Caught in a bog?
Full spectrum healingWe all have areas of our lives that seem to get stuck. For some it is a physical health problem, for others it’s financial, and for some it’s relationships. To move on from these problems we need an approach that integrates all these different levels.
Sue Randall, MA (research psychology)Reiki Past life regression Narrative therapy Art therapy |
The complexity of healing
Often a problem in one area of life has a knock-on effect in other areas. People with chronic illness often experience social isolation and financial problems, and people with relationship issues may find it hard to do well in the workplace, which can affect their finances. People with financial problems may end up depressed, with a spiritual sense of meaninglessness. Everything connects. The scary part about this is that when we run up against a core “lifetime” problem, it feels like getting stuck in a bog. The more we struggle to break free, the deeper we get sucked in. Often we need an outside influence to help pull us out. This is not a sign of weakness. The weakness would be letting yourself just sink deeper and deeper into the bog until eventually it is too late.
Part of the challenge--and joy--of being human is that we have to face life on so many different levels all at once. The chakra system, developed by ancient Eastern mystics and brought into the modern Western world, can help us to understand those levels better.Physical (base chakras)
Our physical bodies need to be looked after throughout our lives. It's a bit like owning a car. If you don't look after it properly, it won't serve you well. Even if you do look after it, the natural laws of the universe say that it will gradually get old and eventually fail. For some people, that’s all life is. The desire to satisfy physical needs and enjoy physical sensations becomes all important. Other people see the body as being inferior to the mind or spirit, so they neglect it. Both attitudes are unblanaced and in the end unrewarding.
Our bodies provide a powerful avenue for changing ourselves and fulfilling our life purpose. Physical healing often accompanies spiritual or emotional healing. Yet a person whose body is busy dying can still achieve healing on non-physical levels. Our relationship with our bodies is complex. Healers need to work with that complexity in a way that benefits the client beyond what the client could achieve alone.
Emotional (middle chakras)
Our need for physical comfort blurs into emotional desire. We want to feel loved and connected and to give the same to others. Our emotional connection may be to animals rather than people, but the basic need is the same: to belong, to feel less alone in this world, to feel that we are part of a meaningful relationship with another living being.
Not all physical therapies integrate the emotional level. The role of a healer may be to facilitate emotional change while a client is receiving physical treatment elsewhere, or to bring the client to a point of emotional readiness to get physical treatment. For some clients, the need for physical treatment is minimal but Reiki or other energy healing plays a key role in emotional healing, which benefits the body. Unfortunately, a huge number of illnesses have been labelled "psychosomatic" by medical doctors and psychotherapists alike. These cases are viewed with suspicion by those practitioners and are often seen as difficult or untreatable. But the problem may well lie with the nature of therapies that cannot deal properly with the mind-body connection. Human beings are by nature "psychosomatic."
Spiritual level (upper chakras)
Ideally, the intellect mediates between the emotional self and the spiritual self. The mind has the potential to collect all the various bits and pieces together into one whole.
One of the biggest problems with spiritual healing is that it is impossible to regulate through a professional organisation at present. Spiritual healing is not the same thing as psychotherapy. Many clinicially trained psychologists are anti anything religious or spiritual. This stance is dangerous for a client who is spiritually searching or who is experiencing a spiritual transformation rather than medical or psychiatric crisis. Similarly, some spiritual healers have a very poor understanding of basic psychology or do not believe in modern medicine at all. Such individuals lack the objectivity to act in their clients' best interests.
The medical professions council is set up in a way that entrenches the split between mind and body, rather than closing the gap. It is difficult or impossible to register as a therapist working with both body and mind together. This situation has given rise to a large group of practitioners and healers who are actually lay people but have stepped in to fill a gap and provide services that are not available from registered professionals. This might be one of the reasons why going to see a healer can be a bit of a leap of faith. But it’s important to take that leap. Life gives us what we need rather than what we want, but sometimes we only receive what we need once we take an active role in our own well-being.
Johannesburg |
