October 2009

Healing is an Inside Job*

I believe that all healing is an 'inside' job.  The directives, patterns, and teachers for traversing a healing journey are consistently and readily available, but not always easily recognizable.  Guides and lessons continually present themselves to even the most unsuspecting travelers. The messages, however, are frequently overlooked or dismissed as coincidental, unimportant or irrelevant.  

In the United States, it is generally accepted that illness and disease appear from somewhere outside the physical body, invade it with a certain level of aggression, and may, or may not, be treated successfully with surgery, drugs, therapy, or any combination of these.   The media supports and facilitates this approach with consistent messaging in advertising, public awareness campaigns, and news highlights and stories.  Not only has the general public been bombarded by descriptions of illness and disease that were once confidential between a patient and his doctor, we have all unwillingly become privy to an inexhaustible list of more serious complications directly related to the proposed solutions!  Is all of this ‘public knowledge’ really necessary?  How does it support and offer the everyday consumer what was once considered the esteemed service and high-level knowledge of the medical profession?  How can I or anyone, presenting with a set of indicators and diagnosed with a serious, ‘life-threatening’ illness, find the most advantageous route towards restoring health?  Who guides the journey? 

If the diagnosis is fearfully confronted and obediently ‘offered up’ to traditional medicine, the patient acquiesces control.  The prescribed ‘healing’ journey will be based on statistical analysis of similar patients and their like or similar symptoms.  It is highly unlikely that traditional medical personnel will examine the energetic body – chakras, meridians, nadis, auric field - and its relationship to the manifested illness or disease prior to the prescribed treatment.  If the patient is of typical body size and weight, it is also unlikely that diet or nutrition will be viewed as contributing factors or facilitators of the disease.  Few significant directives are provided that promote dietary changes to enhance healing.  Furthermore, if the patient tests within typical ranges for pulse and blood pressure, their indulgence or lack thereof in a regular exercise routine or in unique creative pursuits is unlikely to be reviewed or considered a contributing source.  Yet, there are research and personal accounts that support all of these as possible causes of illness and disease.  As the world become ‘smaller’ through technology and virtual communities, our access to alternative, more holistic approaches to healing broadens, yet such options within traditional medicine seem to lag seriously behind.

Caroline Myss and Norm Shealy in The Creation of Health (Caroline Myss and Norm Shealy, 1988) approached the restoration of health and healing by examining emotional dysfunction and its relation to illness.  They cooperatively diagnosed disease in patients through each unique set of physical and emotional patterns presented.  Their mutual interest in examining more than the physical symptoms and complaints of each patient guided their research.  They viewed each patient as an energetic whole – a mind-body-spirit entity. 

Interestingly, this method seems hauntingly similar to that of many family doctors when I was a child.  Why?  The family doctor knew everyone in the family.  He or his dad had treated generations.  He had delivered their babies, nurtured their cuts and sprains, carried medicinal solutions and suggestions for viral and bacterial infections, and chatted fluently with everyone.  He knew stories, challenges, occupations, and the neighborhood.  He had the inside information on the emotional, spiritual, psychological, and physical lives of all patients.  He intimately knew the ‘whole’ of each family member because he earned their trust.  Unfortunately, advancements promoting specialized, collaborative medical practices and corporate pharmaceuticals lead to the demise of this holistic, home-based, family approach.  In an attempt to restore health to its rightful place,  with a more personal touch, the pursuit of such comprehensive, individualized ‘treatment’ was taken up by unconventional practitioners of alternative techniques and approaches.  Still, it is seen as ‘alternative’ in a society that deems anything not of the norm to be strange or approached only with great caution. 

The collaborative work of Myss and Shealy (The Creation of Health, 1988) and their ensuing success in effectively diagnosing and treating patients is reflected in this set of probing questions:

“Does the human spirit exist and, if so, what is the nature of its power?  What are the limits of its power?  ….If the mind can create a physical illness, can it also reach outside its apparent physical boundaries and influence the environment around us?”

What, then, is disease and what does “to heal” mean?  Traditionally, healing referred to the end or disappearance of physical symptoms.  Do such state changes really reflect ‘good’ health?  What if, as Myss and Shealy (The Creation of Health, 1988) proposed, disease is created from within?  And, if the human body can create disease, can it also cure – or heal that same manifestation?  I believe so.

The aim of naturopathy, one alternative philosophy, is to treat people, not disease, to remove the cause, not merely its symptoms, and to cure, not just postpone.  Dr. Ross Tattler, (Better Health Through Natural Healing, 2001) states

“Disease is therefore an abnormal or inharmonious vibration of the elements and forces composing the human entity in one or more planes of being.  In the ‘perfectly normal’ individual all aspects of life are kept in harmony….Modern humanity, however, can no longer be considered either ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’.  Nearly every aspect of modern living causes disharmony in the …planes of our existence.  …Disease is the activity of the vital force to create balance.”

This principle could neutralize the fear-based approach with which traditional, Western medicine has treated disease.  If disease manifests in the physical body to create balance for the whole, we should take comfort in the body’s ability to make the appropriate adjustments – if we are also willing to change.  Patients would be relieved to know that the disease ‘process’ is a normal part of their earthly journey.  It could be suggested to patients that the process may involve altering or modifying cell memory, requiring a personal psychological exploration and transformation.  Calmly and confidently, individuals could be guided to open up to the possibility that unresolved emotions or personal issues may have contributed to the physical dis-ease. 

This approach to healing from the inside out would undoubtedly challenge the archetypal ‘wounded child’, carrying childhood challenges as a badge of honor – and those living within the protective screen of ‘victim consciousness’.  However, it could be empowering for the many willing to embrace the opportunity to make changes in their lives.  If offered an external solution – surgery or drug therapy – vs. an internal solution – changing habits, emotions, or life circumstances, how many ‘life-threatening’ illnesses would recur or metastasize?

Candace Pert (Molecules of Emotion, 1997) proposes that virtually all illness has a psychosomatic component.   Her illustrious descriptions of “bodymind intelligence” track the connection between brain and behavior, mind and body.   The body and mind are one, according to Pert, and

“…intelligence is located not only in the brain, but in cells that are distributed throughout the body.  ….Emotions are …the messengers carrying information to link the major systems of the body into one unit that we call the bodymind.  …emotions are involved in the process of translating information into physical reality, literally transforming mind into matter.”

The state of our emotions, therefore, affects whether or not we succumb to illness or disease.  Pert (Molecules of Emotion, 1997) goes on to state

“Sometimes the biggest impetus to healing can come from jump-starting the immune system with a burst of long suppressed anger.”

This advocates change...release…appropriate expression of e-motion (energy in motion) – or emotional baggage.  It describes ‘healing as an inside job’. 

There are alternatives to western, allopathic medicine’s approach to healing.  Embrace your inner knowing, step into your intuitive guidance, and transform those emotions that are holding you back from healing!

*Special thanks for the articulation of these thoughts to my best friend and partner, Bill