The healing potential of the human being expands far beyond the world’s general understanding. Evidence can be found for this throughout all cultures and their related spiritual belief systems. Years ago, I was confronted with a serious health crisis that was unresponsive to both conventional and alternative medicine. As a result, I began to research and explore the realms of psychic healing, shamanism and deep meditation. I discovered fascinating examples of individuals who overcame “incurable” physical illness and extreme trauma with an open mind and a determined spirit. This inspired me to begin a journey inward through silence and meditation that led to the awakening of a primal healing force which lies dormant within the human being, waiting to be activated.

One incredible healing story which involved serious damage to the leg, especially caught my attention, because the neuro-muscular function of my own leg was severely affected by a condition diagnosed as reflex sympathetic dystrophy. The pain and dysfunction was spreading and had caused one of my calf muscles to become paralyzed. This story, reported in Psychology Today and Yoga Journal, was about a 21 year old man named Mitchell May, who was told by a team of UCLA surgeons that his leg was unsalvageable and must be amputated. During a head-on auto collision, May’s leg had been broken in 40 places and large chunks of muscle and skin were missing. His leg was deeply infected, his life was at risk and the doctors insisted that he would never walk on two legs again. May couldn’t imagine a life without his leg and refused to let the surgeons amputate. His mother contacted the parapsychology department at UCLA in a desperate attempt to find some other option and was put in touch with a healer named Jack Gray.

Jack Gray was raised in the Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah, and used energy healing, hypnosis, chanting and prayer to perform countless healings that were being researched at UCLA. He visited May in his hospital room daily for an entire year, performing energy healing on him and teaching him to enter altered states of consciousness through meditation and hypnosis. He taught May to direct energy through his body, to use active visualization, to leave his body consciously and to turn pain signals off with his mind. He also helped May to alter his belief systems that were causing blocks to his healing. He used techniques that drew upon “etheric forces” to generate matter in the form of new healthy muscle, nerve and bone tissue in May’s leg. This regeneration of tissue, considered impossible by western science, was fully documented by X-rays and consulting medical physicians. 

After two years, May was able to walk again with a brace. He became Jack Gray’s apprentice, continued to learn and heal and eventually returned to hiking, dancing and rock climbing. In an interview for Yoga Journal, May described how this health crisis led him through a spiritual transformation as he explored a realm beyond regular physical perception. “We would work for hours on end in expanded states of consciousness… Jack exposed me to a field of energy that will almost burn you up if you don’t change. He had to teach me to deal with my fears, my ego games, so that I could enter that energy field.” Jack asked May to carry on his teachings when he passed.  With a deeply personal experience of the extraordinary potential of the human being, Mitchell May emerged as a healer and teacher, helping thousands to expand their awareness and access their true healing potential.

Not long after I read Mitchell May’s story, my chiropractor told me about a highly respected shaman who was visiting from South Africa, named Dominique. She had a very busy schedule, was flying back home that Sunday, and I was unable to get in to see her. I went to bed that Saturday night feeling sad that I had missed the opportunity. Early the next morning, I woke up to my phone ringing. When I answered, there was a woman with a South African accent asking for me. She said “This is Dominique, I woke up this morning thinking that I was not going to see any clients before I fly home today, but your guides are here telling me otherwise. Can you get here soon?”

I arrived at the house where she was staying and found her in the front yard garden. She was a very healthy, beautiful woman in her late 40’s or early 50’s. She brought me into the house and began to tell me very specific details about my personal life and my past that she had no ordinary way of knowing. She spoke of my guides in the spirit world and how they wanted me to understand that this health crisis, was a blessing, that I would not have reached the goals that I had planned for this incarnation if I had continued on my path without it. She said that in the future, I would be writing. I asked her “about what?” She answered “It feels like you have a different way of doing things or a different way of thinking about things. You will be bringing through juicy information.” She noticed the expression of disbelief on my face, looked into my eyes very seriously and said, “You will be doing this. It may not be for several years, but you will be doing this.” Then she added, “Once you are able to shift your perspective, and see this deviation from your path as a blessing, rather than a curse, you will walk again without pain.” On my way home, I thought over every word she had spoken. I felt gratitude for her and for these “guides” who apparently had been observing the ups and downs of my life and were very interested in helping me navigate it all, but I still had no idea what I could possibly be writing about in the future. I didn’t like to write, I found it laborious…and I had no idea what this “juicy information” could be, but I was intrigued and I had a stronger sense of hope.

Motivated by my session with Dominique and by Mitchell May’s inspiring story, I committed to a daily self-hypnosis and meditation practice. Several months into this routine, I began to experience shifts in my awareness of my own nature. While meditating, my consciousness would temporarily exit the state of fear and hopelessness that I had become accustomed to during my health crisis, and expand into a realm where I felt absolute peace, contentment and a sense of the vast, powerful and eternal nature of my soul. At this stage of my path, a holistic practitioner who had studied under Hawaiian medicine women was explaining to me the concept of “shamanic soul retrieval” and spoke the right words to me at just the right time. She said, “The medicine women told me that every part of your body has its own consciousness or its own soul, even the little finger.” The idea suddenly occurred to me to experiment while in a deep state of meditation, by talking to my leg as if it were its own being, with its own consciousness who could hear and understand me.

That same night, after shifting into an altered meditative state, I began my first conversation with my leg. In my mind, I talked to it compassionately, the same way I would to someone I loved who was suffering. After about one hour of this focused communication, tissues suddenly and boldly began to move and glide under my skin, peeling apart layers of scar tissue. Nerves vigorously fired through the area, ordering my calf muscles to respond with flexion and extension exercises. Strong waves of energy that felt raw and primal rushed through my body – something I had never felt before. Lying there in my bed, stunned by these sensations and physical reactions, I thought “This is it! This is what Dominique was talking about!” I chose to fully surrender to the experience. The process carried on for what seemed like more than two hours, and I began to feel tired and hungry. I took a deep and reverent breath before standing up, anticipating what it would feel like to walk on this newly reorganized leg. As I walked to the kitchen, the function and strength of my calf muscle was dramatically improved. After a series of these conversations, I was able to completely restore normal function to my leg. From the first moment this powerful healing force awakened within my body, I knew that I would be sharing this story with others who were ready to realize their own innate healing abilities. I continued to explore the fascinating realm of deep meditation and eventually shifted my professional focus to hypnotherapy and meditation instruction.

Recently, I came across another amazing healing story on Huffington Post. The article stated that Phakyab Rinpoche, a high ranking Tibetan Buddhist lama, had developed gangrene in his leg while imprisoned in China for his religious beliefs. He eventually escaped to India, then emigrated to the United States. Orthopedic surgeons in New York City told him that the infection was too severe and his leg must be amputated. Rinpoche asked his mentor, the current Dalai Lama for guidance before going forward. The Dalai Lama instructed him to reject the surgeon’s advice and instead practice the tsa lung form of meditation he had learned in the monastery, and to use certain mantras and visualizations. Rinpoche practiced these techniques for twelve hours each day. The black liquid that was oozing from his leg gradually turned cloudy, he experienced bruising and swelling and a temporary increase in pain. After nine months, the liquid flowing out of his wounds turned from cloudy to clear, and the swelling diminished. After twelve months he was able to walk without crutches, the gangrene was cured, and as an additional benefit, the Rinpoche’s diabetes and tuberculosis were now gone as well. Because Gangrene infection of this severity cannot be cured by the western medical approach, researchers at New York University asked Rinpoche to allow them to run tests on him to learn more about his surprising recovery. Phakyab Rinpoche plans to soon publish a book describing his remarkable healing journey. 

Through my own experience, I learned that we don’t need to have direct access to the Dalai Lama, or to rare healers like Jack Gray in order to develop this extraordinary human ability. In each of these unusual cases, a type of spiritual protocol was followed to activate the body’s intelligent and dynamic healing response. The learned ability to enter deep states of meditation is foundational. In the beginning stages of meditation our brainwaves gradually slow down into what is called an alpha brainwave state, associated with relaxation and enhanced creativity. If we dedicate ourselves to this practice, by setting aside time every day, we are able to eventually slow our brainwaves down further into a theta state. In this state, our mind experiences deep silence and our brainwaves harmonize with the resonant frequencies of nature and with the creative force of the universe.  Then, this altruistic creative force flows through us more smoothly and gives power to our good intentions. We can harness this benevolent energy and focus it through the use of mantras, through creative visualizations or through a sincere and respectful conversation with our physical body. This ability to gather the forces of nature, and direct them, is available to anyone who chooses to explore their own innate potential by going within through disciplined meditation. Here, we reconnect with our source and capture a glimpse of the memory of our true nature – the memory that we are eternal, that all is well in the universe, and that we enter this physical world to explore, to develop, to create, to love and to be helpful to each other. According to ancient spiritual philosophies, the discovery and right use of our creative power is the main purpose of being human. When we direct this power toward the progression of our skills, overcoming personal challenges and toward being helpful to each other, we assist the creative evolution of the universe.