become available to all others, and it becomes easier for others to heal. In fact, some take on an illness or condition out of compassion and love for the collective, to heal it for the sake of the whole.
Going Beyond Life and Death. The healing path goes beyond the goal of survival of the physical body. The healing path teaches there may be value in suffering, if it is used as a springboard for healing. There are many excellent books on the subject of death and dying. These books can help shift one's perceptions about death. They present death as a transition to another dimension, and certainly not the end of life. Healing in certain other cultures involves preparation for death so that it is welcomed, not feared.
Practicing Forgiveness. Forgiveness is often an essential requirement for healing. Forgiveness releases one from the need to control, justify, or even understand an event. It also helps one let go of grudges and judgments of events, people and situations. This greatly reduces stress on the body and facilitates healing as nothing else.
Licensing Laws. Many people are confused by laws that proclaim that only those with licenses, or that which is approved, can heal one. Some day I hope these laws will be seen as silly attempts to control the healing arts. They promote false beliefs and limit healing, thus harming an unaware public.
Dr. Lawrence Wilson
P.O. Box 54
Prescott, AZ 86302-0054
(928) 445-7690
Visit http://www.drlwilson.com/ for books, and audio tapes from Dr. Wilson.
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