All You Ever Wanted to Know About Healing

It is truly inspiring to witness, through this and similar magazines and expos around the globe, how many diverse and exciting approaches there are to healing. Yet beyond the differences, the specialties, the variety of emphases on physical, emotional spiritual or general healing, there are three basic principles of which both client and practitioner should be aware.

First principle: Nobody heals anybody else. A healer is one who facilitates an individual’s own self-healing. Primary responsibility is always with the person seeking healing.

Second principle: Healing, like life itself, is an ongoing process. There is no beginning and no end to it, even after death of the physical body.

Third principle: No single approach to a problem or symptom will necessarily resolve all aspects of the perceived discomfort or disease. A method that alleviates one aspect may not address other dimensions of the imbalance. Even if it is the best approach for the present situation, it may not be the most effective method for future issues.

It is important not to confuse healing with curing. Two aspirin may cure a headache, but they may do nothing to alleviate the underlying cause of the headache. Healing the headache involves identifying the source of the imbalance, whether it is physical, emotional, or spiritual, or any combination

thereof, and taking action to ameliorate the cause.

Healing means making whole. Wholeness is a matter of balance.

Everything in nature is in balance until or unless we interfere with it. Unfortunately, today there are so many levels of interference with nature that it can be hard to discern the inherent balance. Likewise, there are so many factors interfering with our own natural way of being that it can be a challenge to get back into harmony with ones true nature.

Nobody heals anyone else. Especially today, this is the most vital of the three principles. Humans have a tendency, due to our relatively long period of dependence on parents and/or other adults for survival, to worship, follow, imitate and emulate those who help us. Likewise, successful physicians, therapists, psychics, body workers, nutritionists, and spiritual leaders are easily seduced into feeling that it is their skill, training, intuition and/or guidance that is responsible for their clients’ progress. The problem is that in evolutionary terms, we are no longer in childhood, and are rapidly shifting out of adolescence. The danger of confusing the healing with the healer is evident all around us. Blindly following the representative of a particular set of beliefs is having disastrous results, socially and politically, as well as in the religious and spiritual arena. How many more leaders, gurus or healers need to be exposed before we realize that no one has all the answers for everyone? And that it is unlikely that any particular healer has all the answers for any individual?

Early in my 30-year career as psychotherapist, I used to think that getting advanced degrees and training was what made me an effective counselor. Then one day, after what I thought was a particularly brilliant piece of work, I asked a client what of all we had done together had made the most difference. “The way you smiled at me when you came out to get me” was her response. What a deep confirmation that it is not what we do but who we are that makes the difference.

Healing is an ongoing process. Every issue and/or symptom that is cleared makes space for new growth and development. And every phase of development has its own challenges. A single symptom may have many layers of significance, and can only be healed, in the moment, at the level of psycho-spiritual development of the person presenting the problem. One approaches the question “what is the origin of life” differently with a child than with a scientist, religious leader or metaphysician. The right answer for one may not suit the other. Timing is essential. Sometimes not knowing the deepest source of ones discomfort is necessarily protective. A child of the Holocaust, I spent close to thirty years denying that I was a victim of anything or anyone. My ego was too fragile to cope with the memories. After I faced and healed the scars from that victimization, I was able to see beyond the shame and blame, and, through identifying the seeds of the perpetrators in myself, to find empathy with the abusers. Identifying and healing karmic lessons from past lifetimes is a work in progress.

No single approach may resolve all aspects of a problem. Body, mind and spirit are intimately interconnected through cellular memory. That means that every emotional issue has a spiritual and physical component, and every physical symptom has emotional and spiritual aspects. It is rare for any one healing specialty to resolve the imbalance in all aspects. The list of different therapists, body workers, allopathic and alternate healers, psychics and spiritual leaders involved in my own ongoing healing would fill volumes.

The more deeply we heal ourselves, the more deeply we can affect healing in those with whom we have contact. Each of us has a unique role to play in the healing of the planet. We do not each need to become expertly trained in every new approach, but do need to be aware of ancient as well as emerging healing modalities in order to direct our friends and clients to the appropriate resources. The Universe offers many opportunities and methods of healing. Keeping open to these variations and discovering the ones that work for us is everyone’s responsibility.

Lisa Raphael is a spiritual elder, transformational holistic healer, author and classical pianist who closed a 30 year psychotherapy practice to “walk her talk” and “talk her walk” in service of Spirit. For more information visit www.lisaraphael.com, write llisaraphael@worldnet.att.net or call 808 346 5293