Stories of true healing inspire me. Koans and wisdom parables and sayings which expand my spirit and calm my mind, call my body to breathe, relax and expand into its wholeness and balance all inspire me.

I have learned that my healing occurs when I become flexible and resilient enough to bend towards life and accept life, as it is, rather than push for life to bend towards my desires or will. Stress, pain and illness then can become ‘reframed’ in my mind. I thought I would pass along a few thoughts on healing and bending towards life (for most of us that requires a whole shift of consciousness, a change of perspective) which have, and continue to, resonate with and help me …

Danea Horn – “I thought ‘healed’ meant that life became the way you wanted it to be. I could not have been further from the truth. I had missed the most basic of Buddhist principles: life is suffering.

“Becoming spiritual does not mean that we are no longer human. It doesn’t take away the pain, illness, and stress; it only reframes it. Suffering tells us that we are inherently human. Coping with human challenges does not mean that we are less-than or that we are damaged; it only means that we are experiencing things all human beings experience.

“The trick is not to bend life’s will to our personal desires. It is the other way around. We must find the flexibility to bend to Life. That is what I had been missing.”

Socrates – “The secret of change is to focus all of our energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

Buddha – “Our sorrow and wounds are healed when we touch them with compassion.”

Katherine Schafler – “You can change without healing, but you can’t heal without changing.”

Irene Tamaras – “In our logical, conscious mind we are ready, but deep within us, on a subconscious level that we cannot understand because it takes time and maturity for us to understand this, we are NOT ready to heal. Why? Because of what I have come now to understand about healing — that healing is not black or white, that healing is mystical and mysterious and not guaranteed, that healing is hard work that requires great discipline, sacrifice, surrender, courage, and change, that healing is about a deep transformation within us of something far greater than the physical symptoms that we are experiencing and wanting to heal, and that healing is a journey of our growth from living in an ego state to becoming spiritually awake as we reach the deepest part of ourselves in truth as we journey to our soul.”

Judith Orloff MD – “Because I’m a physician, people often ask me, ‘What’s the most important factor in recovering from illness?’ To their surprise, my answer is always “surrender.” Surrender basically means letting go of your need to be in control. It’s about opening up your mind to possibilities you might not have considered, letting your intuition guide you, and being in the flow of life. When we stop pushing and trying to determine the outcome, healing energy becomes available to us. So surrender your fear. Surrender yourself with healing people. Surrender to peacefulness.”

“Surrender is a very active process and on an energetic or subtle level it invites Divinity to resolve a situation. This is why the universe and one’s life is radically altered as one surrenders on something. Once something is completely surrendered the highest form of wisdom and power is now handling it, which means that its outcome has altered also.” http://www.healthandhealingclinic.net/the-role-of-surrender-in-health-and-healing

In my third podcast and conversation with Colin Hillstrom about healing, we share stories and understandings we have gained from our paths of healing and consciousness. I invite you to listen to our conversation.

Then we invite you to try the action at the end of our conversation. As one of my colleagues finishes all our conference calls, “Go out and be a blessing this week.” Alternatively, accept one difficult situation about your health as it is. It brings immediate relief. Immediate energy for allowing healing to begin within.

In closing, I remind of us a powerful healing prayer by Reinhold Neibuhr – “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.”

Blessed be.

Namaste,

Shirley Lynn

In my second podcast conversation with Colin Hillstrom, we begin with the question ‘why bother with healing?’ Why do we need to become conscious to heal? What really is the benefit of doing the work of telling the truth, of becoming aware and awake when healing from disease and illness? These questions challenge us to do more than the bare minimum to return our energy to a state of doing what we have always done. Sooner or later, a crisis will call into question the health and life we take for granted.

For the past two weeks, a police cruiser with its lights flashing has been parked on our street every day to direct traffic onto the detour route around the road closure further up the street. It has been fascinating to observe the varied reactions to this inconvenience. After all, in our journeys from points A to B, we just want to get where we are going with the least amount of disruption and re-calculating.

One afternoon I decided to take a snack up to the officer on duty, and I joked with him about how busy he was making sure that people do what they are being asked to do. His comments surprised me – they are driving past four road closed signs because looking for an alternative pathway is too much work. People are driving on people’s lawns to get where they want to go rather than take the detours. They are even driving around him onto the shoulder and when he chases them down, they give him excuses like they didn’t see him.

I stood there and witnessed him telling a driver who didn’t know how to follow the detour signs and so returned to ask again if she could drive around the barricades to get where she wanted to go. He was kind, but clear in his response: “For the 2nd time, no.” On a several occasions, when they felt they could get away with it, I witnessed several drivers disregarding the officer and the multiple road closure signs and proceeding around the barricade, with little concern for the safety of the workers or the property of those who live within the construction zone.

I understand firsthand the inconvenience of this detour onto a gravel road that can be very dusty, or muddy when it rains, and very rough because of all the traffic. It means I must drive slower and allow more time – this and other inconveniences come with this kind of construction. For me to disregard the flashing lights and road signs just to get what one wants right now, faster, seems an act of disrespect my spirit cannot consider.

I share this story because it’s what I also hear in the stories that I hear from my clients. People will bypass the body’s ‘flashing red light’ repeatedly just to get what they want, now. They don’t believe the red light applies to them needing to become conscious of their body and emotional-spiritual well-being. Their body is supposed to support them regardless of their choices, regardless of their habits. They don’t need to change. Sensory pleasure or momentary ego gratification is the sole motivating factor while their spirit and the flow of truth and love is denied and infringed upon.

Moreover, not only is the body compromised in this situation, but so too are their important relationships, often which also become disrespected and disregarded in some way. Here, just like the lawns and property which are being destroyed, or construction workers that are almost being hit by these drivers, and school property and sidewalks being used as roadways, we often don’t recognize that only using our energy for our ego’s cravings and entitlements are costing the relationships we might otherwise value when the shoe worn becomes our own. Sometimes healing takes a longer route and we do best by honouring the natural rules of healing.

Healing includes more than clearing physical symptoms. It calls for a change in consciousness towards higher aspirations, connections and love to something greater than ourselves. It calls us to open up to new possibilities and potentiality of who we can be in the world, whether it be family, community, ourselves and with our bodies. Healing calls us to use our energy rightly. It asks us to reframe our stress, pain and illness.

The power of healing is found in the acceptance and resilience and love to yield to life, to its detours and even temporary road blocks. Our capacity to heal is found in our willingness and conscious dedication to yield towards what gives us life, love and vitality. Such healing calls us to ask what is the right use of our energy to restore vitality and reconnect us with love and life as it seeks to flow through us.

Which leads me to ask you: What behaviour, habits or spiritual practice leads you toward your higher power and helps make the right use of your energy? Why does healing really matter to you?

Take some time to listen to my podcast series about healing with Colin Hillstrom as we explore using your energy wisely. If you missed the first one, I invite you to start there – this series is really an ongoing conversation between us. I hope you enjoy and I look forward to hearing your comments. Be blessed.

Namaste,
Shirley Lynn

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

Whoever does not love, does not know God, because God is love. – I John 4:8

The wind is breezy, moving and swaying the long grass in the field. As I lay a track for Carlie, I decide which portions of the track will follow ‘downwind’ and which part will have a ‘cross wind’. I choose terrain of various grass lengths because scent is held, pooled and travelled depending upon terrain and vegetation and I want to lay track that is both challenging and yet achievable, encouraging her to be confident in her skill to “follow the trail”.

The sun is bright and it is a wonderful Friday afternoon, heading into summer’s first long weekend. When I return to the house, Carlie is sitting at the door, patiently waiting for me. She knows ‘the game’ that is about to take place. I putter around the house waiting for Nature to do ‘Her thing’ with the track, moving the scent here and there with the wind. Nature loves joining in on our tracking adventures, sometimes as an aid, sometimes as a trickster.

Finally, it’s time. I put on her tracking harness, clip on the long line and put a few treats in my pocket. Carlie starts tracking before she even gets to the track. (She is always seeking the advantage.) Her tail is up and wagging, her eyes are bright and she is panting with anticipation and joy. We get to the start area and I tell her ‘search’. Down goes her nose and into another world she enters. She finds the trail, pulls forward and begins. I walk behind her. She maneuvers the corners, the wind, and the different terrain with delight in the game and in her skill. Challenges arise and become solved. We find the first two items. The gravel poses a difficulty and I have to direct her to follow scent on gravel, across bricks and then wahoo, the tug toy is hidden under a plant in the garden, the final ‘lost item’. We play tug. She tugs and growls and pulls and shakes the tug. What joy! A truly glorious moment.

The moment grabs my heart. My heart opens with love for Carlie. I feel an expansiveness in my chest and I know we are connected. I feel a complete harmony with her joy, and as we return to the house, we celebrate one another and the best we bring to each other. I feel the laughter of the sun and the humour in the wind who created just enough challenge to stretch our minds about what is possible. In this moment of love, of expansiveness and harmony, I feel Goddess ~ I feel Love, or in the words of Pema Chodron, Compassionate Abiding, connected with the Mystery, one with all Essence.

It was that simple. An openness to loving another. A pure joy. Unitive harmony. A surrender which takes me deep into my Self and beyond my ego. And for a moment, reality changes. For a moment, I transform. For a moment, I plant my feet in the land of blessing, and I am home in love. I accept I am accepted in Goddess Love. I recall Tillich’s words: “Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted! If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.” – from Paul Tillich’s sermon You Are Accepted.

In Reiki Ryoho practice, we say Reiki is Love, Pure Awareness, the Essence of Everything. Goddess is Love. Love is pure acceptance. The core of our meditations is to surrender whole heartedly into this Universal Love and Harmony, into this Abiding Compassion, into Goddess who is within us and is the Essence of Everything. And gently, we are changed and change. Love changes everything. Accepting Pure Acceptance transforms us.

Create a moment and return to Love yet again. And if you have wandered far or fallen down, and are estranged from that Holy Love, I share this invitation of our Peace Circle:

Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come. – Rumi

Know Love. Be loved. Love. It is the alchemy of life.

Namaste,

Shirley Lynn

About our next Peace Circle:

Loving Mother Earth, Loving Self

Saturday, June 24^th, 2017

12:00 – 4:00 pm in Waterloo, ON

Weather permitting, this Circle will be outdoors

Cost: $60 (+HST)

Co-Facilitators Shirley Lynn Martin & Karen McCarthy have put together an inspiring Peace Circle during which participants will have the opportunity to reflect on and draw wisdom from Thich Nhat Hanh’s article “Falling Back in Love with Mother Earth”.

During our time together in Circle, we will:

• learn ‘to do’ self love by ‘loving Mother Earth’
• expand, enhance and deepen our meaning of self love as we learn to expand/deepen our meaning of loving Mother Earth
• create deeper connection and integrated awareness of the path to loving ourselves, to loving Mother Earth

Come join us and spend the afternoon in a community who chooses to love ourselves, Mother Earth, and each other. Experience the healing power in the Circle ceremony and stories that collectively transform our being and our relationships. Register today!