Six Quotes About Healing

All six of today's Healing Quotes
come from a wonderful book by Marc
Barasch entitled, THE HEALING PATH.
Barasch was an award-winning writer
and editor who was diagnosed with
thyroid cancer in the 1980's. This
book is the story of his seven-year quest to find alternatives to surgery; a quest that took him from
Tibetan retreats, to high-tech
hospitals, to the homes of extraordinary survivors.

I recommend THE HEALING PATH to
anyone who is seriously ill, as well
as anyone who wants to avoid becoming seriously ill; which is to
say, all of us. If any of these
quotes resonate with you, I suggest
you buy a copy of Marc's book.

.......

"Sometimes the things that go wrong
in our lives, including physical
illness, may happen when we have
refused to change at the point it was called for: when we continue to
perform a killing job, ignore the
pain of a toxic relationship, perpetuate a self-harming habit; when we refuse to stop what we're doing even when we do not feel well
doing it; when we neglect to ask
ourselves, 'What's the matter?', or
turn a sympathetic ear to the reply."

........

"What was particularly striking to me was how many disease survivors
I spoke with had found, in the midst
of their ordeal, an unexpected
unfolding of the authentic self."

.........

"Disease becomes a non-negotiable
demand, an annunciation saying,
'There is no time but now; no you,
but your deepest self. Anything less
than the total embrace of life is no
longer acceptable."

..........

"Paradoxically, the moment of utter
defeat can be the traditional turning point in the journey. It is
the moment when all conscious
strategems have failed, the ego
abdicates, and deeper forces of life
may make their appearance."

.........

"Disease proneness begins when we cut off parts of ourselves that do not fit -- those selves that speak too loudly, move too clumsily, shine too brightly, desire too ardently.
But there is a law of conservation
in the psyche -- energies are never destroyed, only transformed. If these shadow parts cannot grow with
us, they may grow against us -- or,
if given the chance, may emerge from the shadows to help make us well."

........

"According to the shaman, transformation itself is healing.
Though change may be the last thing
we are interested in when we are
ill -- we wish to go back to the
way we were -- the most archetypal
stories tell us that the path of
healing leads not back whence we have come, but ahead, toward a new
beginning."

....................................

*Tomorrow's category is HAPPINESS. Tweet