STWDM 12 - You Are the Healer and the Healed

Day 12 Message:  We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work. - Thích Nhất Hạnh

Recovery is a healing process. As we enter into the process, we act as both the healer and the healed simultaneously. Your mind and body want to be restored to a state of dynamic balance. So if you begin any kind of healing, the inherent intelligence of the mind-body system   immediately responds. Thus you heal and become a stronger healer at the same time. Knowing that you are the healer gives a sense of power and fearlessness.  When fully embraced, healing is a joyful process.

O:  How many different sides of yourself do you live with every day?  Are you your good self?  Your bad self?  Your kind self? Your harsh self?  Is there a side of you that’s critical?  A side that’s generous?  Well, we often experience ourselves as many, often disparate parts,  Sometimes those parts unfold in harmony but when we feel separate within ourselves we struggle.  We can get lost in lack, we can feel emptiness that needs to be filled.  That sense of being disconnected from ourselves creates burden, heavy burdens.  We often try to fill that void from the outside in – with food, with things, with indulgences.  In truth, the only way to fill that void is from within – from the inside out. As Carolyn Myss tells us, the soul always knows what to do to heal itself.  The challenge is to silence the mind.  At or strongest and most powerful, we are already whole.  I think those of us who meditate know that. Your truest self is in control – it’s always right there within – waiting to embrace life with joy and with confidence.  Healing comes from integrating all of your apparently separate parts together in that seamless whole.  As we let go of judgement, and blame, and pain, we get to access that wholeness so in truth we are both the healer and the one healed.  Burdens drop away.  You get to be free.


D:  Naturally we think of ourselves as a single personality but we all fall into the habit of acting like we are many parts.  Imagine that you have a weakness for going to the refrigerator and grabbing some ice cream at midnight.  When you resist this habit, you tell yourself you’re being good.  When you indulge the habit you say you are being bad, ‘but I won’t do it again’.  Stop and ask yourself who is talking to whom?  You are pretending that you exist in pieces.  One part of you feels separate from the other and your individuality is fundamentally separate from everyone else.  Pretend long enough and the illusion comes true.  This is why the World’s Wisdom Traditions treat healing as coming out of separation.  Healing is integrating all of the apparent separate parts together into a seamless whole.  In truth, you are both the healer and the healed yet the damage done by living in separation stems from being convinced that you can find healing only from outside yourself.  In our society, this usually means running to the doctor, therapist or personal trainer whose role is to supply a cure for whatever ails us.  Each of these does much good, of course, but it’s vital to restore yourself to the integrated role of healer and healed.

Our separate selves are never equal.  One part, that feels in control, is stronger than the part that feels weak and victimized.  In reality, our integrated self is much more in control  of healing than we realize. Our immune system is powerfully equipped with millions of years of evolutionary knowledge built into the immune cells, allowing us to fight off thousands of micro-organisms and potentially cancerous cells every day.  Knowing that you are already a profound healer gives a sense of power, removing the feeling of being victimized.  When we choose to blame someone else for doing it to us, the balance has swung the other way.  We have abandoned the healer role which is the part of us that has self-control, self-worth, and the ability to find unexpected solutions to life problems and challenges.  The ability to spring back into control is a trait that is possessed by people who live a long healthy life span, meaning beyond 85 or 90.  The same bad things happen to them as to anyone else but they were emotionally resilient.  They learned to bounce back into the role of being in control and self-reliant.

In our meditation, we become our true self which isn’t fragmented because it doesn’t play any role – it simply is, centered in its own being.  As you come out of separation, you will see that the roles you play do not define you because you are no longer divided inside.  Because you are whole, you have lost the habit of judging against yourself, attacking and blaming yourself.  All the useless emotional weight.  All of this is the baggage that comes with separation.  When you aren’t divided within yourself, the baggage drops away, leaving you free and enlightened.

Journal Ideas:  1)  Think back to a time in the last few days when you felt tempted to indulge in a bad habit. Note the struggle inside as one part of you fought with another part. How did this inner struggle make you feel?  2)  Explore in your journal simple ways you can diminish this inner conflict. For example, you could stop labeling one part the “bad” you and the other part the “good” you.  3)  Now, expand on at least one way you can avoid the self-judgment that creates inner conflict.