All suffering and illness comes from a perceived sense of separation (an unloved state).
Dr. Leonard Laskow (MD)
Healing is how we recover, repair, restore and retain health and wholeness in mind, body, spirit, community and environment. Healing may or may not result in cure.
The Samueli Institute
First we have to heal our spirit. Secondly we have to keep our body healthy. If our spirit is healthy and conformed to the truth, the body will get healthy naturally.
Usui Sensei (Founder of Reiki Ryoho)
The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated. Plato
The American Medical Association (AMA) states 80 percent of all health problems are stress related, and even the conservative Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated that 85 percent of all diseases appear to have an emotional element. Dr. Mercola
The most Divine art is healing. It must occupy itself with the soul as well as the body. Pythagorus
Tao of Healing
Going beyond the ordinary
Shedding the orthodox
In radiant Emptiness
The Self-nature reveals. I Ching
To heal a nation, we must first heal the individuals, the families and the communities. We listened to three women yesterday. What they had to say tells me that spiritual rebirth is happening; spiritual rebirth is absolutely essential. The imperative for us now, as Native people, is to heal our communities, and heal our nations, because we are the final teachers in this sacred land. We have to teach how to live in harmony with each other and with the whole creation. People will have to put down their greed and arrogance before they can hear what we are saying. I am not sure how many will do that. So we are in the process of healing ourselves, healing our communities, and healing our nations.
The closing words of Elder Art Solomon at a conference at University of Sudbury in 1992
Illness is a physical manifestation of spiritual decay. Healing, ritual and community – these three elements are vitally linked….
The Healing Wisdom of Africa by Malidoma Patrice Somé (Dagara People)
The journey of healing is one filled with mystery. Over centuries, from different times and parts of the world, we hear the same message written in many ways – the body and mind are one; soul and body are one. Even Mother Earth and Self are one. Our health and the health of our community is one.
Here in the west, we have been so trained to separate our spirit from our body, our self from our community, and we forget to consult our inner or ancestral wisdom and our spiritual state when seeking to heal our physical bodies. It’s not that medical, alternative or body therapies shouldn’t be used to treat illnesses manifesting in the body. Indeed, the spirit, mind, energy, and body are one!
The missed opportunity is often, however, to include one’s inner wisdom, one’s spiritual guidance system to offer insight, answers and inner knowing to the path of wholeness and spiritual healing that our medical models often fail to include as essential to the healing the soul of a person and their community and more. Often what receives little attention in the healing path is the spiritual decay and the need for spiritual awakening that offers the power of the mind/body connection to heal itself.
As you ponder this wisdom shared above from over cultures, centuries and even current research, I invite you to listen to my latest series of podcasts on healing. My friend and colleague Colin Hillstrom, a Transformation coach, and I held a series of “fireside chat” discussions about healing. Our conversation covers our experiences with healing, what we understand healing to be, and how healing connects us to spiritual awakening. Listen to the first in the series.
Blessed be the way of your healing!
Namaste,
Shirley Lynn