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Most Don't Want Healing
Most people confuse healing with masking. Healing takes considerable attention and work and most people aren't willing to "do the work."
Date: 3/13/2006 4:54:19 AM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 2486 times Why Most People Don't Really Want to Heal (Part 1) By Kevin Burk
I recently attended a metaphysical lecture facilitated by Guy Williams, a friend of mine who also happens to be a minister of Religious Science. After the lecture, Guy opened the floor for prayer requests, and one of the attendees asked for healing for a family member who was experiencing a significant health crisis.
In the course of the discussion, Guy asked if the attendee was certain that her family member actually wanted to heal, observing, "Most people don't really want to heal. Most people just want to stop hurting."
Once again, an off-hand comment by Guy Williams completely rearranged the furniture in my head. (If you'd like to see the results of some of Guy's other off-hand comments, check out The Relationship Handbook: How to Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your Life. The sections on forgiveness and anger are both inspired by Guy's wisdom).
Most people don't want to heal. Most people just want to stop hurting.
Most of us want to wave a magic wand and make the pain go away. Most of us focus on treating the symptoms: we'll take pills, injections, or have surgery. We claim that we want to heal, but we rarely choose to heal. We remain motivated as long as we're in pain, and once that pain has become bearable or manageable, we choose to return to our normal lives.
This is not healing...
For most of us, healing is a big, scary, and uncomfortable prospect. Healing requires that we do two very simple, yet incredibly unappealing tasks. First, we must accept that we are responsible for creating our own illness: Our thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions are directly responsible for the imbalance and dis-ease we are experiencing in our physical bodies. Second, we must be willing to change our lives and eliminate the thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions that created and supported the imbalance and dis-ease, replacing them with new choices that support balance and health.
The process of healing really is very simple, and if we break it down into small, manageable steps, following the process can also become easy as well. As with most challenges we encounter during our human experience, healing requires that we first become familiar with and learn how to master our egos.
THE CARE AND FEEDING OF THE EGO
Let's begin by remembering who we truly are. We are each whole and complete, eternal, multi-dimensional beings, individualized aspects of All That Is. We are also each currently having a human experience, in the third dimension of matter and form, on the planet Earth.
When we begin our human experiences, we're given a very useful tool to help us to interact with the third dimension: the ego. The ego is entirely a third-dimensional construct. In a sense, we put on an "ego suit" so that we can experience and explore the third dimension from a unique and specific point of view. The ego helps us to pretend that we are individuals; more specifically, the ego helps us to pretend that we're not, in fact, connected to each other as a part of All That Is. Ultimately, our egos are designed to help us to remember where we left our car keys, and not much else.
The problem is that our egos don't know this.
Our ego believes that its job is to protect us from what it perceives to be a very cruel and dangerous universe. Since the ego was created to help us maintain the illusion of separation from the Source, separation is all that the ego knows. The ego feels lost, isolated and alone. In an attempt to protect us from the pain of the world, the ego increases our sense of separation. Of course, the greater the separation, the more pain. The more the ego tries to protect us from the pain of separation, the more pain it causes.
The ego's single greatest fear is death. Everything the ego does, it does to try to prevent itself from being destroyed. The ego can be destroyed-it's a product of the third dimension, and therefore it's fragile and finite. We, on the other hand, are eternal, multi-dimensional beings who can never die or be destroyed because we are a part of All That Is. We get into trouble when we start to identify with our egos and forget our true natures. When we start to believe that we are our egos, we see the world from our ego's point of view and experience fear and pain.
All fear comes from the ego. All fear, in fact, is directly related to the ego's fear of being destroyed. Fear can only exist when we believe that we are separated from the Source. The more we believe the ego, the more we believe we are separate from the Source, and the more we experience fear.
Only two states of being exist: fear and love. We experience fear when we listen to the ego and buy into the idea that we're separate from the universe. We experience love when we remember the truth that we are whole and complete. It's not possible to experience both states of being at the same time, although most of us are masters at switching between them almost instantly.
Many of us are familiar with the truth that our reality is nothing more than words. Our thoughts and beliefs define our experience of reality. Therefore, if we change the words, we change the world. We can, in fact, change our lives in an instant, simply by choosing to create more elegant and supportive thoughts. We can release any negative belief, eliminate any destructive pattern, and instantly experience the levels of joy, love and prosperity that are our birthright.
The challenge is that the ego does not understand this. And, more to the point, the ego has a vested interest in making sure that we do not change our thoughts, beliefs, patterns or behaviors. Moreover, whenever we do set an intention to change our thoughts, our egos interfere in subtle and insidious ways to insure that we continue to think, believe, and behave exactly as we have in the past.
And why does the ego do this? The ego does this in order to protect us. One could even go so far as to say the ego does this because it loves us. Granted, it's definitely a "Mommy Dearest" "No-More-Wire-Hangers" kind of love, but even so, when the ego encourages us to cling to our painful, negative beliefs, it does so because it truly believes that it's acting in our best interest.
Remember, the ego is a part of the third dimension; we are not. What the ego believes is in our best interest is not always actually in our best interest.
The ego believes that it is protecting us from being destroyed. (In point of fact, the ego is actually protecting itself from being destroyed. The ego can be destroyed. We, on the other hand, cannot, because we are eternal, multi-dimensional beings, and individualized aspects of All That Is.) The ego believes that even our most painful, limiting beliefs are essential, because the small amount of pain that we experience actually protects us from a much bigger pain: death.
When we choose to change our thinking, we must be careful not to trigger our egos. One of the most powerful ways to approach changing our thoughts and beliefs is to consider this radical thought:
Every belief that we currently hold, no matter how negative, painful, limiting, and even wrong it may be, actually serves us. Because we are whole, complete and perfect exactly as we are, it follows that each and every one of our beliefs is also perfect.
This may seem a strange approach to changing our thinking, but consider it more deeply. The root of every negative, limiting belief is the belief that there is something wrong with us. This belief, in turn, can only exist when we buy into the illusion that we are separate, and forget the truth that we are completely and eternally connected to all of creation; that since we are individualized aspects of All That Is, we are, by our very nature, perfect.
Often, when we believe that there is something wrong with our beliefs, we trigger the ego. As a result, we beat ourselves up for having created the negative belief in the first place. This, of course, only reinforces the root of all of our negative beliefs: that there is something wrong with us. When we accept ourselves and our current beliefs as perfect, we avoid triggering the ego. This is the most effective way of actually changing our beliefs.
Once we've convinced our ego that there's nothing wrong with the beliefs that we currently hold, we can introduce a new thought. While all of our beliefs are currently working just fine, it may be possible to upgrade our beliefs, and make more elegant choices.
Consider this: most of our most limiting and painful beliefs were formed while we were children. We created these beliefs using the resources and skills available to us at the time, in order to protect us from very specific circumstances and situations. Even though these beliefs worked beautifully when we were children, we've never actually updated them. Our circumstances have changed. We've developed significantly greater skills, and have infinitely more choices and resources at our disposal as adults than we did as children. It may just be possible that we can create a new belief that does an even better job of protecting us than the old one did.
Or, to put it another way, when we formed most of our painful and negative beliefs, we only had the 8-color box of crayons to use. Now, as adults, we have access to the big, 128-color box. The 8-color beliefs still serve us, but when we're ready, we can also choose to upgrade and create more elegant, skillful, and above all, more colorful beliefs.
Part 2
The story so far...
At a metaphysical lecture facilitated by Guy Williams, Guy made the comment that most people don't really want to heal. What most people want, according to Guy, is to stop hurting. In Part 1, we met the ego, and discovered that the most effective way of letting go of our limiting and outmoded beliefs is to accept that there is no need to change these beliefs because they're actually working just fine. What we have, on the other hand, is the option to upgrade our beliefs and to make more elegant choices.
For most of us, healing is a big, scary, and uncomfortable prospect. Healing requires that we do two very simple, yet incredibly unappealing tasks. First, we must accept that we are responsible for creating our own illness: Our thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions are directly responsible for the imbalance and dis-ease we are experiencing in our physical bodies. Second, we must be willing to change our lives and eliminate the thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions that created and supported the imbalance and dis-ease, replacing them with new choices that support balance and health.
Taking Responsibility For Our Illnesses
The first step to healing is to accept that we created our illnesses in the first place. This can be a difficult concept to swallow. So many of us are invested in the prevailing Western scientific medical view of reality that we can't quite understand how we created our illnesses.
Most illnesses are caused by viruses or bacteria. If we catch a cold, or get the flu, how is that our responsibility? Someone sneezed on us in an elevator, and now we're laid up in bed for a week. We're so helpless against the various flu strains that there's even an annual cold and flu season every year. Every ad for cough medication, every news report on flu vaccinations only serves to reinforce the belief that we're helpless victims of forces beyond our control. The only way to avoid getting sick is to avoid human contact for six months of the year.
But what about the people who don't bother with flu shots, and don't avoid human contact and yet they also don't get sick? Are they just lucky? They're being exposed to the same bacteria and viruses that we are. How is that that they stay healthy? Could it be that their thoughts support perfect health and a strong and functioning immune system, while ours somehow invite illness?
What about hereditary or genetic disorders? How can we be responsible for these? Or is it just possible that our belief in heredity is what creates hereditary diseases? If we believe that because heart disease "runs" in our family that we are "at risk" for a heart attack, how does that belief become our reality?
Of course, in the case of heart disease, there are so many other contributing factors, such as diet and exercise that have as much, or more to do with the health of our hearts than heredity does. It may just be possible that what we inherit is not a genetic predisposition to heart disease, but the nutritional and lifestyle habits that actually result in heart disease. We inherit behaviors from our families as well. We're responsible for our choices, and we're responsible for any dis-ease that results from our choices.
I have a friend who "inherited" a degenerative neurological disorder that affects her feet and makes it difficult for her to walk. Every doctor she saw told her that she would be in a wheelchair by the time she was 40, and there was nothing she could do about it. She knew how her relatives had lived out their lives with this disease, and decided that this was not an acceptable life for her. She refused to accept the diagnosis, and began to explore alternative therapies. She made radical changes to her diet and lifestyle, and very quickly noticed a radical improvement in this chronic, progressive, degenerative condition. According to the best medical experts, she shouldn't be able to walk today. However, because she took responsibility for her illness and changed the thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that created her illness, she has been able to reverse it.
Many conditions result from negative thinking and limiting beliefs. Unexpressed anger, regret, grief, and other painful emotions can manifest as chronic, painful, and sometimes terminal illness. In order to heal these conditions, we must identify the negative thought or belief that is at the core. The challenge, however, is to identify and release the negative thought without triggering the ego. All too often, we punish ourselves for having negative thoughts in the first place--we beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up. This only reinforces the negative thought and destructive patterns.
We must accept that every belief we hold, no matter how negative or limiting, serves us in some way. This goes for our illnesses and dis-eases as well. Before we can heal, we must become aware of what benefits we get from our illnesses.
Discovering And Accepting That Our Illness Serves Us
Every choice we make, we make because it meets a need. We created our illness because it gives us something that we believe that we want. What is the payoff we get for being ill? What are we getting out of this situation?
No matter how painful or debilitating the illness, there is always a benefit. Objectively, we may have made a rather unskillful bargain, of course. We may feel that we're paying much too high a price for the benefits we receive. But until we identify the benefit-until we become aware of what it is that we get out of being ill, we can never truly heal.
Healing requires that we identify what it is that we get out of being ill, and then become aware of our beliefs surrounding this need. We must be willing to give up these benefits, or recognize that we can meet these needs in less debilitating ways.
When it comes to minor illnesses such as the cold or flu, often we get sick because we haven't been listening to our bodies. We've been working too hard, and under too much stress. We haven't been taking care of our physical, emotional, or spiritual needs. The only way that we will take any time for ourselves is if we're too weak to get out of bed, so that's what we create.
I have a friend who has a rather intense family history, with enough drama and intrigue to fill a prime-time soap opera. A number of years ago, she experienced a rather significant identity crisis. An inheritance set her up financially so that she could do whatever she wanted to do with her life. The fact that she could do whatever she wanted with her life meant that she had to actually choose what she wanted to do with her life, and this created a great deal of stress. She began to have anxiety attacks, and soon developed acute agoraphobia, finding it very difficult to leave her house. She's struggled with this condition for many years. The payoff of this condition is that she has an iron-clad excuse not to face her fears and do something with her life. All of her time and attention is focused on her condition and her anxiety.
We may find it difficult to accept responsibility for having created our illnesses because we created our illnesses to avoid having to take responsibility in the first place. Illnesses and injuries are often cries for attention and validation. When we're ill, injured or otherwise in pain, we're entitled--and even expected to think only of ourselves. We are excused from our responsibilities to others. We don't have to go anywhere we don't want to go, we don't have to do anything we don't want to do. And we can expect other people to do things for us and we're under no obligation to return the favor. We can cancel plans at the last minute, or even simply not show up, because we were in too much pain to fulfill our social obligations--and we don't even have to call to apologize.
Within reason, we're able to complain to others about how we feel, or put on a brave face, enduring the pain (but also making certain that everyone knows that we're a martyr to our pain and we don't want to ruin everyone else's good time). Either way, our illness is making us the center of attention, and this makes deposits in our Validation Accounts. Granted, the deposits are very small, and the cost is extremely high, but for many of us, this is the only way we believe that we can receive validation and attention from others.
Healing means that we will have to give up our "special" status. We will no longer be entitled to be the center of attention at all times. We will no longer be able to demand that other people notice us and pay us special attention. We will be expected to do things that we may not particularly enjoy, in order to meet our personal and social obligations to others.
If our illness is a chronic disability, healing means that we will once again have to work to earn a living. If we believe that the only way that we can earn a living is doing work that we find repugnant and draining, where is the incentive to heal? And, could this belief be one of the primary reasons we created our disability in the first place?
Sometimes it's more important to keep our handicapped parking privileges than it is to heal and have to (or even be able to) walk an extra block to the supermarket.
Please know that there is nothing at all wrong with that choice. We are free to choose to keep our illnesses and our dis-eases. These conditions meet very important needs for us, albeit at a considerable cost. We may not really want to heal, and that's a perfectly acceptable choice.
Of course, once we accept responsibility for having created our illness, and become completely aware of the costs and benefits, we may realize that we can, in fact, meet those needs more effectively in other ways. When we realize this, we are truly ready to heal.
The Courage to Heal
Healing is a very threatening process because it requires that we make significant, often dramatic changes in our lives, and change is always threatening. On the most fundamental level, safe equals familiar. When our most basic, physiological needs are being met, we're often able to overcome minor concerns about the unknown and embrace change without feeling threatened. When we're in pain because of dis-ease, however, our most basic needs are not being met.
When our Physiological Need account is overdrawn, all of our need accounts are put on red alert. When we're in pain, we're most definitely not feeling safe, and any change will be a threat. To make matters worse, the behaviors that we will have to change-often eating, drinking, and/or smoking-seem to be the few reliable ways that we can make deposits in our Safety Accounts.
On an intellectual level, we may understand that the only way to truly heal and be free of the pain of our dis-ease is to alter our behavior. However, when our safety needs aren't being met, we act on instinct. The very thought that we have to give up the few things that give us pleasure makes us feel even less safe.
What happens next is that we often retreat into victim consciousness. We long for the magic wand that will miraculously make the pain go away and let us continue with our lives exactly as they are, because that's the only option we can imagine that lets us feel reasonably safe. When we escape into fantasy, of course, we avoid any personal responsibility. We also give up all personal power, and lose the ability to heal.
In order to truly heal, we must accept each healing crisis as a call to awareness. When we're in pain, all we can do is find some way to alleviate the pain. This is an essential first step. Healing requires that we address our safety needs, and we can't do this until our physiological needs are being met. Healing isn't about stopping the pain; healing is about what we choose to do once the pain has stopped.
Healing is not about pain management; it's about safety management. In order to change our behaviors and allow our bodies to heal, we must learn how to manage our Safety Accounts.
For example, we might have an emotional attachment to sugar. Anytime we feel stressed, unhappy, or otherwise unsafe, we can always rely on a candy bar or some ice cream to make us feel a little better. If we are at risk for diabetes, however, eating sugar poses serious health risks. Of course, the thought of having to give up sugar makes us feel unsafe, and in order to replenish the balance in our Safety Account, we dive into a pound of Godiva chocolates.
The only way to break this pattern is to learn to manage our Safety Account. We must discover other behaviors that help us to feel safe that do not involve eating sugar. We can use the "Present Moment Awareness Safety Exercise" (see The Relationship Handbook: How to Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your Life, page 48) to manage our general stress levels so that we're less likely to give in to our cravings. We experience the truth that we can meet our needs in many different ways, and so we do not feel threatened and unsafe by the thought of limiting or excluding sugar from our diet. And, of course, we apply AWARENESS, OWNERSHIP and CHOICE to create new behaviors that support our health.
Now, anyone who has struggled with attachments or addictions will tell you that while the theory is very simple, simple isn't the same thing as easy! Throughout the process, we also have to be careful not to trigger our egos (as we covered in Part 1). We must take small steps, validating and rewarding ourselves for each elegant choice, no matter how small, and avoid punishing ourselves for not being able to change our behavior patterns instantly.
We did not create our dis-eases overnight, and we won't be able to heal them overnight, either. We must accept that healing is a gradual process, and in this acceptance is one of the keys to healing. We generally do not need to make drastic, immediate changes in order to heal. We can make gradual changes in our behavior and our beliefs, and the more gentle we are with ourselves during the process, the more successful it will be.
Healing does not have to be difficult. It's just that for most of us, as soon as we stop hurting, we lose interest in actually healing.
Kevin B. Burk is the author of The Relationship Handbook: How to Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your Life. Visit http://www.everyrelationship.com for a FREE report on creating AMAZING Relationships.
http://www.123relax.com/healtharticles/heal1.html
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