The Path to Healing

Healing can take many forms. It can come swiftly and unexpectedly, or it can come over weeks, months, even years. Slow healing is the hardest to endure, and yet we mature and grow as the process unfolds. We can have what we perceive as setbacks during the time of healing, and yet it’s all part of the process. The important thing is not to set a timetable for ourselves, not to berate ourselves for not being as healed as we think we “should” be. There is no should. There is only progress through time.

There is also quick healing. I experienced this once quite unexpectedly. My healer happened to be a meditation teacher. In one of my guided meditation sessions, I experienced a complete and profound healing. This occurred when I was at one of my lowest points emotionally and frankly would have tried just about anything (short of drugs) to feel better. I was skeptical but open-minded about the process. During one of my meditation sessions, in almost an instant, a great weight was lifted from my shoulders, and I mean this quite literally — my whole body felt lighter, my emotional pain was gone, and the world even looked brighter. I felt bathed in white light. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences I have ever had.

The feeling of lightness lasted for days, weeks. Even though it didn’t last forever, it lasted long enough to give me the strength I needed to move forward.

We all need help to find healing now and then. Whether we seek it from a traditional doctor, a non-traditional healer, from our spiritual guides, or a combination of these, there is no shame in seeking help. In fact, it is the wisest of things to do. It means we value ourselves enough to recognize when we are in need.

If we listen to our hearts, we can determine where we should go to fulfill that need. I could have sought a traditional therapist, but that didn’t feel like the right route for me at that time. Instead, I was led to attend a wellness fair where I felt compelled to talk to this meditation expert. When she told me she could help me and she “heard” that it would take three sessions, I wondered if I was being scammed. This wasn’t something I had ever done before, but I made the appointments to see her anyway. Sure enough…it was on the third session that I experienced my healing, just like she said.

We can’t completely understand the ways of the world. Mysteries and miracles happen every day. The people we need come into our lives to help us heal, sometimes only to leave our lives when that healing is over. Sometimes we are the healers for others, and sometimes others are the healers for us. The point is that we heal each other. It’s a mysterious process, how we find our healers. But as long as we continue to look for them…that’s what is most important.

Read Full Post »

Remembering 9/11

I, like most Americans, remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I learned the World Trade Center had been hit. In reviewing the videos of that day, I remember the shock of those minutes between doubt and certainty when, as a nation, we realized that the first plane was not a mistake, but a deliberate attack on our soil and on our citizens.

When we came to that realization, our entire world changed forever. Even though we had been the subject of smaller-scale terrorist attacks, no one dreamed that something of this magnitude could happen here. Terrorist attacks happened “over there” to “someone else.” We were immune, or so we thought. The mighty U.S. was invincible. Until we no longer were.

Lives were lost and lives were changed on that fateful day. Every American’s life was changed in some way. The questions in our minds left us with uncertainty and fear. How could this have happened? Why didn’t we see it coming? How vulnerable are we? And what could possibly be next?

That day, we joined the rest of the world that has been subjected to fear and terrorism on its own soil. We became one with the rest of the world, instead of separate and superior, as we had thought of ourselves.

No one is immune to hate. Hatred knows no boundaries. We may not understand the hate that fuels this type of action, but we don’t need to understand it to know one thing: we must be forever vigilant while this hatred exists. And that is the sad truth of the world we live in.

Nothing bad happens without some good coming from it. That day brought us together as a nation like nothing else could. And on anniversaries like this, it is good to remember that unity, especially as we have become more divided politically. When we face a common enemy, we unite as one, regardless of our differences. We have no choice if we are to survive. Political differences mean so very little when there is a greater cause uniting us.

Remember those who lost their lives, and those who lost loved ones. But also remember the unity we felt as a nation. Because somehow, out of the ashes, that was the one great thing that emerged. Though we were crippled, we ultimately grew stronger because of it.

Read Full Post »