Want to heal the world? Relationships? Bad habits? There’s a simple way to do it if you know how. In the conscious community, there is a healer for just about everything. Energy healing, sound healing, relationship healing, disease healing, past life healing…the list goes on and on. Truth be told, the best healers are the ones that help you discover your own innate ability to heal yourself. It’s important to know that you don’t need to rely on others to heal. You don’t want to disempower yourself or create dependence which can end up costing you time and money. Believe me when I say that real healing starts and ends with you in your own mind.
Let’s start from the beginning. The reason why we seek healing is that something in our life is unwell. As discussed in a recent blog post I authored, there are 8 dimensions of wellness, so it stands that any one of these dimensions or all of them could be areas you want to heal. It may seem overwhelming to tackle all eight at once, so the good news is that you don’t have to. There is one simple method for addressing all of them in your own time as you see fit.
Let’s Get Real To Heal
First, a dose of reality. Life is not perfect, humans are not perfect, health is not perfect, relationships are not perfect. All of this is a universal truth, and so recognizing that which is and is not within our control must be understood and accepted. Working individually to improve areas within your control is self-healing. Working with others to improve areas beyond your control lightens the burden of trying to heal the world all by yourself. Start with you and heal yourself. Inspire others and heal the world.
To start down the path of real healing, it’s helpful to identify what isn’t healing. That way, you can be aware of your own behaviors and course-correct when necessary.
Numbing Isn’t Healing
Healing isn’t always fun, but it’s vital for a life of health and happiness. When we run from our problems, we engage in numbing behaviors. We avoid having that talk, or we hit the bottle, or we eat the tub of ice cream, or we revenge date, or we binge watch TV, or we ignore doctor’s orders, or we do all of these things at once. But numbing doesn’t heal the core issue, it just temporarily eases pain. Without addressing the underlying issue, it’s no wonder that the same problems keep showing up over and over again. The same habits, the same types of people, the same issues will continue to resurface until you flip the script. Rather than numbing, dig deep and think about the emotional reason beneath the numbing behavior. Get to the root of the problem, then focus on addressing it directly.
Blaming Isn’t Healing
It’s easy to blame others when things don’t go our way. It’s harder to see those instances when we ourselves are responsible. Playing the victim is a kind of numbing. Complaining and pointing fingers may help temporarily ease pain, but ultimately, it drains energy, exacerbates hostility, and leaves underlying issues unresolved. A key aspect of healing is to stop blaming others for your predicaments. Avoid gossip, anxiety-laden news, and fruitless discussions on how bad things are. Focus your energy instead on your current situation and ways you are going to productively move forward and get to where you want to go in life.
Ruminating Isn’t Healing
Carrying the weight of the past in your mind is a surefire way to remain stuck. Replaying the same saga over and over in your head keeps wounds fresh, making matters worse, not better. When you find yourself wallowing in misery or repeating the story of your demise to everyone who will listen, catch yourself immediately and STOP. SWAP those thoughts with positive ones that make you feel grateful for the present moment or excited about the future. Optimism is healing. Pessimism is draining.
Where Healing Begins
Healing begins when you realize that life is better without hate or anger or resentment or sadness or loneliness in your heart. It lets go of bitterness and pettiness and transgressions and nonsense of the past. It does not mean that you won’t have negative feelings. Nor does it mean you should suppress them. On the contrary. It recognizes bad feelings as normal, it lets them have their moment, and then it lets you move on.
Healing begins the moment you decide you want a better life and will start wherever you are to achieve the life you want. It starts with you and your state of mind, and it is reinforced by the actions you take every single day. It does not seek gains at the peril of others. It uses your power for good.
Healing begins when you release the burden of trying to change other people and instead focus your energy on changing yourself. When you realize that you alone are responsible for your own healing, you think differently, you act differently, and those in your life are positively affected.
Healing begins when you understand the source of the pain you’re feeling, then address it, then learn to let it go. You are in control of your mind, your body, and your emotions. You have the power to ask for help and seek support when you need it.
Healing begins when you commit to taking small steps every day, making progress toward your desired state. By recognizing that you may falter but care enough to keep going, emotional strength will be an inevitable result.
Five Steps to Heal Your Life
Step 1 – Frame the Core Problem.
What is the one biggest reason why you feel sad? Depressed? Angry? Lonely? Scared? Frustrated? Tired? Think about it now, and rather than blaming another person or thing for your feeling, which will only make you feel helpless, establish a phrase that will empower you by placing yourself in the center of the situation. For example, instead of telling yourself, ‘I’m depressed because my parents didn’t love me,’ swap it with, ‘I didn’t get the love I wanted.’ Instead of ‘I’m stressed because my boss is so unreasonable,’ swap it with, ‘I want a saner work environment.’ Instead of ‘I’m lonely because the pandemic has me isolated,’ swap it with ‘I want more social interaction.’ Reframing the core problem in this way is less mentally paralyzing. It puts you in control so you can more easily set a path towards getting what you want.
There will certainly be core problems that are not so easy to reframe. For example, ‘I’m scared because I have cancer.’ ‘I’m sad because I caused an accident.’ ‘I’m anxious because I can’t pay the bills.’ In these situations, it is important to acknowledge your feelings without resorting to numbing, blaming, or ruminating. Then as swiftly as you can, move to Step 2.
Step 2 – Find Your Calm.
Set time every day to have quiet moments for yourself, even if it is just for a few minutes. Meditating, practicing yoga, focused breathing, listening to soft music, taking a warm bath, nature walking…these activities help create calm spaces in the day when you can turn down brain chatter and turn up healthfulness. Peaceful moments help to reduce the stress hormone cortisol, which leads to reduced feelings of anxiety, worry, and fear. Greater clarity will rise to the surface – as we know, it’s hard to think straight when we’re anxious.
To live in your calm, you must abolish your ongoing tendency for comparison and the need for perfectionism. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Do not compare your spouse, your kids, your parents, your possessions, and especially yourself to others. Live your life at your pace, in your own way, on your own path. That being said, do not mistake happiness for contentedness. You can be incredibly happy, but not content with your current situation. Be happy and filled with enthusiasm to be even better than you were yesterday.
Step 3 – Plan To Be Positive.
It’s a fact. Negativity breeds worry, hopelessness, and despair. Positivity breeds comfort, confidence, and joy. If you want to heal, you need to practice positivity. This does not mean you need to go all kumbaya and turn into a Pollyanna. You can be pragmatic and still be positive. You can be realistic and still be positive. You can even be skeptical and still be positive. None of these traits are mutually exclusive. All you need to do is tell yourself that you want to live differently. You want to feel happier. You want to be placed in situations that are better for your well being. The important part of this step is cutting out all the negative talk inside your own head. Stop being your own worst enemy, and start being your own best friend. Stop saying you can’t. Start saying you can. Stop saying you’re not smart enough, not good enough, not thin enough, not attractive enough, not interesting enough, not talented enough. YOU. ARE. ENOUGH. And you deserve to keep improving yourself to get all the shots you want to take in life.
Step 4 – Small Steps Every Day.
Healing works best when it is gradual and almost imperceptible, not abrupt or jarring. The work happens in the micro-steps that result from tiny course-correcting decisions. It happens when change seeps into your system so subtly, you almost don’t notice it. To make consistent, persistent healing progress, you must first be specific about the end state you want to actualize and the specific activities you will enjoy every day on your path to that desired end state. For example, if you want to heal money problems, ‘attracting abundance’ isn’t specific enough. ‘Paying off all debt in 2 years’ is.
Once you have your end state crystallized, then determine the specific daily activities that will help heal your problem. It may include a deep dive into what you’re really good at. It may include researching more rewarding career opportunities. It may include networking with people you admire. It may include swallowing the ego and asking for support. It is important to take small steps and carve out realistic daily activities every day. Trying to tackle everything at once is often unreasonable. It can overwhelm you and cause unnecessary anxiety. Oftentimes, when you can incorporate micro-steps into your routine, they can be too small to fail.
Step 5 – Heal What You Can. Laugh at What You Can’t.
Wisdom is understanding what you can and cannot heal in your lifetime. When you can let go of the things you cannot heal, you release yourself of immense frustration. Focus on self-improvement and your interactions with your world. Appreciate the power you have to fill your world with love, joy, beauty, and prosperity. Let other people work on their own core healing. Maintain a sense of humor and levity about circumstances beyond your control. Shift your awareness to have a clearer understanding of your own situation, your desired state, and the steps you need to take on your healing journey. When you do this, you will be taking possession of the keys to healing everything in your world. It all starts with you. Your mind is all that matters.
Some religions preach the piety of human suffering. I call bullshit. I do not believe that humans were put on this earth to suffer. I believe we were put on this earth to experience precious lessons in a physically manifested form. That being said, most human suffering, it can be argued, is not physical, rather, it is mental or emotional. It stands then to reason that our minds and our souls are what need healing most. And so it has been proven: laughter is healing. Joy is healing. Feeling empowered to manifest your desired physical reality is healing.
Take the time right now to face your core issues. Be specific about your healing journey. Take micro-steps every day to self-improve. And simply laugh at the rest.