The word healing has had a lot of packaging around it and it’s hard to say what this word really means in the contexts of the modern world we live in.
Part of my creations is a collection of Herbal Care products for my clients and students based on Ayurveda and natural, organic ingredients of our island, Okinawa. I make my own herbal teas and burn herbals and smudges, too, and yet, I’ve always told my students that even though these things are helpful in reminding us of our spiritual practice, they most certainly will not heal your chakras (there is no healing chakras. You can read up on that here) or solve relational problems.
When we want to heal, we mostly want things to change. The energy of trying to heal or trying to change something or someone for you to heal can be forceful and strategic and often leads to frustration. Byron Katie famously said that “there are three businesses in life. Your own business, others’ businesses and God’s business. Every time, you’re in someone else’s business, you suffer.” This statement has been a great clarifying factor when I am confused or feeling chaotic.
So that means when we rely on external factors for healing, we most likely suffer and it becomes frustrating. So what can we do in the face of adversity?
A Course In Miracles, which I intensely studied in the past has a great definition on healing. It says that healing is a shift of perspectives.
How clarifying and relieving is this? Yoga teachings also indicate that when we are attached to anything including our own ideas, we suffer and create another ripple effect of karma. So all we need is a shift of our perspectives to heal. But we cannot force that shift.
The way I explain to my counseling clients is that our brain is like a big office with filing cabinets. Every experience and feelings attached to it are registered into these filing cabinets. So every time we try to change our minds and shift our perspectives, as in, let’s say you start an affirmation practice, filing assistants would immediately pull out a bunch of files in order to win that debate. This is the reason why it’s so hard to change our minds especially when we think we are right. Our files on the topics of “we are right” are much thicker and more concrete than others. It’s the reason why affirmations don’t work because we still have our filing assistant standing there to show us thick files, saying “you see? I told you. We’ve had the same kind of situations before and this is what happened. Why should this one be the same?”
So the trick here is to find a gap, a flaw or a little tiny space between these files to the point where you start to think, “I wonder…” The energy of creating space in between and say “I wonder” is very much soft and receptive than force. In other words, it’s a feminine way of healing. It’s not force but relaxing into the idea. It’s not molding your heart into something else but letting your heart melt to find what’s at core.
Once we find this little breathing space in our thought patterns, that shift in perspective, the moment of healing, can happen much easier. But until you are even willing to look for that gap, there will be a huge amount of resistance because the idea of “I am right” is so embedded in our iron clad gates of our mind. It is so rigid and we suffer every time something is rigid especially in our minds but also in relationships, environment or business or anything in life. Rigid is different from a structure or a healthy boundary. Rigid, by definition, means things want to move but they can’t. Whatever it is that is rigid is not free, and there lies the cause of suffering.
So next time you are suffering and you need healing, instead of trying to heal, perhaps simply release the grip on a certain idea and see what you find inside. You may just find that moment of healing you’re looking for.
If you’d like to chat more, I am available for Yogic Counseling sessions. Together, we can find a tangible step towards a stable, healthy mind through yogic teachings.