As both practitioners and clients, an over rigid goal of ‘healing’ can obstruct a deep experience of presence, connection, soul-fullness and health. If we are driven to practice a very disciplined healing regimen, motivated and maintained through fear (and fear of our pain), I am not sure if a deeply holistic experience of health, peace and happiness is possible.
The external control found through a disciplined healing regimen and the potential benefits of a strict diet and intentional lifestyle practices is no substitute for a deep sense of belonging within oneself. On the surface it can look excellent, but inside we might still feel lonely, alienated, filled with self hatred or just a background feeling of lack or discontentment and not be getting the results that we would like. When fear and results driven, there will always be an element of rigidity and control, and a disconnection from really being with the self, that will prohibit a deeper opening and blossoming of the individual, and block us from a feeling of ease within our circumstances: whether they are painful or not.
Whilst I strongly believe in cultivating healthy living as a way to know ourselves and our world more intimately and flourish, I also believe that true healing lies more in building resources and the capacity to be with what is – rather than a rigid regime or clinging to a fantasy of self or health (that might exist today or could be created for the future) that will protect us from suffering. In leaning in to discomfort and being ok with pain, discomfort, grief, heart ache, injury we can find freedom.
In fact we can deprive ourselves of the huge learning opportunity to develop compassion, surrender, humility and acceptance by fixating on getting rid of the conditions through which life elicits and teaches these qualities (again, not that i am advocating for being a passive victim of circumstance, just to not be a victim of control and fear either!).
In effect, sometimes in our quest for healing, we can perpetuate the internal relational disconnect that might have contributed to the physical imbalance or dis-ease. We abandon ourselves as we are _Here – Now – scrambling to try to attain “health” or “wholeness”. Essentially disowning or avoiding the parts of ourselves that feel “inconvenient” that so quickly get left behind, only to control our lives from our unconscious choices and views and often resurface sideways some time later.
Surrendering to and acceptance where we are right now, especially if that is with sickness, intense emotional pain, physical limitations and handicaps is a hard and sometimes painful process. But resisting what and where we are and what life is, is far more painful, gradually closing our hearts, rendering ourselves ineffective, brittle, incapable of change and cutting off our connection to the present moment, ourselves and each other. In this state our pain feels unbearable.
We can get so attached to our idea of who we are and how we want to operate in the world and what we want to experience (socially, vocationally, etc), that often the body or mind, manifesting with symptoms that do not support our vision or ideas (with a capitalist focus on DO rather than BE) , are turned upon with aggression when they do not conform. Making our salvation an external that we have no control over: the physical body, rather than the internal, which we can learn to control: creates fear, suffering and disconnect. Even when we are healthy and well there is an element of fear: we know what is keeping our equilibrium is fragile, vulnerable, impermanent and subject to change and chance, and therefore not a stable foundation to build happiness, peace or security upon.
When we have made our salvation into fixed and perfect health – rather than a reverence for the greater intelligence underlying all things- a gentle curiosity as to the roots of symptoms – we have built a house on sand. We can easily fall pray to the idea that we know what we need and what would make us happy in order to achieve and maintain this impossible goal. (From this place I see people come up with all sorts of completley insane and illogical -but radically creative – methods to procure perfect health that often just make them obssesed or unwell!) In a sense we can operate unconsciously as mini gods or dictators wilfully attempting to control reality –ourselves –others –our bodies – past future, ad infinitum. Or, we can relax and let go, receive with gratitude, learn and grow.
One position is fear based and creates suffering through its fixation on avoidance of suffering. And one is grounded in connection and reality based, and has more openness, possibility and kindness inherent within it: it allows us to experience and dance with life: to relate to life: to love life, to love ourselves, no matter what we are experiencing.
When we cultivate and bring this attitude to our lives and decisions, including maintaining and creating health, life just feels more fun.
Please reach out to me with any comments or questions,
With love,
Elise