| HEALING
COMES IN MANY FORMS. We seek relief from physical pain when
our bodies hurt, from emotional pain when we’re depressed, sad,
and out of love with ourselves, and from spiritual pain when we’re
out of love with God or believe He/She is out of love with us.
The body is the vehicle through which our souls function in the physical
world. The physical body is not destined to live forever. Inevitably,
it wears out, no matter what care we give it. It is meant to be recycled,
as that is the way the soul learns and advances from life to life. Just
as we don’t mistake the wrapper on a candy bar for the chocolate
inside, we don’t want to mistake our physical bodies for our souls,
the generators of the power of love. The soul is an essential part of
our being; it doesn’t feel pain or discomfort in the brief time
we live on Earth.
Our bodies don’t choose to be in pain, either. They constantly
readjust, correcting for the damage done by the foods and beverages
we eat and drink, the drugs we use, the polluted water we imbibe, the
dirty air we breathe, and our lack of exercise. Our bodies are living,
feeling fields of energy that flow in harmony with our thoughts, beliefs,
and attitudes about every aspect of our lives. Our bodies are “conscious”
essences rather than machines, and our inner chatter imprints our fears
and worries on them.
“I’m so stupid. Why can’t I do anything right?”
“That’s a dumb idea,” we say without thinking.
“She’s incompetent. Why don’t they fire her?”
“He doesn’t understand anything.” We are oblivious
to this negative self-talk that continues in our heads all day long.
Each negative judgment of ourselves or others sits in our energy fields.
When we feel unhappy, out of control, or victimized by life, we iron
those negative attitudes and beliefs into our tissues. Eventually, our
energy flow is slowed down, producing the physical imbalances we know
as disease.
We can see how the body has reacted to years of negative comments by
observing the flows of energy through the seven main energy bowls or
chakras. As on a radar screen, we can pick up intuitively what the body
is “hearing,” and we can do it in time to change the destructive
messages, which, if continued, could result in disease.
Because we are each wired as a fully-integrated living system, in order
to facilitate positive healing changes we need information from the
three levels of ourselves: body, mind, and spirit.
Physical
Healing
Physical healing is the restoration of functional health in the body,
which is what we commonly think of as healing. In reality, it is the
last in a series of energy shifts that make it possible for the body
to heal. The first step is connecting with our essence, our spiritual
selves. Next, we begin to shift the old ways of thinking and feeling
associated with our pain. When new emotional patterns are well established,
the stage is set for us to heal physically.
Pain alerts us to a problem so that we can take action to eliminate
it. If we have pain from a splinter, we probably won’t spend much
time considering the emotional and spiritual implications behind it.
But if we’re diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, we will
spend a lot of time trying to understand why we got sick and what we
can do about it on all three levels of healing.
Acute pain is pain that is sharp in the moment, but once the source
of the pain is removed, the body is pain-free. Appendicitis is associated
with acute pain. When your inflamed appendix is removed, your pain disappears.
Chronic pain is a more difficult type of pain to handle because it wears
away at our good intentions and our assumption that we’re going
to be all right and have a normal life.
Acute pain may be the result of a series of emotional upheavals or long-standing
beliefs that settle in a certain area or organ, like the appendix. Chronic
pain can represent long-standing beliefs or attitudes held not only
by us but also by our parents, grandparents, or even an earlier generation.
Many times, people are healing from years and even generations of negative
thinking.
We know that we have physical predispositions toward certain diseases
such as heart disease and breast cancer. The link that creates disease
in successive generations may be more emotional than physical or genetic.
The emotional patterns that were flawed in earlier generations may,
however, be the same ones we’ve learned as children. Breast cancer,
for example, demands that we nourish ourselves by giving time and attention
to our needs—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It also
requires us to understand the impact of major losses, to grieve our
losses, and to find the blessing—the part of our authentic selves
that is ready to shine in a new way. As we honor the process of healing
at all levels, we move out of harm’s way, reprieved from dreaded
illnesses that hang over our heads through successive generations. When
we shift the distribution of energy in our energy bowls, we change the
energy balance in our bodies and become healthier and happier.
Emotional
Healing
Emotional healing helps us to release painful experiences, disappointments,
and sorrows in our lives—all the ways we’ve been undone rather than
empowered by events in our lives. When we experience more suffering
than joy, more worry than contentment, we’re probably in need of emotional
healing. This type of healing used to be the sole province of a minister,
rabbi, priest, or psychiatrist. Today, a vast array of energy-healing
therapies is available to us as well as myriad trained counselors and
practitioners skilled in helping people release their old pains and
repair old wounds.
We didn’t accumulate our painful attitudes and beliefs overnight, and
we can’t transform them overnight. The process of healing and developing
a positive attitude is just that, a process. It’s exciting and beneficial,
and sometimes it takes our full attention, but at other times we coast
along, reaping the benefits of the work we’ve already done. The enormous
opportunity and gift we give ourselves is to find out how we’re put
together and what part our thinking and feeling play in our overall
well-being. Finding out about ourselves and giving ourselves permission
to delve into our inner lives is the place to start.
Whether we’re versed in emotional and spiritual exploration or not,
whether our careers involve helping people or not, we are human and
have a human need to talk about our emotional dilemmas. Talking to others
helps us find our direction, especially when we talk to a sensitive
friend or to a professional who has the emotional and spiritual makeup
that fits with ours. We have many people to choose from, but for our
healing, it’s extremely important to exercise our inner authority by
choosing friends and counselors who respect our feelings and opinions.
We are the ultimate experts on ourselves. While medical professionals
can order important tests and procedures that indicate our level of
functional health, we are the ones who must take in what is offered
and make it our own. We are the experts on our lives because we have
a life-long perspective. We have known ourselves since the cradle, and
we are aware of experiences and feelings that we’ve never shared with
anyone. Emotionally, healing is deciding that we can trust our choices,
realizing that we all make mistakes and sometimes fail at what we’ve
tried. For many of us, trusting ourselves is a radical departure, but
it’s a vital step in emotional healing and personal empowerment.
Spiritual Healing
The most natural and least-understood aspect of healing is spiritual
or sacred healing. With physical and emotional healing, we experience
pain and know we need to take action. We look for a direct connection
between the problem we’re experiencing and the remedy, treatment, or
therapy. Spiritual pain, however, is neither obvious nor short-term.
There is no direct link between our feelings of disconnection from the
Source and an answer or solution that offers relief. Relief from this
pain comes moment-by-moment and day-by-day, as we choose to explore
the Great Mystery. The search itself is our healing.
Because we are spiritual creatures, we come into this life with a yearning
to know God. We enter and are abruptly detached from the obvious connection
to spirit that is our lifeline. We have no explanation for this, except
to learn, through trial and error, what brings us lasting joy and satisfaction.
We may spend many years looking for relief from our inner uneasiness
with God or our lack of satisfaction in religion. We may want a more
personal relationship with the Creator, or we may want a relationship
that is based in the magnificence of the natural world or in connection
to the global family.
In our spiritual quest, we’re drawn this way and that, looking for a
belief system that feels right to us. This process of searching is the
actual healing experience. From the moment we ask our first question
about the quality of life, we’re on a Sacred Path. Gradually, we move
from assuming that spiritual healing means arriving at a destination
to accepting that it is the sacred process of questioning, learning,
reacting, absorbing, and accepting our evolving beliefs and faith. We
move from wanting to think our way into a spiritual belief system to
allowing the sacred process to infuse us with the spiritual qualities
of our experiences. Sacred healing comes from wanting to know what you’re
doing on the Earth, how best to use your time, and the obligations and
pleasures of sharing with others. Sacred questions lead to sacred answers.
The process of sacred healing is available to each of us.
Healing at a spiritual level is learning to love. The more we love,
the less self-conscious and afraid we are of failing. The more we love,
the happier and more satisfied we become with our efforts each day.
The more we love, the more connected we are with our inner lives and
the lives of others. The more we love, the better we know that God is
the essence that generates the goodness we reap so much benefit from,
and that loving is the name and the face of The Almighty.
© 2003
Meredith Young-Sowers
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Meredith
Young-Sowers began her professional
career as an intuitive healer in January 1981, when she began to sense
a nonphysical presence during her morning meditations. It appeared
to her in wavelike shades of purple, floating in her mind¹s eye. 