Love is infectious and the greatest healing energy — Sai Baba
In the face of life challenges and suffering through chronic illness, trauma, abuse, neglect or events such as divorce, death of a loved one or physical injury, healing emerges as a uniquely subjective process that can lead to repair, recovery and a return to personal wholeness and well-being.
Healing is more than the notion of ‘cure’ (removal of physical symptoms that fix a broken part). It extends to the positive, transformative process of a more complex journey that takes time and is multidimensional. It occurs on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels of existence and spans the spectrum from micro, cellular healing to macro, global wellness.
It is the power responsible for releasing grief, mending trouble and overcoming dysfunction through both internally and externally because it opens us up to the potential for unlikely and unlimited possibilities to play out in our personal triumph over suffering.
When healing takes place in a life, it transcends the suffering, distress and disease as it provides a template for a new version of a person to emerge. It is a process that may involve pronounced changes in life direction as a result of its presence in life:
Think of a wounded military veteran who heals from his physical and emotional (anger and blame) wounds to become a volunteer helping other wounded military work through their victimhood.
Steps to Healing
Whether healing occurs on a physically (healthy lifestyle, nutrition, rest), mentally (learning to shift behaviours, beliefs and life circumstances), emotionally (embracing forgiveness, allowing love and developing trust) or spiritually (gaining access to one’s authenticity and connection to higher self/the universe beyond ego), there is a common flow within the process:
- Identify What’s Not Working – Gain Perspective of the issues needing healing through inner reflection (bringing to consciousness hidden traumas, present events of current suffering) and acknowledge the associated emotional, mental or spiritual states.
- Reach out for safe support in order to begin a process for healing and release of suffering – professional assistance, help from trusted friends and family, working with Breathwork to access and release dysfunction.
- Accept personal responsibility by letting go of any feelings of victimhood, guilt, shame or blame around suffering. Nurture self-love and find creative ways to respond (rather than react) to any life challenge(s).
- Integrate and extend healing through bringing to consciousness the subconscious choices driving unhealthy outcomes. Take the risk to change behaviours, thoughts and beliefs as a result of greater self-trust and new more intelligent perspectives in life.
Actions that Nurture Healing
- Journal and work with affirmations
- Utilize psychotherapeutic professionals, Breathwork process and other techniques (massage, reiki, energy/bodywork) to improve the health of body, mind and spirit;
- Incorporate daily meditation practices to encourage detachment from suffering
- Engage positive emotional environments and make necessary changes to maintain that life choice. (It may mean changes in relationships, life or work situations.)
- Give and receive love, compassion and connection
- Become grateful and open to more intimate connections in your life
What Healing Can Mean …
When healing is integrated into life, the potential exists to make higher choices and better decisions in problematic life circumstances.
Healing results in lasting positive change, finds meaning in life, and supports the realization of inner wholeness that can deliver personal empowerment, deep self-love and the ability for authentic and honest self-expression.
It can improve mental, emotional, and spiritual harmony and provide a clear path to more genuine, compassionate and connecting relationships and perspectives in life.
Healing is, at its core, all about accessing love. In that discovery, we are continually in the process of healing and learning to come to peaceful reconciliation with any illness, or injury that arises in our path.
Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you – all of the expectations, all of the beliefs – and becoming who you are. – Rachel Naomi Remen
