A true healer
January 18, 2008
It was long before I lay down on the table for acupuncture that I began to feel healing happening. It was in the tone of his voice, his total lack of judgment, the loving quality which seemed to surround him. I came to him very much in need of healing as I had been experiencing excruciating back pain for three weeks. My emotional body was totally jangled and I felt overwhelmed. By the end of the session, I felt completely different, and the session proved to be a real turning point in my healing process.
Of course, we all respond to different healers, and a someone who is a healer for me might not be a healer for you. It also depends on our receptivity at the time we see someone, as well as factors too complicated and mysterious to fully uncover which have to do with why something heals when it does. Nevertheless, this acupuncturist was definitely a healer for me. As I left his office, I thought “this is a true healer” and started to think about the qualities that make for a good healer and positive healing experience. Since I’ve heard other people in my area call him a healer as well, I felt it was worth exploring the qualities that are present in an effective healer.
Here are some of the things I came up with, and I’d be interesting in what others might add to the list:
- Is non-judgmental. I felt completely accepted and did not feel like I was being judged in any way.
- Makes life-supporting, positive statements. He spoke of his findings in positive terms. For example, he might say “your core issue is with this chakra and I’ll give that some attention”, rather than “this chakra is clogged up and blocked”. None of his statements created a sense of alarm or fear or discouragement. He never made me feel “broken” in any way.
- Is supportive without being emotionally reactive.
- Cares without being emotionally involved.
- Is self-confident and yet humble.
- Creates a sense of safety and trust.
- Works in partnership with you. Honors your thoughts and perceptions.
- Is not attached to the outcome of the work.
- Is open to questions.
- Listens deeply.
As I wrote this list, I realized how difficult it is to describe exactly what makes someone a good healer. There is a quality of “presence” that is impossible to describe. Something about them invokes a “healing response” in you. Perhaps the best way to identify a true healer is to tune into how you respond to someone. Healing is much more likely to happen if the healer makes you feel relaxed and safe, so that you are open and receptive to their treatments.
I’m also struck by the fact that I never mentioned this healer’s expertise in acupuncture. He is obviously very skilled both in acupuncture and energy therapy (he used hands-on energy healing as well as acupuncture). My sense is that while technical skill is very important, in many cases it will be useless if the healer’s personality does not allow you to be receptive.
Do our thoughts make us sick?
May 7, 2007
It’s a very popular idea in some circles that we create our reality with our thoughts. I’d like to investigate that idea and see if it really holds up in our common experience. In particular, I’d like to see how it relates to our health, or lack thereof.
If I look at my own life, I see plenty of examples where thinking did not make it so. Years ago I when I got pregnant I held the idea firmly in my mind that I was going to have a model pregnancy. Everything about the pregnancy and birth was going to be perfect. I simply wouldn’t allow any thoughts to the contrary to take root. What happened couldn’t have been further from my imaginings. I ended up with a very rare disease of pregnancy and almost lost my life. I contrast that with the fact that I tend to be a bit of a hypochondriac and have imagined myself with all sorts of diseases that I’ve never gotten. If thoughts came true, I wouldn’t be here writing this newsletter! One final example concerns my mother. She had a long held belief that she would not live to an old age. She was unwavering in this conviction, and yet she lived to be 93.
Take a look at your own life and see if there’s any evidence that you thought yourself into illnesses you’ve had. Chances are there are times when your thoughts corresponded with what happened and other times when they didn’t. I’ve seen people become fearful when a “negative” thought appears and quickly replace it with a positive affirmation. This seems like such a struggle to me and I don’t think that changing the content of our thoughts makes a difference to our health.
I do feel, however, that emotions affect our health. Chemical correlates to emotional states such as fear have been clearly demonstrated. All we have to do is tune into our own bodies to be aware of the powerful impact of emotions. My sense is that the emotions that accompany our thoughts are what can affect us, and it is our emotional states that we need to address. To simply try to replace negative with positive thoughts is too superficial an approach.
What do you think? What has your experience been?
“No mother? Don’t worry, as long as you have Triphala…”
May 2, 2007
Triphala, one of the most popular remedies in traditional Indian medicine (“Ayurveda”), is thought to care for the internal organs as a mother does for her children. That explains the popular folk saying that forms the title of this post. A compound of three fruits, triphala is also becoming popular in the US as a laxative, especially because it does not promote dependency and actually strengthens the bowels. It is said to have the unique ability to gently cleanse and detoxify the body while simultaneously replenishing and nourishing it.
I was first exposed to triphala when I was being trained as an Ayurvedic technician and walked into a kitchen where a strong smelling potion was simmering on the stove. It was being prepared for someone to take as part of a cleansing routine. I prepare it that same way for my own use, but most people would prefer to take it in tablet or capsule form as it has a very strong, bitter taste.
Although I began using triphala for its laxative properties, I have learned that it has a whole host of other uses. In addition to being a bowel regulator, triphala is said to:
- improve digestion
- reduce serum cholesterol
- improve circulation
- have a cardioprotective effect
- reduce high blood pressure
- improve liver function
- have anti-inflammatory and anti-viral properties
- assist internal cleansing
- have antioxidant properties
- cleanse and strengthen the urinary tract
There has been a lot of research on triphala’s many benefits, including some which indicates that triphala may be able to help combat cancer. A BBC news article recently reported research at the University of Pittsburgh which confirms what Indian scientists have long proclaimed — triphala has been shown to have anti-cancer effects. They found that extracts of triphala slowed the growth of human pancreatic tumors grafted onto mice.
Although you need to do your own research, triphala seems to me to be one of the most beneficial formulas you can take for overall health. It’s relatively inexpensive and I haven’t found anything to indicate there’s any risk in taking it. You can consult one of the many good books on Ayurveda on how to use it.
Wishing you well!
“You don’t have a mother? Don’t worry, as long as you have Triphala in your life!”
On emotional healing — moods vs. emotions
April 13, 2007
An essential key to emotional healing, or any healing, is the ability to experience our emotions fully. Seems like that should be simple, but it’s not. We’re incredibly complex beings whose past conditioning often makes the experience of emotions complicated. From the point of view of energy medicine, emotions are a form of energy and energy needs to flow freely for health. When emotional energy is moving unobstructed, an emotion will be felt with clarity and intensity and will be short-lived.
What happens when the emotions cannot be experienced in this way? My sense is that not only would the obstructed energy impact the body, but we would also experience it subjectively in the form of “moods”. For example, I feel that depression can sometimes be accounted for by the inability to feel sadness and grief fully. The energy that would have been felt as sadness accumulates when it is repressed and is then experienced as depression. In this model, sadness would be a primary human emotion and depression would be a mood.
I first began to think in terms of moods and emotions when I attended a workshop several years ago with a physician who studied with David Berenson, MD. Berenson trained as a psychiatrist and family therapist and has spent many years developing what he calls the “Map of Emotions”. He distinguishes between true human feelings and moods which are thoughts permeated with feeling. The Map of Emotions details which emotions are the foundation for which moods and names the various moods and emotions we experience in great detail. The essence of the workshop was that healing requires that we be able to experience the pure emotion all the way through in order to allow the moods to be resolved. We worked with a simple process in pairs to allow this to happen.
I haven’t been able to find anything in writing about Berenson’s work and certainly don’t feel I can represent his thinking. The distinction between moods and emotions, however, has stuck with me.
It can be very useful to learn to distinguish emotions and moods in ourselves. The mood can be resolved by locating the raw emotion within it. If moods are “thoughts permeated with feeling”, we can disentangle the feeling from the thought by bringing our awareness to the feeling. Simply experiencing the feeling all the way allows it to move through and the mood can be resolved.
Moods extend in time and they color our perceptions and evaluation of things. Mental involvement with the emotion keeps the energy from being released. The key to a healthy emotional life is the ability to allow the emotions to be experienced freely. To do this, we need to let the mind take a back seat and trust the natural flow of life as it expresses itself in emotion.
(I’ve created a guided meditation on my Meditation Oasis podcast called “Emotional Ease” which is designed to help the emotions to flow freely. You can hear it at iTunes or by following this link.)
What if I’m not the main character? The ultimate meaning of holistic healing.
March 26, 2007
When I first heard about holistic healing I was thrilled. It was about all of me — my mind, my body, my psyche, my spirit. As my definition of healing expands, however, I see that we really can’t talk about holism in healing from the narrow perspective of the individual. This is not to say that it isn’t crucial that our approach to healing include all levels of the individual. It is, and yet if we are really to evolve as human beings, we need to be able to consider the health of the whole of which we as individuals are merely a part. We need to do this for the health of humanity as a whole as well as for the health of the planet.
I saw a tee shirt once that summed up this shift in perspective so perfectly. It depicted someone in a crowd of people who was obviously startled by the revolutionary thought — “What if I’m not the main character?” When we become aware of how our entire understanding of life and its meaning revolves around the sense that we are the main character and it really dawns on us that obviously we are not, it can create a radical shift in our perspective.
What if, instead of being the owner of planet earth, we are owned by her. What if we are simply cells in the larger organism of the planet? What if my individual preferences are actually draining the energy and vitality of the whole? Certainly the phenomena of global warming is challenging us to look at the impact our individual choices are having on the life of the planet. Hopefully it is causing us to recognize that our own individual well-being is dependent on the health of the whole.
It’s become obvious to me that to be truly holistic, holistic healing needs to expand to include the consideration of the health of humanity and the planet as a whole. In the more narrow consideration of upgrading our health care system, the addition of the holistic approach is an important step, but it doesn’t go far enough. To lead truly healthy lives, we need to experience see own well-being as inextricably bound up with the well-being of others. It can’t just be a concept, it has to be something we feel. It’s something that goes far beyond just what happens in the offices of doctors and holistic practitioners. It involves our choices and strategies on all levels — politics, economics. It’s about our choices in every aspect of our lives in every moment.
I wonder how well we will be able to thrive, or even survive, without an evolutionary leap in consciousness and perspective. Some feel this is happening. I hope so. I don’t really know. I do, however, find some peace in the realization that my one life and even the life of this planet is a tiny blip in space and time. I can’t pretend to understand how my life and that of this planet fits into the whole. It’s a mystery and surrendering to that brings peace. Nevertheless, my passion for healing will undoubtedly continue and so will the prayer in my heart that this wonderful planet will grow and thrive.
The Middle Way, My Way — Balancing Conventional and Holistic Medicine
January 29, 2007
Some people use only conventional medicine, others avoid it like the plague and use only holistic or alternative medicine. Most people are somewhere in between.
In some ways it’s easier to stand in only one camp, since the two approaches actually represent completely different worldviews. It can be challenging to integrate the two, both for individual consumers and for healthcare professionals who want to offer the “best of both worlds”.
Over the years I’ve come to use holistic approaches as a first resort, and conventional medicine as a last resort, quite the opposite of many people. That doesn’t mean I recommend my choice to others. It’s a very individual decision and one that might change over time. There’s no perfect system or practitioner or formula that we can rely on for everything all of the time, but unless we choose one system exclusively, we are in the position of finding a “middle way”, a way to integrate the two.
It’s been tempting at times to throw out conventional medicine completely, particularly since I find interacting with my physician around my choices difficult. I continue to use both systems, however, because they clearly both have something to offer.
To be able to use both approaches has taken a lot of study and the willingness to be my own authority and take responsibility for my choices. I’ve had to unlearn the old kneejerk response to accept the “doctor’s orders” and be willing to refuse certain recommendations and state my choices. Of course, to do this, I’ve needed to find a physician who is able to accept that stance at least enough to keep working with me. (In medical parlance, I am often a “noncompliant patient”.)
Our medical doctors can’t be expected to be knowledgeable about holistic systems and modalities which take years of study to master. (It takes an enormous amount of time to keep up with allopathic medical knowledge.) We also can’t rely on them to make our choices for us. I don’t think we can even rely on them to be straightforward with us if they do agree with some of our unconventional choices because they need to adhere to accepted medical protocol to protect themselves legally. I know a physician personally in a popular HMO who definitely has a holistic orientation but is constrained by the policies of the HMO with regard to what he can recommend and do.
No system can guarantee a cure of everything all of the time. The idea that our western medical system is “scientific” and therefore accurate is a misnomer. It represents a way of approaching life and seeing things which constitutes a philosophy or worldview. It’s research and methods are very much influenced by economic and political forces. Yet it is the system which is supported by our government and legal system. In some ways, freeing oneself from the sense that it is the authority for our healthcare decisions is similar to freeing oneself from deeply ingrained religious beliefs that no longer serve us.
Holistic healing approaches require more of our time and participation in our own self-care. They generally take time to work and are not quick fixes, but they can not only solve problems but do so in a way which promotes greater strength and health, rather than treating a symptom with a drug or surgery that can weaken overall health. I’ve found it to be well worth the time to investigate and use alternative methods of healing and promoting health.
If you are just beginning to look into alternatives, the number of choices can seem overwhelming. It can be challenging to find the right approach for your particular problem, and to know which approaches are safe and worth pursuing. A search on the web will bring up any number of offers of help and cures! One thing to be wary of is anything that offers a quick, simple fix, and certainly be careful in pursuing anything that is very expensive. For chronic, non-life threatening problems, there are a whole host of things you can do that don’t cost a lot of money.
While the “middle way” is probably the best way for most of us, there certainly is no “easy way” to put together a good healthcare program for oneself. Hopefully in the future we will have a healthcare system that has fully embraced the best of holistic medicine. Since that is probably a long way off, my sense is that those of us who want the best of both worlds will need to find a middle way for ourselves.
Holistic or Conventional Medicine — which? when? how?
January 26, 2007
Just read a clear, perceptive and compelling post illustrating the shortcomings and limitations of our medical system in the US through the author’s personal story. I agree with everything the author states and couldn’t have said it better, so I simply refer you to the post. I plan to write on this subject more in the near future, until then please visit –
http://avanoo.wordpress.com/2007/01/22/us-citizens-would-be-healthier-and-live-longer-lives-if/