• Self-healing is listening to the intelligence and wisdom of your body. You need to be aware of your physical needs and you need to take action to exercise, feed and think about your body in ways that are loving and healthy.
• Self-healing is harnessing the creative, positive energy of your emotions. You need to be willing to listen to your heart, acknowledge your feelings and express them safely and effectively.
• Self-healing is also about finding your place in the greater scheme of things and developing a philosophy or a spiritual awareness that gives your life a sense of meaning. You need to be willing to expand your view of the world and entertain the joyful mysteries of the universe, regardless of your background, culture or the beliefs that you were brought up with.
This book is a guide to the powers of your mind and your ability to make new choices that will allow mental, emotional, physical and spiritual changes to occur in your life. It is for you to decide to act upon those choices, but each little step forward, no matter how small, can be a giant leap towards self-healing and personal development.
HOW CAN WE STAY HEALTHY?
Very simply, we stay healthy when we remain in balance. It helps to be in balance with other people and with our environment, but the most important place to start is with ourselves. To be in harmony with the world around us it is often best to begin by creating harmony within and then work outwards. To have our lives in balance we need to balance ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Finding balance is not about sticking to a rigid formula. It is not a case of learning how to do all the right things and holding it there. For example, if you were shown how to place your body in perfect physical alignment so that your posture was 100 per cent correct, you would have been done a great service. If, however, you were encouraged to hold yourself rigidly in one correct position so that you would never lose that perfect alignment, you would have been done a great disservice. Life is about constant change and movement; being balanced is never going to look quite the same twice.
As we progress through the ideas and techniques that I am sharing here with you I will be encouraging you to remember and use the four key principles of self-healing: to listen, to notice, to choose and to adapt.
LISTENING
Some of us are born with good listening skills; some of us learn them from our parents or parent figures; some of us learn by necessity later on in life. Are you a good listener? However good you are there is always something new that you can learn about listening.
Listening is not dependent on our ability to hear. People with impaired hearing can sometimes be better at listening than people whose hearing is clear and perfect.
To heal ourselves we need to listen to our feelings, listen to our bodies, listen to the words that we use, listen to the sound of or feel the vibration of our voices, listen to the information that is coming to us from other people and from our environment. When we listen, we are blessed with all the information that we need to make wonderful healing changes in our lives.
NOTICING
When we notice something it often takes on a power or a significance that it did not previously have. When we notice a beautiful flower, a wonderful fragrance or a captivating sound our mood may change; thoughts, memories or associations may come to mind that were not present before. Similarly, if we notice something unpleasant then it may also take on a significance for us and affect our mood – but by noticing it we can make a choice to change it or, alternatively, to change our response to it.
To heal ourselves we need to be willing to notice our thoughts and beliefs, notice what motivates us and gives us energy, notice what de-motivates us and depletes our energy. It helps to notice the images, inspirations and insights that we receive. Noticing gives us power and helps us to take positive action.
CHOOSING
So many of us put up with the unsatisfactory or unhealthy elements of our lives because we do not realize that we have the power of choice. We tend to believe that life is something that happens to us regardless of our wishes, dreams or desires, and we often picture ourselves as victims of circumstance doing our best to cope with the hand that we have been dealt.
When we learn that we have a choice and that we have a right to exercise that choice in all areas of our health and happiness, we discover that we have the power to make wonderful changes.
To heal ourselves we often need to choose new ways of thinking and acting. This includes choosing new ways to look at life, choosing to let go of anything that no longer supports our health and happiness and choosing new directions that will enhance our personal development. When we exercise our choice we create new options for ourselves and we take charge of our destiny.
ADAPTING
Some illnesses and many problems are created as a direct result of our basic fear of and resistance to life. Even the most positive, go-ahead people may fear or resist some areas of change. In contrast, some of the healthiest people I have met have been those with a great willingness to adapt and learn new ways of approaching life.
To heal ourselves we often need to adapt to changing circumstances: adapting to different environments, adapting to changing needs and desires, adapting our approach to obtain the best results in all situations, adapting ideas, techniques, treatments and philosophies. When we are willing to adapt we remain flexible and open to solutions that go beyond our previous expectations or experience.
When we continue to listen, notice, choose and adapt then we are able to create and re-create balance within ourselves, allowing our passage through life to be as healthy and happy as it was always meant to be. This is particularly important when we need to respond to the message of illness.
THE MESSAGE OF ILLNESS
While it is always preferable to stay balanced and prevent illness from occurring as much as possible, the advent of illness can be a gift, especially when we choose to look at our situation positively and with love. It is true that we may not feel that our illness is a blessing when it is painful or uncomfortable and when it inhibits us from living life to the full, but we still have it within our power to turn it into a beneficial gift rather than a curse.
Illness always brings a message. Physical symptoms tell us that there is something we need to learn about ourselves and something we need to change. The message may be a predominantly physical one. If we have a backache then the message might be that we need to learn to move in a different way or that we need to learn to stand correctly. Listening to your body and noticing aches and pains early on can allow you to choose new ways of correcting them by finding out about, for example, appropriate exercise, therapies and postural training. Even if you begin to take heed of the aches after some damage has already occurred, there is much you can do to improve the situation and prevent further deterioration.
With physical symptoms, however, the message may also be emotional. The backache that requires us to move, lift and stand in a healthier way can also require us to look at the cause of the emotional tension that is contributing to the pain or discomfort we are experiencing.
Alternatively, the message may be a mental one: perhaps we are viewing ourselves and our lives in ways that rigidly adhere to old patterns of belief that no longer suit us. Rigid thinking is one cause of rigidity within the body; the pain may be telling us that we need to change the way that we view our current situation.
Physical symptoms all tell us that there is something that we need to know and, in many cases, something that we need to do to heal our lives. It is similar with emotional problems, accidents, break-downs of communication, challenging relationships and periods of crisis or disturbance. Everything contains a message and everything is a gift if we remain open and willing to use it as one.