It’s
possible to bring forth the advanced capacities for healing
and transformation that already exist within. This advanced
or higher mind has radiant healing powers, powers of love,
knowing, compassion, peace, light and more. In the process
of transformational healing, you move from darkness into
light. You first travel through the darkness, learn from
it, and you continue on out into the light of expanded perception.
When you reach this level of mind, you have the ability
to release old patterns and transform your greatest negativities
into enlightened understanding.
There is a great
Sanskrit prayer, which says:
Lead
us from darkness into light…
From the unreal to the real…
From death to immortality.
Om shanti, shanti, shanti.
In
the universe, there is a great cosmic dance in which darkness
naturally unravels to reveal light. At the core of everything,
even the bleakest darkness, is light. As you allow the experience
of darkness to present itself, you travel even more deeply
within, and you may experience a light that calms you. You
may experience a voice of your highest wisdom telling you
that everything is working out, as it must and that some
great transformation is taking place in your life. You may
find yourself filled with great peace and divine spirit.
Perhaps some image appears before you as a symbol of your
own highest healing powers. This happens because you’ve
allowed yourself to fully experience your predicament, and
now the doors naturally open to profound healing.
The transformation
of your consciousness means that you are able to uplift
your understanding of existence. It means that there is
a shift in the way you see and perceive. Healing, in fact,
is the profound connection with the transformational power,
the Healing Power itself. Our inner ills are the result
of a lack of connection with these advanced qualities of
being. In getting back in touch with them, healing takes
place on every level.
The teacher White
Eagle, in a book called Heal Thyself, has said:
“Every
soul seems to suffer; but if you can see that suffering
in its right perspective, you will see that it brings
a rebirth. Through limitation and suffering, the soul
emerges into the divine life and light, just as the insect
emerges from the chrysalis stage into a beautiful winged
creature in the sunlight.”
Activating
the Healing Qualities of Mind
We can ask questions to unveil the transformational healing
experiences: · How can I heal this? · Can I experience more
love here?
*
Can I step back from this and see it in a different way,
from another perspective?
*
Can I quiet my mind? Experience more peace?
* Can I have more compassion here?
* What am I learning from this?
* Is there a particular part of myself that needs healing?
What does that part of me need?
* Is there a particular way I can release this?
* Is this about my ego? Can I take any steps beyond this?
* Can I experience more light here?
* Can I forgive in this situation?
Let’s
take a brief look at these questions:
Can
I experience more love here?
Love exists within,
independent of an external source. It is dancing in every
cell, in every molecule of our being. It is the essential
substance of the universe. It can be experienced as a feeling
of caring, as ecstasy, as a divine force field, as a transcendent
healing power. When it is not experienced, it is because
it is often covered over with experiences of limitation.
In addition to the ills of the body, the absence of the
experience of love is the greatest cause of the difficulties
of human existence. Replaced by ego and separation, its
insufficiency is the cause of war, discord and great human
suffering.
You can open your
ability to experience love by healing your experience of
separation, contacting your source of Wisdom, and making
a connection with the powerful force field in which love
is all pervading.
You can allow
yourself to come to know what’s in the way of the experience
of love, and you can call to the healing power to open you.
You can affirm,” I Am the power of love. I am healing myself
now.”
Anyone who has
love carries the love vibration and can assist you in opening
your own. Any great being who is unfettered with negativity
can open you to the experience of love. Any friend or relative,
past or present, alive or passed on, who has an open heart
can heal the experience of separation in you, can open you
up to knowing the expanded power of love.
In your healing
process, you can ask yourself, “Can I experience more love
here?” And you can see what grace or miracles come to you
to help you to move beyond the limitations you’ve been experiencing.
You can imagine a healing person loving you or a loving,
healing energy coming either to you or from you.
Seeing a previously
distressing situation with eyes of love can be extraordinarily
healing. One woman had food compulsions. She binged frequently,
and she also drank more than she knew was good for her.
When she looked at what was happening inside of her, she
saw that when she was little, she used to steal money from
her parents to buy food, as there wasn’t enough food around,
and she wasn’t allowed to ask for anything. She had shame
around there not being enough food, and she had guilt around
stealing. She spent a lot of time alone as a child, and
it felt like food and later, alcohol, were her best friends.
When she asked to experience more about this, in her mind’s
eye, she saw a very little girl. She’d like her adult self
to be with her, just to sit with her and have her eyes,
ears and heart open to her. She became filled with love,
and her Wise Mind told her to write about this, “to put
the unspoken language of her heart into words.” She felt
so much love within herself and within the little girl.
She knew she’d have to do more healing, but she no longer
had a desire for alcohol, and she felt much more relaxed
about food.
Can I step back from this and see it in a different way,
from another perspective?
This is also called
“witness consciousness,” and it is a profound state for
healing. It is the ability to step out of the mire of the
experience and to see it from a greatly expanded point of
view. It can be called “cosmic vision” or “standing back.”
Whatever you wish to call it, it is a powerful state for
healing. Your Wise Mind can give you the understanding so
that you can move back from the “pea soup” of your experience,
and you can see in new ways.
Seeing an experience
from an expanded point of view shifts it. While you’re in
it, it may seem like pure suffering. But when you stand
back, you may see powerful growth opportunity there, or
you may see it as a necessary part of your inner path. This
is the “lemonade syndrome,” the ability to make it from
lemons, the ability to see with greater wisdom and insight.
You might see
how deaths needed to take place because there needed to
be space for other life events to happen. You might see
how accidents needed to happen to set you on a new path.
You might see how loss of an older version of “self esteem”
gave you the opportunity to re-develop your character. You
might notice how being “left out” gave you the ability to
be with yourself. You might see how having had physical
disabilities has helped you to develop a deeper sense of
the inner life.
Standing back
gives you perspective, and it helps you to see a situation
with a different focus. It’s like putting up a picture on
the wall. It’s hard to see if it’s straight when you stand
very close, but when you move away, you can see exactly
how to position it.
One man was constantly
angry with his boss. He saw him as a petty tyrant. He stewed
in his anger, so much that he was developing a skin ailment.
It was something akin to hives, which involved an eruption
of redness, and which he knew was his anger externalized.
He also knew that he’d have to make some changes in his
perception, as this was starting to affect him in powerful
ways.
When he looked
at his boss from an expanded point of view, he saw that
his boss was still a child in many ways, bullying his way
through life. He imagined him as a child, and he experienced
that the boss had been bullied throughout his childhood.
This relieved the man of a great deal of his anger. He simply
moved back to see his boss more clearly. In stepping back,
he was also able to view the panorama of the experience
at work. He saw that this was a “setup” by the universe
to get him to heal his own childhood and his own anger.
He felt sorry for his boss. The emotions didn’t affect him
any longer, as he moved into a space of the “observer.”
From this, he soon found he didn’t need to be working with
the boss any longer. He could move on in his life as he
had moved on in his consciousness.
Can I quiet my mind? Experience more peace?
We all know that
the mind is constantly thinking. That’s its job, and it
thinks incessantly. What we may or may not know is that
the constant parade of thoughts obscures the light inside.
Your thoughts may be sad or angry or achievment-oriented
or worried. This is determined by your own destiny and programming.
When we can go “underneath” the thoughts and feelings, we
can find a blanket of peace. One woman said in a session:
“Underneath my sadness is a landscape of me.” In her mind’s
eye, she had seen rolling hills, carpets of green grass,
breathtaking flowers, and she felt peaceful, calm, relaxed
and centered. Her sadness was like a storm cloud – thick
and gray and dismal, and underneath it was an airy, light,
sunny carefree experience. She said that this was the most
positive experience she’d ever had. This came from doing
a deep relaxation/meditation process, in which she was able
to go to a very deep place within herself, a sanctuary in
her own soul. Here there was perfect peace.
To be able to
see peace with regard to the difficulties in your life involves
that same process – going deeply inside to the core of pure
peace and see how the difficulty appears in this context.
When you come here to this central core, you listen or feel,
or watch, and healing is given. You are given the opportunity
to be more peaceful and calm about your finances or your
health, to see what solutions arise from the center of your
being.
Underneath all
the vicissitudes of life and the challenges of deep feelings
is “a landscape” of you. Here you can rest in green pastures,
beside still waters and restore your soul. Here the wars
have ended, in this place of the deepest peace.
Can I have more compassion here?
Compassion is
about caring for the well being of another. It is your heart
reaching out to see that all beings are suffering and that
each one is living out his or her script on the stage of
eternity. When you are able to step back and see this, you
have solved a major portion of your difficulties in relationships.
Relationships based on compassion rather than competition
or putting others down are of the greatest value. The monk,
Thich Nhat Hanh talks about this compassion as it might
play out in relationship. He writes the possible words of
one person in relationship to another.
Those words might be:
Darling,
do I understand you enough? Or am I making you suffer? Please
tell me so that I can learn to love you properly. I don’t
want to make you suffer, and if I do so because of my ignorance,
please tell me so that I can love you better, so that you
can be happy. (p. 80. Peace is Every Step, Bantam Books,
1991)
Mother Theresa, too, in her compassion, assisted the indigent
of Calcutta, loved them in what she called “their distressing
disguise.” Truly, everyone and everything is the universal
life force in disguise.
In your own healing
process, you can first have compassion for yourself. You’ve
been working so hard, doing what you can do to make your
life and the lives around you be a good as possible. You
can have compassion for the fact that you may have excess
baggage, which comes form your early programming or your
own karma and destiny. You may have had very difficult experiences
that have left deep marks upon you.
And you can take
your compassion even further, as you see that the people
around you, past and present, including perpetrators of
even unspeakable things, have been doing what they knew
how to do at the time, living out their scripts in the divine
drama. No, it doesn’t excuse the unspeakable acts. They
might have been very hard to bear. Still they have been
the very wounds that have pierced you open to a higher life.
That man whose
anger shattered your peace and hurt your heart was also
hurting. He was hurting so very much that he couldn’t restrain
himself. That woman who punished you was cut off from her
own inner love. She was living in a mire of illusion and
pain. Many people haven’t reached a point in their lives
in which they could say to you, “I don’t want to make
you suffer, and if I do so because of my ignorance, please
tell me so that I can love you better, so that you can be
happy.”
Compassion for
yourself and for others helps to bring peace, love, and
healing to your life. Here you can drop the barrier to your
own deepest connection with the transcendent. Here you can
clear the airwaves for direct contact with the divine.
What
am I learning from this?
When you have
a sense that there is meaning in the events of life, that
though illusory, they are instructive and instrumental in
our evolution, you look for the teaching in all of your
experiences. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you are
reprimanded by the events of your life. It doesn’t mean
that it’s a pedagogical experience in which you’re told
to “live by the Golden Rule” or some old adage. It means
that you can look for the wise understanding. This step
in healing overlaps with our question, “What would my Wise
Mind tell me about this?” You simply pose the question about
what you’re learning from this. What am I being asked to
notice about this situation? What is its significance in
my life?
We know that
events come in patterns. We repeat situations in one form
or another until we get the healing. Then we can release,
unless we have to work something out at an even higher level.
When we see that something is repeating itself over and
over, we can look to ask, “What is this doing in my life?
What am I learning from this?”
If you’re finding
that you comfort yourself with food all too often, you might
want to pose the “learning” question. What is your need
for comfort all about? What are you truly craving? What
can you do to get your need for comfort satisfied so that
you don’t reach for things that aren’t for your highest
good? How can you take care of yourself better?
If you’re finding
that you have difficulty with money, you may ask what you're
learning. Are you learning the value of money? How to be
wiser with it? How to think in terms of greater abundance?
What are you
learning in relation to the issues that are challenging
in your life? How is this making you great and strong? How
is this ultimately contributing to your evolution as a conscious
being? What truly are you learning from this?
Is there a particular part of myself that needs healing?
What does that part of me need?
As you look within,
you may find old parts of yourself, what I call “frozen
pictures in the soul.” These are parts of self that live
unhealed within the great “database” of the soul. When you
find them, you can bring great love and healing to them.
They exist in the present moment, even though they’re parts
of self from various stages in your life. They are calling
out to be recognized and brought into the center of your
being. There may be a young woman or man who was rejected
in relationship. There may be a teen who felt lonely and
out of place. There may be an infant who was unwanted and
who is craving for love and attention. There may be a child
who was severely reprimanded or shamed and who exists suspended
in time, waiting for the opportunity to be healed.
When you find
these parts, you bring healing and love and peace to them.
They can be awakened, and they can come with your transcendent
self into your center. Then they are made whole by being
touched by the hand of enlightenment and love.
When you ask
yourself, “What does that part of me need?” - it is almost
always attention and love. You can give this to your own
self, from the wellspring inside.
Is there a particular way I can release this?
You may find
that the very act of paying attention to something releases
it immediately. Bringing awareness to anything shifts it
profoundly. You may also find that contact with your Wise
Mind releases your issue right away. Any of the healing
states can also bring release.
You might also
find that a special releasing step is needed. There are
times when you can simply say, “I let go of this; I release
it now,” and it vanishes. Sometimes this doesn’t seem to
do it. There are other ways of letting go. We’ll look at
a few in a moment.
Sometimes, though,
you think you’d like to let go of something, but if you
really look deeply inside, you’d rather hang onto it. It’s
familiar; it’s strangely comfortable. It’s what you’ve known
for so long, and it’s keeping you from taking the next step
– which could be scary or risky or a step out into the unknown.
Keeping a burden may validate your inner thoughts that you
aren’t worth the effort, and you may think you’ve done so
many things wrong in your life that you must pay for them
in one way or another, in this case, by hanging onto the
ball and chain.
Yet when you
really look at it, you’re not truly safe or comfortable
at all with it. It’s a mere illusion, and one day you reach
the “I’ve had it” moment, and you find the key that unlocks
the ball and chain, and you’re ready to let go. You take
off the manacles, throw them away, and you set out on a
path in which you learn how to take the next step and be
free. You realize it’s not worth it anymore to hold yourself
back. It’s finally time to release.
In addition to
the approaches we’ve been talking about here, you can also
do specific release techniques. You can do visualization,
affirmation, energy therapies or other release processes.
You may want
to “see” yourself free of your burden, to imagine yourself
without it. If you’re not a visualizer, go ahead and experience
it from whatever modality works well for you. Feel it, hear
it, smell it, or just know it. Experience yourself in whatever
state brings you freedom. Close your eyes, and give your
experience time and space to happen.
Your words are
also powerful in helping to set you free. One of my favorites
is, “I AM the power of healing, and I AM healing myself
now.” The "I AM" is a call to the universal healing life
force. It is a true affirmation and call to the highest
transformative energy and power. You can find your own way
of affirming that you truly have completed whatever your
last step has been - and that you’re now moving on. This
takes place, of course, after you’ve paid full attention
to whatever has been your difficulty, you’ve asked your
Wise Mind about it, and you’ve asked how to heal it. You
are fully able to release when you’ve given your issues
focused attention and care.
There are many
kinds of energy therapies that can assist you to heal. Some
use the laying-on-of-hands. They work with the field of
energy in the aura, and that energy can be shifted in many
circumstances. Working with the meridian energy points on
the physical body is a powerful way to release. Ancient
Chinese medicine has been working with these stress relief
points for centuries. You find ways to tap on them or use
needles with them, in the case of acupuncture. Doing this
removes obstructions in the pathways for positive energy
to flow.
How do you wish
to release? By contacting your own wisdom source, you are
given the keys.
Is
this about my ego? Can I take any steps beyond this?
There’s nothing
wrong with having an ego. In fact, most Western literature
and culture is trying to strengthen it. “Increase your self-esteem”
or “Be number one!” - are the rallying calls for many movements
in Western culture. The only problem is that sometimes this
ego strengthening obscures the underlying essence of being.
There are times, of course, when someone seems to need to
stand up for himself or take care of herself first or pay
attention to self-demeaning thoughts and comments. There
are other times when the question is, “Is this about my
ego? Can I take any steps beyond this?”
If your worry
is about the impression you’re making on everyone or if
you’re doing better than someone or if you’re wish is to
be the smartest and the richest, you may want to consider
the questions: “Is this about my ego? Is this about me,
me, me? Can I go beyond this? Can I wish well to all human
beings? Can I wish for them what I am wishing for myself?
Can I take some emphasis off of looking better than, achieving
more, outrunning, outdoing, expanding my own self-aggrandizement?
Looking at this
issue is a path of healing. Expanding the lens through which
you view the universe takes you out of a self-limiting box
and opens your heart to all of humanity. It’s another step
in a healing direction.
Can
I experience more light here?
Because the essence
of transformational healing is the movement from darkness
into light, this is a most significant step. To be able
to bring more light to your body, your mind and to any situation
is to set it in vibrational harmony with the healing power,
the sacred energy, of the universe Obi Wan Kenobi wielded
his light saber and said to Darth Vader, “Even if you slay
me, I shall still be more powerful than you.” The force
of light is a gift of the spirit. It can be called forth,
visualized, affirmed, experienced in a flash of a moment
or over what seems to be time, itself. The lighter you are,
the more attuned you are to the Beings of Light who are
out of our normal visual range, but who live on many levels
of our consciousness. The more the light is present, the
greater is the healing. The question, “Can I bring more
light here?” is a powerful one. “Can I bring light to this
situation right now? What would it be like if the light
surrounded this issue? If the light infused this? If there
were light within and without?”
The great Master
Omraam Mikhaël Aďvanhov has said:
Light…contains
all the qualities and virtues of God…so concentrate your
thought on light, rest in light, melt into light, soak
yourself in light and picture the entire universe bathed
in that light. Little by little as you do this, you will
find that all the elements of your being begin to fall
into place, that this light is bringing you true knowledge,
lasting peace, inner balance and power…. Light is a living
spirit.
(Omraam
Mikhaël Aďvanhov Light is a Living Spirit; Editions Prosveta
1988; p.58)
The light within you has profound healing power. You can
imagine the small lonely child inside bathed in a blanket
of light, healed and whole. The little girl who was abused
is cleansed and healed with beams of light. A wound or tumor
can be bathed in light. Pain can be infused with light rays.
A warring relationship can be touched with the magic of
the light saber and transformed. You can send the light
to another, and you can bathe the entire world in illuminating
beams.
You may experience
the light as gold or white. It may come from a beam that
originates in the universe, or it may originate from within
you. It may be warm or have no temperature at all. It may
just be light. See it, feel it, know it, and let the light
shine on all the darkness of the universe.
It is no accident
that alternative healers who work with higher vibrations
are called “Light Workers.” You are likely one of them yourself.
Some people look as if light is oozing from their very pores.
You can feel it coming from their eyes. It is because they
have been able to illuminate and heal the deepest negativities
of their souls with light. The thought of light has the
power to heal the mind of profound negativity. It is more
powerful than the forces of the darkness. So when we concentrate
on it and let it shine, we come to know the luminous presence
that is here for us at every moment.
Can
I forgive in this situation?
Only when you
are ready, is it time to forgive. Premature forgiveness
takes away your time for processing what’s happening and
what your Wise Mind might say about how you can heal this.
When you’ve looked at every angle and peered around every
corner, you can forgive. A Course in Miracles says, “Forgiveness
gives me everything I want.” This is because when you forgive,
the weight of the burden that you’re carrying is no longer
present, and you are finally able to experience spaciousness,
light, pure air, and healing. To hold onto an old wound
is to hold onto illusion. First of all, if you accept that
what’s happening is for your highest good, then what has
happened has somehow been a part of your path to self-awareness
and ultimate enlightenment. Some of the difficult experiences
have come to burn off your karma and to pierce you open
so that you could be on the path of light. It is highly
likely that the person who abused you in many ways was a
harbinger of good fortune, as you now had cause to heal
yourself through a transformation of your mind and life.
This is not to say that it was the “right” thing for an
abuser to do – just that, because it did take place, it
now serves as your stroke of awakening.
Forgiveness can
also come through compassion. You see that the person who
made life difficult for you was living in darkness, was
unhappy and living in a state of pure ignorance. To understand
this lifts your eyes and your heart toward the knowledge
that you need not continue on with the suffering. You can
understand, and when you are ready, you can forgive.
“Forgiveness
is the key to happiness” is another aphorism from A Course
in Miracles. Negativity comes from the land of illusion,
according to this book and others, and therefore, doesn’t
even exist. In this respect, there is nothing to forgive.
The only truth is Love.
Whatever may
be your way of working with illusion and reality, darkness
and light, suffering and healing, allowing yourself to move
on from old unforgiven places in the old cellars and attics
of consciousness, there is always the possibility of turning
on the light switch. When this happens, the dark critters
that have meandered out from the woodwork all scamper away.
Anchoring
Your Healing
The last step
is to anchor this state. You may want to find a word, phrase
or image that symbolizes this altered experience. Then you
may want to create a gesture, such as putting your thumb
together with your index finger while experiencing this
word, phrase or image. Each time you put your thumb together
with your index finger and experience the anchor, you’re
able to bring yourself back to this state of being, the
resource state of comfort and ease. When working with such
samskaras or tendencies of the mind, it is important to
have something to carry into daily life to reinforce the
healing experience, as these tendencies don’t just get pulled
up like a bunch of turnips or radishes; they are deeply
ingrained. This is why it’s important to have a tangible
anchoring experience that can be used on a regular basis,
in addition to the process of paying full attention to the
difficulty.
One young woman
had a habitual tendency to put herself down or to feel put
down by others. She was, in a word, insecure. Paying attention
to it, she found knots in her stomach, tightness in many
places in her body. Her Wise Mind showed her a bird of freedom
taking away her burdens. She felt light and free. She put
her thumb together with her index finger, saying, “I am
lightness.” This is something she could do consistently
in the context of her life to keep centering her if the
pattern resurfaced.
Another woman
had great childhood pain and sadness. In paying attention,
she felt the sadness all through her body, bracing herself
for something terrible to happen, always waiting for the
other shoe to drop. Her Wise Mind showed her the great resource
she had for healing this sadness: the love of her grandmother.
She put her thumb together with her index finger, experienced
herself together with her grandmother, as she said, “I am
loved.”
Still one more
woman had a paralyzing fear of going to the dentist. She
paid attention to a feeling of panic, like she might pass
out. She remembered a dentist from when she was ten, a man
who had been cruel and who’d hurt her. Her Wise Mind gave
her two angels – one of Courage and one of Peace. She anchored
with her thumb and index finger, seeing the angels and saying
the words, “Courage and Peace.” Her next visit to a dentist
was ecstatic and beautiful. Not only had she uncovered a
root cause of her distress, but also she was also able to
shift her consciousness to a state of comfort and peace.
It would be ideal
if all you had to do were to do this once, and it would
last forever. That can happen, but often patterns recur.
As you meet them with awareness and perseverance, you build
your healing and enlightenment step by step. It is your
good fortune that you have a healing technique that you
carry around with you at all times, something that is innate
in your being. When you pay attention, invite in your Wise
Mind and the healing resources, and you anchor the resource
states, you are able to be more consistently in touch with
your radiant and loving essence. Read Extraordinary Healing:
Transforming Your Consciousness, Your Energy System and
Your Life by Marilyn Gordon. It's a Guidebook for Healing
Yourself and Others with Transformational Hypnotherapy and
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). Available at bookstores
or at www.hypnotherapycenter.com
.
