How can I say I have experienced healing when I continue to experience disease and pain in my body?
During my long quest to eradicate disease and pain from my body, I transformed myself in the process.
“What I describe as “healing” is my evolution from being in conflict with myself and the world to being at peace with what is and having compassion for myself and others.”
There are 5 keys to what I recognize as “healing” in my journey:
Changing my perception of the world and myself
Transforming my thoughts, beliefs, and habits
Learning to recognize that there is a flow to my life that I can trust
Coming to a place of peace with what is.
Changing my state of being
1. Changing my perception of the world and myself
In 2006, when things started to unravel for me, I was at war with the world. I was focused on environmental destruction happening everywhere and what I could do to fix it. It was a very painful state of being because for the most part, there was very little that I could do. It took a long time for me to recognize that this world view was not healthy for me nor was it beneficial for being able to solve any problems.
2. Transforming my thoughts, beliefs, and habits
When I look back on my journals from the last 12 years, I see clearly how my beliefs, thoughts and habits have transformed from critical and skeptical to compassionate and trusting. Yes my mind still has its automatic critical thoughts, but it is much less.
3. Learning to recognize that there is a flow to my life that I can trust
I now recognize that even when things seem bad, there is always a flow of events in my favour. Even when things are painful, there is a thread that I can follow to experience peace, beauty, joy, love, or learning. This is evident in small daily occurrences and big life events. Adopting this viewpoint allows me to worry a lot less.
4. Coming to a place of peace with what is.
Accepting what is… this was a big one for me. Like the other keys, I worked on this for several years.
5. Changing my state of being
I use my downtime to do practices that shift my state of being from stress to peace: meditation, self-hypnosis, and deep breathing.
For me, the healing came not just from recognition but through action:
I applied compassion, trust, and acceptance within my projects in the workplace and through my interactions with others,
I released things in my life that were tied to my previous worldview,
I continue to actively trust by taking steps in a different direction even when I can’t see the outcome, and
I continue working with tools to change my state of being.
I have overcome the undesirable condition of being at war with the world and having a negatively focused view point. I was taking on the pain that I saw in the world and that is not healthy. Focusing on problems does not help to solve them. I also feel like I have become more of who I am. I always felt like a sheep in wolf’s clothing in my chosen career. I was this sensitive, empathetic, caring person in this big political high stakes game of suburban development. I was trying to do something I was not suited for. Am I saying that this caused my parkinson’s disease. No. But through my experience of having a disease and seeking healing of it, I was able to discover so much about myself and free myself of many things that were not serving me.
I am still working on this...
What would healing mean to you?
About Me
I have been living with chronic illness and exploring the healing journey for over 20 years. I have been very blessed to learn from many great teachers and have the opportunity to explore many healing paths. I offer what I have learned from that journey to you in the form of aslowerkindoflife.com. I love pondering the mysteries of life and how it all weaves together into a beautiful journey.
contact me:
aslowerkindoflife@gmail.com