you are your own healer

whether you know it or not

*Photo above by Preston Schlebusch Photography, wearing Ohm K at SYNC Studio Brooklyn.

Do not fight your body. Do not carry the world on your shoulders like Atlas. Drop that heavy load of unnecessary baggage and you will feel better.
Do not kill the instinct of the body for the glory of the pose. Do you not look at your body like a stranger, but adopt a friendly approach towards it. Watch it, listen to it, observe its needs, its requests, and even have fun. Play with it as children do, sometimes it becomes very alert and swift.
To be sensitive is to be alive.

– Vanda Scaravelli, Awakening the Spine

Do you love to take care of yourself, sometimes neglecting concern for the world outside of yourself? Or do you prefer to take care of others, resulting in the occasional neglect of self-care [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][i.e. Have I washed my hair this week?]?

The challenge, which is not all that challenging unless we make it out to be: can you and how do you find a happy medium between caring for others while simultaneously healing or caring for yourself?

Self-healing is a deeply intuitive process. Unfortunately, today’s world easily distracts our self-awareness through media, smart phones and surfing the infinite interwebs. Not that these things are all terrible – I love the way we can connect on social media, but it becomes an issue when our attention rests on this superficial aspect of our Selves, and is then withdrawn from our inner Selves.

When we’re out of touch with that innermost part of our beings, it feels a little foggy when we try to search for ways to heal, or how to move forward on our individual journeys. As a result, we may continually seek healing or help elsewhere; we may risk becoming reliant on outsides sources instead of from our own source.

Support along the lines of self-healing is imperative, coming from my experiences as the client and the coach, the seeker and the sought-after, the healed and the healer. We must remember, however, that the healing we do all comes from within. We are all powerful, intuitive, resilient, and inherently whole.

Even if we find ourselves healed because of an outside source – be it doctors or coaches or teachers – the healing truly came from within ourselves, our bodies, our minds. We were just fortunate enough to have had a guide en route.

We are all 100% capable of cultivating what we need, whether it is joy or a stronger immune system. When we experience happiness, for example, our sympathetic nervous system chills out, allowing our heart to beat regularly and our digestion to flow ease-fully [among other things].

Can you see how this is all interrelated; how our physical and mental components talk to, support, and affect one another in order to heal?

If you can’t see it, I’m sure you’ve felt it whether you know it or not. I’m sure you’ve healed yourself at some point, whether you powered through an illness, skinned knee, broken bone, headache or heartache. Whether it was a piece of cake or a long and winding road, you made it.

Can you think of a time when you might have relaxed or opened up a bit, only to discover that something making you feel dis-ease or dis-comfort alleviated, even if only a little?

This does not mean that we will always feel healed, or like a ball of radiant sunshine. There are tough times, especially when it comes to digging deep and being completely truthful about our Self, our body and mind, our condition[s], etc. These times, however, are just as much of the healing process as the times when we feel partly or completely healed.

“Love everyone, there is only one. [Rumi]” And we do our best to do just that, but not in some lovey-dovey, eating-rainbows-and-shitting-unicorns kind of way. Just because we’re working with a practice like loving awareness, it doesn’t mean we’re always going to feel that way. In the Suicidal Tendencies song You Can’t Bring Me Down, Mike Muir sings, “Yea, maybe sometimes I do feel like shit, I ain’t happy ’bout it, but I’d rather feel like shit than be full of shit.” It’s not that feeling like shit is something to be glorified, but it is just as real a part of the process as the loving-awareness aspect, and that’s OK. It doesn’t make you any less spiritual if you’re feeling like shit. Actually, if you’re aware that you’re feeling like shit and doing something constructive to work through it, it doesn’t get more spiritual than that. Just be completely real with yourself in the process, and you’ll be fine.

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