Listen to your body for balance and health
January 27, 2009
Listening to your body’s messages is essential to maintaining balance and good health. Our fast pace of life, coupled with the constant stimulation of being wired to everything through TV, radios, cell phones and so on, creates an overload on the nervous system. In all the busyness and noise, we lose connection with the most fundamental “signals” of life — the valuable information that comes to us through bodily sensations and emotions. We need to learn to pay attention to what is happening in our bodies.
I remember once giving a stress management seminar to a busy staff and spending at least half an hour talking about the need to visit the bathroom when nature calls. Almost everyone admitted to feeling too busy to stop what they were doing to go to the bathroom, take a drink of water, stretch their bodies. Sometimes people were so absorbed in what they were doing that they didn’t even notice the signals of hunger and thirst. When they were aware of them, they couldn’t tear themselves away from what they were doing to take the necessary break. Some even felt guilty about taking the time away from their desk.
How often do you ignore basic needs? Do you rest when you are tired? Do you get as much sleep as you need? Do you eat when you are hungry, and stop eating when you’ve had enough? Do you drink when you are thirsty? Do you even notice? Our bodies tell us what they need to be balanced. Our job is to listen.
We can go a lot further than paying attention to these most basic needs. The need for sleep can be a “loud” signal from the body, but we can start to notice “softer” cues that our bodies give us as well. As we increase the awareness of our body’s signals, we get a lot of valuable information about how to keep it in balance.
The more we can perceive about what is going on in our bodies and emotions, the better. If you start to notice more subtle messages from your body, you can become aware of an imbalance before it manifests in a disease. You can notice when you begin to get tired and take a meditation break or a catnap. You can feel discomfort in your body before it screams in pain from a repetitive motion injury. You can notice things early and nip problems in the bud.
Of course, awareness is only the first step. Once you are aware of what your body is telling you, you need to follow through the action to bring it in balance. It can be difficult to form this habit. You may feel you don’t have the time, but in the long run a little time and attention here and there to care for your body can help avoid spending a lot of time having to heal something, not to mention avoiding unnecessary pain.
We created the Body Awareness Meditation specifically to help develop awareness of the body’s signals. It helps you to slow down tune in to your body, so that you can be sensitive to your body’s needs. Even beyond that, it is relaxing and grounding. Listening to the body isn’t just a way to avoid future pain. Much of life’s pleasure comes through the body. The sense of connection with the body is satisfying and worth cultivating for its own sake. Start paying attention to your body. It will thank you for it!
Transparency vs Spin in Healers
January 21, 2009
We would all love to believe that there’s a healer somewhere who can heal anything. Lots of people would love you to believe that they are that very healer! But the truth is such a healer doesn’t exist. The outcome of healing is always uncertain. The best of healers have people who don’t heal (at least in the ways they had hoped). Sometimes profound healings happen, and at other times nothing seems to happen. There are people who dedicate themselves to helping others heal and often they do. And yet, sometimes healing happens without a healer or an herb or supplement or anything that we can point to as a possible cause. “Spontaneous remissions” happen which do not involve a healer and sometimes aren’t even sought for. Someone could even fail to be healed with a skilled healer and then receive healing with a charlatan. All sorts of things can happen with healing.
Where do all these contradictions and paradoxes leave us? We aren’t left with easy answers, but if we are at least able to start by acknowledging what actually happens with healing rather than believe the spin that gets put on it, we at least have a chance of finding some useful answers.
There is a lot of talk now about transparency in government. We need to know what is actually going on, how things are being done, where they money is being spent and so on if we are going to be able to participate in shaping our futures. I think transparency when it comes to healing is also important. A recent comment on the website really struck me and made me want to address this issue.
Michele wrote:
“Why am I not experiencing Reiki as profoundly as EVERY publication describes, and why is there NOTHING on the internet or in books about Reiki difficulties?”
You can read Michele’s full comment and my reply here. Discussions about the challenges healers face and the varied outcomes they have do happen in some classes. They sometimes go on between students and their teachers or mentors of healing. But it’s true, you don’t see much about this in books or on the internet. My sense is that this is because most of what you read is by someone who is promoting a particular healing system or their own products and services. Of course, the only testimonials displayed are about the successes, not the “failures”. (Actually I don’t think there are failures in healing, but that’s a discussion for another time.) To some extent, those who make money as healers have an investment in keeping a mystique around healing, the idea that there’s some magic that can work every time. They may even do this unconsciously, selectively remembering the best outcomes and ignoring or explaining away the others. Whether conscious or unconscious, much of what you read about healing has a definite spin.
I feel it would be of great value to have more transparency in holistic and alternative healing. Although I feel the scientific method has its limitations in the realm of healing, it seems like science helps to keep the medical profession more “real”. You don’t see MDs advertising with testimonials to their cures. I think transparency might go a long way in helping us to be more mature and wise in the way we approach healing. That may not mean we subject everything to scientific research, but it would mean that we speak openly and truthfully about the outcomes we have actually observed. It would also mean that we look more deeply at what we mean by healing.
Of course, true transparency would change the face of marketing. Look at what it has done to commercials for drugs. After the lovely promise of a good night’s sleep or pain free joints, comes a long list of possible side effects. Although an ad for Reiki or an energy healer would not really need a list of side effects, it could include information about the different forms healing may take and reference to the inability to predict outcomes.
Often when people are attracted to becoming healers, it’s with unrealistic expectations. Unfortunately this can lead to disappointment and giving up on a path that could prove really rewarding. Because Michele’s experience didn’t match the descriptions she’d heard, she said:
“This makes me feel like I am not worthy to do Reiki, although I REALLY want to share it with others in a way that is truly helpful to them.”
My feeling is that if someone has the desire and intention to offer healing and does so in the right way, only good can come of it. It can nourish both the healer and the person seeking to be healed. Even the failure to achieve a desired result is a step along the way. Healing is always possible, even when it is not what we had hoped. It may just take a different form.
In the interests of exploring this more, and creating a place to discuss difficulties with healing and questions, I’ve created a Healers’ Corner page. I’d love to hear from healers about their views, experiences and questions about being a healer.
The secrets of self-healing
January 12, 2009
The body is a wonderful, self-healing mechanism. Our emotions and psychology also have powerful self-healing abilities. Take sleep, for example. As we sleep, not only is the body being refreshed and rejuvenated, but all sorts of things are being worked out in our minds and psyches as we sleep. The question is, how can we take advantage of the body’s ability to self-heal? What can be do to support it? Doing this is the essence of self-healing.
I’ve already written about Seven Essentials of Self-Healing. Today’s post is the first in a series in which I’ll go into detail about each of the essentials, or as I am now calling them “secrets”. Of course, I’m calling them secrets here to get your attention, but also because they fit an intriguing definition of secret “known or shared only by the initiated”. The initiation required is a kind of self-initiation. These aren’t secrets that are kept hidden by a master who will impart them to you when you meet the proper requirements. Rather, they are insights available when you pay attention to yourself, to your own inner master. And that master is your own intuition.
As you become aware of these “secrets”, they will seem quite obvious and make complete sense. In fact, you may find yourself saying “oh I knew that all along”. You may have heard some of these secrets many times over, but you haven’t really heard the secret, nor do you really know it, until you’ve discovered it as real for yourself. In fact, the first of the seven secrets is self-awareness. Self-awareness comes from paying attention. When we begin to pay attention to what is actually happening in our bodies, minds and emotions, a huge opportunity for self-healing opens up.
I’ll leave you with that thought. One of the most important steps you can take to promote self-healing is to pay attention to yourself — what is going on with your body, your emotions, your thoughts. More on that soon!