Pharmaceutical drug companies and pharmacists or even herbal experts and food healing nutritional experts say that if you take this "substance" or this "capsule" or this "drink mix" or this "pill" that you will be healed of your condition. How many billions get paid to these companies that push all kinds of these products in a year and yet, how many of these conditions have actually improved. If you can't find the answer to that, I'll give you a hint - not many!
Then we get to the healers that have a goal of taking people out of pain and helping them heal from their conditions. Yet, all too often some of these things work while all too often, they do very little. There is no consistency because most healers are missing the basic points of healing. They create a "system" of healing along with specific procedures and practices so that you can truly heal people and take them out of their pain. In all reality, you could give them a sugar pill and accomplish much of the same thing. So much of what we THINK works out there in the healing professions (alternative methods included) really is nothing more than a placebo.
I've been on a massage table when I noticed my body responding to the massage therapist and acting as if it was relaxing and enjoying the massage. However, my mind was on a different path stating, I don't want to feel - I don't want to sense - you go ahead body and just play along. If that sounds ridiculous or impossible, let me be the first to tell you that it is not. I've seen this happen many times in my own body and that of others that I have worked on or observed. Our minds are very powerful at protecting ourselves and they do whatever they need to in order to accomplish this. One important point to note here is that this is not a conscious thing that someone does. It all happens in the unconscious mind and the unconscious body, before anyone can usually notice that it is taking place. So if you tell someone to be aware of it or to be conscious about it, you're talking to the wrong part of the person you are trying to heal.
One time, I was in a training class for a massage technique that involved very gentle, slow movements. The person on the table had an arm that was not wanting to move and the practitioner said in these commanding words "let go of your arm"! It startled the person on the table because they were not aware they were doing this and in all reality their conscious mind was not. Yet the practitioner was talking as if they were. They were talking to the wrong part of the body and mind for the person laying on the table. If they would have just stayed there with the person in a way that offered safety and trust for them, the person's arm most likely would have let go.
I've seen people (and been one myself ) who went into a doctor and the doctor listened to the symptoms that were described by the patient. However, the doctor looked at the situation through their focused view of what healing was about and prescribed either medication or further testing to take care of the condition. At no time, did the doctor suggest that the person needed to evaluate their lifestyle and make appropriate changes. They might have alluded to this fact but did so very insignificantly. Yet, they were only treating half of the problem but failing to get at the source of what was going on.
I have had situations throughout my life where doctors believed I had the early stages of MS and began treating me accordingly with medication. Later they found out that this of course was not the case after my body had severe reactions to it. So doctor after doctor, and test after test, kept confirming one thing. The doctors did not know what was wrong with me in this situation. Each doctor would conclude they did not know and pass me on to someone else until one very wise doctor began to ask important questions. These questions were not about any medical procedures that I had gone through but were about things going on in my life. Only then, did I begin the opportunity to start healing my life.
There is far more to healing them popping some pills, following some new age concept or undergoing surgeries and test procedures. Our bodies can and they do influence how we react to various drugs, procedures or alternative treatments. The skilled health practitioner can spot this if they are looking for it but all too often, the blinders are on and they fail to see it. We are so busy in the health care world expecting to see the results that we want to see, so we feel like we're making a difference, that we miss the important stuff.
Then you get to the healing philosophies that just want to take people out of the pain or alleviate the pain. These healing professionals feel that this is the best thing because a person that feels no pain, is a happy person. My question is to healing professionals, why would you want to mask the pain? This is the body's way of getting someone's attention and trying to get them to come to terms with an issue they need to face. Taking that message away or burying it in them could cause potential side effects on down the road that are much more difficult to deal with.
Often times healers, cannot stand to see someone suffer and that is a good thing. However when it gets in the way of our healing, than it is a detriment to what we do. There are many times that we get patients and clients who come to us and their symptoms or conditions resonate with issues in our own life. So, we work to clear this from them, in an unconscious way of hoping that we heal ourselves. On one hand, desiring to help someone heal from some condition is a noble thing, but on the other hand if we allow our self unconsciously to divert that healing to our own body, than are we really there for the client? What if we worked on our self first and healed those things in our life that need to be healed? Than, we set out to help others heal from these same conditions. Consider just how much more effective and focused we would be. Consider the difference we could make in the world if we did this.
Healing is not about looking through our own blinders and having an emphasis of just masking the pain. It is much more than that. It is about connecting the mind, the body and the entire person together using all the information that we have and then working to bring about increased awareness to the person. When the person we are working with has more knowledge, more awareness and are connected to all parts of themselves, there is the potential for true healing to take place. Only emphasizing one or two of those things does not bring about true healing. Until we change the physiology and the biology of a person, we have accomplished little.
Until we do the intense healing work on ourselves that we need to do, we can only be there in a limited capacity with our clients. It is in our best interest and in theirs to work hard on ourselves and to heal ourselves. Anything less is holding our potential back as well as our clients and patients.
There are so many things out there that claim they are the ultimate in healing and yet, some of the times they work and some of the times they do not. Instead of claiming to have all the answers, we should be seeking to find out why some do not respond. What is the underlying truth that we are missing? What have we failed to see or understand in trying to help others? Healing is not about using a set of procedures and organized modalities or practices that we subscribe to. It has nothing to do with that and yet, it seems to be the overall emphasis in western culture. No one has all the answers even though I see many healers appearing as if they do.
It has been well tested that placebos often respond as well as the actual drugs given in clinical trials or various treatments. All too often though, the results of these placebos are buried so no one really knows about them. Placebos do not bring in income to companies producing them nor to health practitioners prescribing their modalities and practices. In addition, many people follow blindly, the truths expounded upon by TV advertisements as well as the claims that are passed on from one healing practitioner to another, without anyone ever verifying if these things are backed up by hard science. We can no longer sit by and just repeat and regurgitate that which we are told or hear from others. We must begin to open our eyes and see all the facts or the absence of facts in any healing procedure and treatment we subscribe to.
It is time for us as healing practitioners to really begin to learn that healing is so much more than we currently know and are aware of. It is time for us to begin to learn that if we fail to heal ourselves, working to heal others becomes like dog chasing its tail and never quite catches it. Healthcare is not about spending billions of dollars or making treatments that cost $200-$300 a session to give them value. It is about making biological and physical changes in the life of our patients and clients so that their life can change and grow and evolve. Anything less than that, is not healing.
*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog
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