Self-Healing Secrets

Knowing how to approach your self-healing process can be a real quandary, particularly if you don’t have a favorite and specific energy healing modality. You can spend a lot of energy just figuring out how to think of self-healing in a general context.

Recently, one of my readers asked a really great question regarding a general approach to self-healing. It was significant enough that I sent it to several of my colleagues for their consideration and comments.

Here is what was posed to me. The writer wondered what I thought about an approach to healing where you never think about your body, but instead have thoughts that made you feel emotionally good, and as a result your body would automatically realign itself. Since I have historically chosen to lovingly focus on the area of my body needing attention, I wanted some additional insights to this query. Here are a couple of responses I received.

Dr. Valerie Olmstead, NMD wrote me with this observation about holding positive feelings and trusting the body would align to those feelings, “Yah, of course! If, that is, one is intending alignment.” This is an important distinction. If you are feeling good emotionally, but not holding an intention for the body to align to that feeling, you might make very little progress physically.

If we take this a bit further, the concept proposed to me seems to assume that good emotions and physical discomfort cannot exist together. This seeming assumption opens up another question. Is it possible to be emotionally happy and still be in physical distress?

I know from personal experience, that it is possible to be emotionally happy and physically ill or uncomfortable. I have witnessed this in others as well. For example, imagine that you are quite ill and someone you love comes to visit you. You might feel your heart leap and reach your hand out for them. Perhaps you automatically sit up to hug them, and increase your pain level for having made the effort, yet feel love and happiness just holding them in your arms.

Consider a time when you were in discomfort and someone said something that caused you to laugh. There you are feeling pure joy and delight, while simultaneously saying, “Ouch,” because the laughing itself caused you to feel more physical discomfort. So positive emotions and physical pain are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

If you have ever been ill or in chronic pain for an extended period of time, you know how difficult it is to keep your emotions in a positive place. The illness and pain seem to scream at you to pay attention to your body. If you could actually maintain focus on positive emotions, ignoring the demands of your body, and your intention was clear that the body was to align with the positive emotions you are feeling, I could see how this approach might be effective. Having been in intense discomfort, I’m not sure I personally could do it.

My friend and shaman, healer, Maria Mar, made a significant observation about positive emotions and their helpful or limiting roles in healing. “There is a lot of ‘feel good’ that is ego-bound. It is lodged in what I call the Second-hand heart. The one that carries the emotional scripts, expectations and dramas. That kind of feel-good is not healing or re-aligning and it is usually part of the attachment to the dis-ease.”

Maria makes it clear that just having positive emotions may not lend to ultimate healing, if the good feelings are caught up in the very ego attachments that helped to create the illness to begin with, or contribute to the illness’ ongoing existence.

This is a powerful distinction. There are certain positive emotional states that do contribute to healing and others that, depending upon your personal attachments, may not be helping you heal. Let’s say that you are deeply in love with someone that is leaving the intimate relationship you have had with them. Your heart is aching emotionally and physically. If you are attached to receiving intimate love from only that person and you have an attachment to how that love must be reciprocated to you, you have a drama of expectation wrapped around the positive emotion of love.

You can literally develop chest pains, high blood pressure, loss of weight and more in an attempt to keep beliefs about your version of what that love must look like and feel like alive in your life. This is not the kind of belief or positive emotion that will help you heal.

In my own experience, not attending directly to the part of my body that is speaking loudly to me usually results in it yelling louder through more pain. Yes, I can remove myself from the pain for a period of time through a form of meditation that takes me into states of bliss, but when I am more grounded in my body, the part of the body in pain wants attention.

Rather than not attending to the pain, it has been my personal preference to go into it. That’s right—into the pain, illness or discomfort. By being present to the sub-textual message my body is carrying, my body relaxes into a state of healing freedom. By being present in loving compassion, without judgment regarding its existence or reason for being, the motivations and needs behind the pain are acknowledged, and then heal naturally in the presence of centered, loving compassion.

Is it possible to heal in the manner suggested by my reader where you do not attend to the body and rather hold positive emotions so that the body can automatically align? I imagine it is possible, provided your intention is very clear and your emotions are based in loving compassion, rather than bound to emotions that are actually part of the healing trauma. And your thoughts and beliefs (conscious and subconscious) are in the right positive framework. If any subconscious need is being met by the illness, the condition will prevail, regardless of what your feelings might be.

In my experience healing personally and as a healer supporting others, I have discovered that beliefs, feelings and intentions must all be in alignment. If any one area is caught in the drama that contributes to the illness, some subconscious or conscious need is being met by the illness, and your healing is not likely to progress.

May I suggest that while the concept presented holds some truth, it is probably not complete in and of itself. Other factors need to be considered in creating a holistic response to illness and the creation of health. That said, if I were going to focus on one positive feeling with which to invite my body into alignment, I would choose compassion. Feelings—emotional and physical; positive and negative—held in compassion, lead us to truth. Freeing the self into the truth beyond the attachments and dramas provides the greatest opportunity for healing at every level.

A teacher once said to me, “Most people are lying to themselves most of the time.”

“Yah, right,” I thought as I blew off the concept as nonsense.

However, that kind of statement has a way of sticking with you, and I couldn’t get it out of my thoughts. “How often am I lying to myself?” I wondered.

I started monitoring my thoughts and my words. I would catch myself frequently speaking the truth—almost. I’d hear myself saying things like, “I always show up on time to an event if I’m going there alone.” “I never say bad things about my family.” “I’m completely over my family of origin issues.” If something happened twice, I would exaggerate and make it sound like it happened all the time.

Some of what I was saying was true, but exaggerated. Yes, I was usually on time when I went to an event alone, but not always. I didn’t usually say bad things about my family anymore, but I wasn’t completely immune to gossiping. About the time I thought I was completely over anything, I usually ended up pulling up some new corner of the carpet only to find some dust bunnies that had not yet been cleaned out. Somehow I thought in order to make my point, I needed to make it sound more dramatic in order to ensure I would be heard.

With my most intimate friends I would act like everything was okay, when I was really upset about something. When I was angry with my partner, through gritted teeth, I would tell him everything was just fine and turn my back on him. When it came to healing, here was the worst one: I told myself I really felt great, as though my subconscious mind didn’t know I was lying to myself.

Then I started listening to other people. I listened with my inner, spiritual ears, not just my outer ones. I could tell when someone told me everything was fine and it wasn’t. With just a few compassionate questions, I frequently discovered what a person was really feeling and experiencing inside. I listened to my friends exaggerate stories about situations, where I had been present and knew what had really happened. I listened to people make excuses in order to feel better about themselves.

I wasn’t the only one lying to myself.

Now I’m not advocating a life of moping and complaining. I’m not suggesting that positive affirmations can’t help you make changes in beliefs and behavior. And I’m not suggesting that a little exaggeration in story-telling should be banned.

What I discovered was that lying to myself didn’t help me feel any better and it didn’t meet the need that I most longed to have met. I wanted to be heard and deeply understood. So my little lies were ways in which I was trying to get attention.

Thank goodness for talking circles. By sitting with others in circle and agreeing to speak only truth, I soon realized that it is far more fulfilling to hear my real truth. As I learned to tell the truth more and more, I discovered that I trusted myself more and I created more authentic, trusting relationships with other.

In healing, I soon discovered that stating I didn’t feel well, was quite different than complaining or whining about it. By stating it plainly, I was acknowledging what was real and in doing so, I discovered I was more invested in making a change. When I complained or exaggerating how I felt, in retrospect, I realize I was feeding the illness. Pretending I was feeling okay was a form of denial and didn’t establish trust between my conscious and subconscious mind.

Simply telling the truth was all I needed to motivate me to act with greater conviction on my own behalf. I used affirmations that were more honest in my healing. I’m drinking this medicinal tea so that I will feel better, and I am grateful for the healing energy of this herb. I give thanks for its soothing nature and how my body receives its healing gifts. I felt what I was saying as I spoke, honestly and with hope.

Maybe he was right. Maybe most people are lying to themselves most of the time. I certainly found that my little lies were holding me back from true healing freedom. Truth is a powerful healer, and now that I know that, I do my best to courageously speak my real truth so that my subconscious mind and conscious mind can work together for my greater health.

Have you ever considered making a change you knew would probably positively and significantly improve your health, and then chose not to do it?

I know I have. Those are moments that became regrets. Those are the illnesses I suffered longer than necessary because I was ignoring the discomfort, hoping it would go away because I was too busy to deal with it. Even though I know better, I actually did that with a headache today.

My head hurt and I took something for it that usually helps immediately. Nothing happened. So instead of lying down and resting, or meditating with it to get a clearer sense about the cause (such as whether it is stress, hormones or sinuses), I kept plowing ahead with work I wanted to accomplish. Finally the headache got the best of me and I laid down to sleep for a while.

When I got up, I kept my activities light and was feeling much better. Recognizing it was probably a combination of hormones and reaction to the pollen in the air, I did some yoga stretches, and immediately felt relief.

Here is was caught up in habits and bit of self-importance (ie. I have so much that needs to be done, I can’t take time out for a headache right now). And I show people to listen to their body/soul wisdom, honor it and act on it. I teach this stuff! Yet, here I was ignoring my own health.

Are you as stubborn as I am? Do you find yourself doing what is normal and familiar, rather than doing what you know you need to do in order to get better?

So today, I asked myself, “Is my writing really so important that taking an hour or even a day off would create a cataclysmic hole in the matrix of the universe so big that humanity would never recover?” Yes, I’m poking fun at myself because I know it will make me laugh and shake the absurdity out of me! Yes, my work is important, but it is not more important than my health, and neither is yours.

Let me ask you, “Are any of your patterns, habits, work, or service more important than your health?” “How about your family? Are their needs more important than your health?” “Is your job and your sense of being needed more important than your health.”

Now ask yourself this, “Are really able to be of your best service to your family or job when you feel awful?”

Tough questions, I know. But how else do we break-through our tendency to do what is familiar? You know the answer. Either we ask ourselves some tough questions and make some changes or we get so sick that we have to make changes.

If you are like me, maybe there are times when you wait until you are feeling desperate before you make change. It occurred to me some time ago that desperate action meant I had missed earlier opportunities to make easier, more loving choices for myself. I decided it was a far more enjoyable journey to act from inspiration rather than desperation.

Sometimes I still wait until I’m a little desperate before I act, like I did in waiting to address my headache. But wouldn’t it have been wiser to act from a little inspiration early on? Wouldn’t it have made sense to listen to my body/soul immediately, and have gotten into a quiet and soothing healing meditation, acting on the insights I received immediately? I could have nipped that headache immediately. I could have enjoyed more of my day.

I hope you will allow my confession to be inspiration for you. Don’t wait until later on to honor your body. Ask a friend or family member to take care of the family for a while. Take time off work or ease up on your goals so that you can focus more energy on your healing. Take advantage of the summer weather. Spend some days away from the chaos and demands of home.

Give yourself time to slow down, reflect and listen to your body. Then have the courage to take the action that you need to take immediately. You deserve to feel better right now.

An excerpt from my free report—“Beating the Odds: How to Identify 10 Beliefs that Can Short-Circuit Your Healing.”

You’ve probably thought it or heard somebody imply that healing is difficult. If we don’t get an immediate positive response from a drug, herb, remedy, healing therapy, surgery or intervention, it is easy for us to assume healing is difficult. But is it really difficult, or has our social consciousness come to expect quick-fixes, and when the fix isn’t quick then the path is difficult? Have we come to expect that somebody else will fix us up and we won’t have to expend any more effort than going to a doctor or healer?

The following is an excerpt from a free report I wrote, http://selfempoweredhealthseminar.com/, exposing some of the common beliefs that can inhibit our healing progress, including the belief that healing is difficult. Sometimes these beliefs are lingering in the back of our minds—not obvious—but present and affecting the results we are longing for yet not getting. Here are some insights from the report about healing being difficult.

Actually, there is some truth to this. Healing requires effort, but I’m not sure I would say difficult, nor would I assume it is difficult in every instance. In fact, some of the best healing I have ever experienced was downright pleasant, and occurred with a measure of ease.

Healing requires effort—focused effort. Whether you are accessing your own energetic healing abilities or drawing in the right professionals and treatments, you need to be fully invested in the process, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. Quite frankly, pain and long-term illness are likely to be far more difficult than making the concerted effort required to heal.

How about you? Have you found healing to be difficult?

Check back here at Self-Healing Secrets for more on this topic. In the next article we’ll take a look at the degree of difficulty (or ease) in finding the right doctor and/or professionals to help you heal.