Pain: Friday Five

:: Friday Five :: Week 10 :: Physical pain :: How to participate: 1) Join holy memes and kosmic blog starters and check it out every Friday for a different set of five questions. 2) Copy and paste those questions into your blog. 3) Tag your entry with the words “Friday Five” and post it. 4) Come back to the pod and tell us about your post. 5) Message suzanne with ideas for next week. Let's spread the seeds! 1) Why is there physical pain? To teach us lessons. To draw our attention to things and issues we have chosen to ignore, avoid, suppress, forget or abuse. To show us where we could benefit to focus our attention and work on. Sometimes to test our thresholds, tolerance, beliefs, integrity, alignment, focus, strength. As Robert Gary Lee says: “Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.” 2) Do you prefer western or eastern medicine? Why? I prefer medicine that is as close to natural as possible, that allows and helps the person to heal himself/herself without being invasive and harmful in any way. Whether it is Eastern, Western, traditional, alternative, allopathic or tribal, there is a place and value for each one of them. So throughout my healing journey after a lot of bouncing between the extremes, I have reached a place and point of integrating the best of each one of them and accepting their pros and cons rather than juxtapposing them and choosing one to the complete and total exclusion of the other/s. That integrative and complimentary approach has helped me search for new ways of applying the wisdom of the various healing modalities and treatment systems, but always relying most on the inner guidance, intuition and personal applicability and uniqueness. 3) Describe your own personal experience with pain. Chronic illness? Trips to doctors? Shamans? Hospitals? Accupuncture? I can write a book about this subject. Actually I did. My healing journey has lead me through amazing challenges and experiences. I have been through so much and different types of pain that I’ve come to know it very closely and intimately. From being totally scared and avoiding it at all costs to becoming friendly with it and trying to learn the precious lessons which it can teach. My first published poem was actually called “NOT Learning from Pain”. Contrast that one with the "Healing" poem included below in a separate blog entry which was written several years later. One of the big lessons I’ve learned is that pain may be unavoidable, but sufferring is optional. Besides, we can also choose to learn from and with joy instead of doing that always through pain. And also the reason we desire and seek healing is because we are totally capable of and absolutely entitled to it. 4) Have you or someone you know been miraculously healed? I’ve read and know of many ‘miraculous’ healings from many diseases and conditions. I believe in miracles and for me these are neither coincidences nor spontaneous remissions – they are rather due to a shift of energies, intentions and/or consciousness. Some of the ones that stand out as miracles caused by a combination of personal determination, sheer will and changes in lifestyle, attitude, behavior and consciousness are extraordinary people like Meir Schneider who restored his vision naturally and holistically, Jim MacLaren who restored his mobility after two major accidents, the first leaving him without one foot, the second making him paraplegic; the many disabled and paralyzed as well as cancer survivors who manage to overcome all adversities in their quest to restore their health and reclaim their lives by using natural treatments and healing alternatives. 5) What is the biggest healing secret you have learned in your life? That WE have the power to HEAL ourselves and that by healing OTHERS we heal ourselves. I’ve also discovered several personal truths and revelations that I wanted to share in more details. Here goes. "HEAVEN HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES" is a well-known maxim, embodying in few words the results and wisdom of millennia of human experience. The spirit of SELF-HELP is the root of all genuine growth in us and it constitutes the true source of healing and wellness. Help from outside can be relieving in the short run, but may be often weakening in its long term effects, but help from within always empowers. Whatever is done to treat us externally to a certain extent temporarily takes away our stimulus and necessity of doing it ourselves. When we are subjected to superficial guidance, overmedication and questionable treatment, the inevitable tendency is to make us increasingly reliant and helpless. “AS ABOVE, SO BELOW” – what is happening at one level is reflected in all the others. Whatever the external expression of a given state of disease or discomfort, the real reason is the obstructed life energy flow at some or all levels. That is why healing must be HOLISTIC and address ALL aspects and levels, to be fully effective and complete. Luckily we do not have to figure it all out on our own. First of all, there is plenty of information and knowledge out there, sometimes too much and often confusing. Second, life energy is infinitely intelligent – it knows exactly what to do – it just needs 3 things: 1. Space and openness 2. Support and love 3. Courage and belief Throughout our lives we have been continuously conditioned, educated and made believe that our happiness and well being are dependent on and secured by means of institutions, people and medications rather than by our own efforts and behavior. Therefore the value and results of self-help and self-healing have been usually overlooked and mostly underestimated. “ALL HEALING IS SELF HEALING”, says Albert Schweitzer and he is right because all diseases arise when the energy flow is blocked in some way. Our role is to be aware and listen to all levels (be it body, heart, mind and spirit), use all the knowledge, tools and therapies that we find beneficial in order to promote optimal energy flow and ultimately heal ourselves. HEALING IS TRULY A JOURNEY. Even if it can be ‘miraculous’, it is not a ‘quick cure’. It is a process and can be a wild ride with valuable lessons for ourselves and others, if we are ready to learn them. Healing of any sort is also rarely a straightforward, progressive process. It usually occurs in cycles or spirals, but it is important to keep in mind that the spirals DO go upward, so there is continuous improvement overall. In order to heal fully and completely, we have to heal all aspects of the Self, not just the physical body – that means take the courageous body, mind, heart, spirit approach and follow it devotedly through its many ups and downs, twists and turns, trials and errors, successes and failures. Healing is truly an incredible journey that let’s us learn and grow in amazing ways. And finally here are 3 of my favorite healing quotes: “Circumstances do not make the man. They merely reveal him to himself.” ~ Epictetus ~ “We all need to be healed in the highest sense by making ourselves perfect in mind, body and spirit. The first step is to realize that this is even possible.” ~ Deepak Chopra ~ “Be realistic: Plan for a miracle.” ~ Bhagwan Shree Rajnesh ~