Lessons From Healing People That We Can Apply To Healing Humanity – Part 3

Lessonsfromhealingpeoplethatwecanapplypart3

In 30 years of learning and teaching healing, I’ve had a chance to observe the patterns that accompany the healing experience. I often reflect on how similar they are at all levels, from physical to emotional to relationship to financial, and from individual to family to team to community to society to global and beyond. 

I’ve also noticed that our cultural expectations around healing vary across the world. In the cultures I know best (UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand), we’re heavily influenced by Christian stories and so we’re usually looking for miracles. One of the biggest and most important jobs of healing is to educate people on what the healing process really is, and it isn’t always miraculous. Christ spent most of his time teaching people too, but it’s inevitably the most dramatic stories that tend to stick in the cultural consciousness.

I talked about miracles in Part 2 of this series. Today, I’m writing about the inner process of non-miraculous healing. I believe this process has profound implications for where we are as a species. We’re living it, not observing it. Understanding its inner workings can help us all. 

If you want to read the previous parts of this series, they’re here:

Part 1 – The process of natural healing

Part 2 – 15 lessons learned from natural healing

Results often come easy at the beginning.
It’s common when you start any healing process to get some quick results, usually in the first few weeks or months. People often think this progress means that the modality they’ve found is THE ANSWER. But those results come because, at an energetic level, you’re more open when you start something new, so you receive a lot of new energy. It’s this energy that does much of the healing. 

It’s common when you start any healing process to get some quick results, usually in the first few weeks or months. People often think this progress means that the modality they’ve found is THE ANSWER. But those results come because, at an energetic level, you’re more open when you start something new, so you receive a lot of new energy. It’s this energy that does much of the healing. 

If, after a while, you get used to your new modality, you’ll become a little more closed or complacent and your results will slow down. This doesn’t mean something is wrong; it’s human nature. Let this slowing down remind you that being open is one of the biggest keys to healing. Initial progress can come quickly; it can take a lot longer to develop the habit of being open so you can go all the way to full health.

There are always ups and  downs
The process of healing usually goes up and down like a wave. The ups feel good and the downs feel bad. Understand that every time there’s an up there’s going to be a down. 

For a while, the ups and downs can be so strong that they make you feel unstable. The aim is to gradually reduce the height of the ups and the depth of the downs so you become peaceful.

Many people want the ups to get higher and higher. This will result in worse and worse downs. Healing comes when you make peace and feel good all the time, not when you feel amazing one day and terrible the next. 

The first down after the first up is very disappointing
After you experience your first improvement, it’s normal to get worse again. This is can be very dispiriting and disappointing. You may not be prepared to feel worse again and you may decide that whatever you’re doing is not working. It’s easy to give up at this point, but this downturn is simply part of the process.

The second down after the second up is even more disappointing
After that first down, you will experience another up and it will feel great. When the second down inevitably comes, it can feel devastating, as if you’re worse than when you started. You forget everything you’ve learned so far. You’re even more likely to give up at this point. 

There are often spikes in symptoms that would send a doctor into an over-medicating spin
It’s common for there to be a sharp increase in your symptoms at some stage. Many people feel fine or much better, but find out their test results are terrible. A doctor seeing this will tell you your condition has gotten much worse and will probably give you medication to try to stabilise the situation. Your body will then have to work extra hard to release the toxins in the medication while continuing the healing.

Some people call this a healing crisis. It’s a moment when panic comes easily unless you’re being guided by someone experienced.

You get better at it
As you pass through wave after wave, you begin to get the hang of the whole process. You discover how to relax instead of reacting emotionally to the downs, and how to not get too excited about the ups. It’s a process of making peace with your symptoms, which causes them to ease over time. At a certain point they no longer control you. You find yourself able to let go of them increasingly quickly, and you have a different relationship with the original problem. You no longer consider yourself sick because you know you’re getting healthier; it’s just a matter of time.

The  dark before the  dawn
Often, when it’s going really well and you believe you’re almost there, you’re hit by the worst symptoms ever. It feels like you’ve gone right back to where you started or much worse and this is the hardest stage of all. It’s bitter to have learned and changed so much only to find out you’re a failure – at least that’s what it seems like at the time. Your investment of time, energy, and money into healing feels wasted; it’s truly depressing to be worse than when you set out on your healing journey. It also feels intensely unfair. 

You may be in so much pain (or some other form of suffering) that it’s taking all of your energy to survive it. It’s horrible.

This is the dark before the dawn. It’s the darkest part of the night, just before the first light shows. It’s vital to remember this so you don’t give up on the key moment. This point of crisis is where you finally let go of the deep pattern of the disease or condition. Once you’re through it, you can heal all the way; once dawn begins, day follows.

There’s a lot more going on than we can see
We tend to experience the physical aspect of healing more than anything else, but there’s much more happening than meets the eye. It helps to remember this. I always have a sense that there’s a team of invisible beings helping me with any kind of healing. Remembering that makes a difference; I’m not alone in the struggle and there’s help available that’s far more skilful than what I or any other human being can do. The more you can tune in to what’s going on behind the scenes, the more fascinating and rewarding the whole experience is.

What it takes to heal
What it really takes to heal, in my experience, is a lot of relaxation and letting go, genuine self-love (i.e. willingness to do everything you can to support your health and happiness), patience, courage, and a degree of stubbornness. It also helps to have good support, either from a teacher or from friends who are experienced and confident. There is always fear associated with any sickness, and releasing that fear can be, not surprisingly, frightening. It makes a huge difference to have the support of someone steady who understands what’s going on.

Understanding the process
I’m a big believer in helping people understand the process of healing. Such understanding helps your mind cooperate; otherwise it will usually try to sabotage the whole process. It often helps to have some wise words to remember and repeat when you’re going through a difficult time. Hearing other people’s success stories is also invaluable.

What’s the real benefit of healing
What I’ve described above sounds challenging and, frankly, unattractive, but the process of healing is also a beautiful experience of waking up to who you really are. You will treasure for the rest of your life what you discover about yourself and about how life really works. 

When you’ve been through several healing processes, which don’t necessarily have to be serious diseases, you start to lose your fear of illness. As you go along, you also learn the keys to prevention, which is immensely powerful knowledge. This frees you to be creative with your life. 

You gradually recognise that many of the problems of old age are really health problems and, since you now understand how to prevent or heal those, so your life starts to extend in front of you. Over time, you realise that other people are struggling with issues that don’t bother you at all. Or a problem you see someone else dealing with for months is done leaves you within a few days or even less. Illnesses that are extremely uncomfortable for others pass through you easily and lightly, if at all. 

You also discover how to live more lightly in the world, with less suffering and more enjoyment. You treat yourself and others better and develop a greater respect for life and nature. You appreciate and cooperate with the laws of nature instead of trying to fight or overcome them (which never works in the long term). 

Do we have to go through all of this?
Given the benefits of natural healing, I would say it’s the best prescription for where we are in human evolution today. Trying to find artificial solutions will only increase the toxicity of human life and we’ve already reached a point where we’re way beyond an acceptable level of toxicity on multiple fronts. 

I know this process sounds intensely uncomfortable. That’s why few people opt for natural healing most of the time. They’re afraid of pain and will do anything to get rid of it as quickly as possible, regardless of the long-term consequences. They view natural healing as a last resort, to be considered only after other options have failed.  

The most important reason for healing, in my view, is that it always brings with it an upgrade to life. In fact, that’s what I believe sickness is all about. It arises because change is taking place, and because of our general ignorance of the laws of nature, we usually resist that change. In the early stage, our resistance shows up emotionally. We lose our inner peace and stability. If the resistance continues, it increasingly affects our physical health. If we continue to resist even further, it can result in chronic or terminal illness. 

If we want to move beyond our current level of quality of life, we can either willingly embrace change as a species, or experience the pain of resistance. We’ll still change because change is inevitable. The less we resist it, the more we’ll be able to access the joy and adventure of moving into a more evolved way of living. 

It’s important to understand that I’m talking now at the species level. Many people have already embraced a healthy, natural lifestyle, more or less, but we’re all connected and we’re living in a world with too much pollution at every level, from the personal to the global. Change is necessary. We’re on the edge of a healing process to clean things up.

Is there a better or easier way?
There’s always a better way but we don’t always know what it is. I’ve found that the best thing I can do is to be sincere and committed to the best possible outcome, to let go of the details of how it will happen, and to trust that life can do more and better than I am personally capable of imagining. Sometimes that works magnificently. And even if it doesn’t, I’m still healing.

 

Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash

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