healing
Accepting The End Of A Relationship
Don’t resist change, even in love. It is always best to accept things when a relationship ends. Sometimes a door needs to be closed in order for another door to open down the road.
I have seen this in my own personal relationships and those of many of my clients and friends. If it’s meant to be and there is true, everlasting love between two souls, there can never be a permanent goodbye. Rest assured, if you are meant to be with your beloved, they will come back to you, or you will go back to them.
At some point we all experience the pain of saying goodbye to someone we love very much. Experiencing relationship break-up tends to turn our lives upside down. This is especially true when we have to close the door on someone we love very much when we don’t really want the relationship to end.
But if we do it in a way that leaves the door open for them to come back, then maybe we can have a new beginning later. We just have to do the very hard thing of saying goodbye and taking a step back for now. If we refuse to accept that a relationship is over, we only prolong the pain and dysfunction, and make it difficult to heal and grow from the issues that caused it to fail in the first place.
Instead, we should focus on ourselves and our own needs for a while. When we are in a relationship that is not working, it can be easy to neglect our own needs and issues. Accepting the end of a relationship allows us to focus on our own healing and well-being. No matter how hard we try to hold on, it will only make it more difficult to bring healing to the aspects of the relationship failure that need healing.
The Miracle Power Of Blind Faith
In the early 1980s, Britain was in the grip of a recession and it was hardly the time to lose your job. Unfortunately, I did, and fell into debt and depression. In total, I was about a year’s salary in debt. It was a daunting sum to pay back when I had little prospect of finding a job in such an economic climate.
I went to the bank and explained my plight to the loan officer to make arrangements to pay off my debt in increments. I remember sitting in his office and he looked me in the eye and said, “Unfortunately, it looks like you are not going to get out of this situation anytime soon. You are going to have to file for bankruptcy.”
However, being a feisty young woman of blind faith, I replied, “I can assure you that I will! Even if it takes a miracle!” In the back of my mind, I knew I desperately needed one.
Well, my miracle did not come in the form of an unexpected lottery win or tax refund, as I had hoped, but rather in the form of steady work through a temporary staffing agency, as well as sheer grit, determination and blind faith that enabled me to ‘miraculously’ turn my situation around. Yes, I did it!
This life experience may not seem like much of a miracle to some, but it certainly was to me at the time. I guess it all depends on what the term ‘miracle’ means to you? For some, like me, a miracle might be overcoming debt, unemployment, and an economic recession. For others, it might be overcoming a life-threatening illness or disability, or meeting your ideal partner after a devastating divorce, or landing your dream job against all odds. I do however believe that ‘blind faith’ is often the key, no matter the circumstances.
Shamanism – The Original Spiritual Practice
In recent years there has been an avid interest in shamanism. A myriad of books, seminars and extensive training programs around the world reveal a keen exploration of indigenous cultures and their connection with nature, their healing techniques (such as soul retrieval) and the role of power animals or totems.
Shamanism, in its classical sense, comes from the regions of Siberia and Central Asia and the term ‘shaman’ originates from the Tungusic word saman (masculine) or samana (feminine). The term shaman has been interchanged with ‘medicine man’, ‘sorcerer’, and ‘magician’ – but a shaman is so much more. The shaman is traditionally a central figure in the community: mystic, poet, healer, communicator with the unseen realm and psychopomp (leader of souls).
Personal experiences in the realm of shamanism are typically very euphoric and relaxing, and are often also described as dream-like, or an ecstatic experience. The divine calling of the shaman or shamanic practitioner manifests in several different ways:
• Divine calling from spirit (ecstatic dream, illness, or near-death experience)
• Hereditary through family lineage
• Apprenticeship
• Individual choice
All of these means of being “called to spirit” involves initiation and ritual in some form. Every clan, tribe or culture around the world pass on, through tradition, their teachings, rituals and creation stories. They all have a central theme, however, namely the ability to communicate with the unseen realm to gain knowledge, healing, the ability to ‘conquer death,’ and that we are all part of both the spiritual and physical realities.
The Empowering Wisdom Of Forgiveness
Although I consider myself a very spiritual person, forgiveness has not always been one of my strengths. In fact, I used to struggle with forgiving those who had hurt or wronged me.
Fortunately, as I matured in my spiritual evolution, I eventually realized that by not letting go of negative events and experiences in my past, I was only being haunted and held captive by them, which was not serving my highest good.
For several years, I was stuck in a downward cycle of replaying certain past events in my mind, reliving every excruciating detail and allowing the past to negatively influence the present and my future. Over time, it became clear that this issue was holding me back in more ways than I could have imagined.
To find some answers, I decided to shift the focus of my spiritual practice for a few months to consult my guides on this issue. During this time, spirit guided me as follows.
Letting Go
To truly forgive, we must let go of the past. There is no true forgiveness if we still somehow hold on to the smallest regret or resentment. Forgiveness is all, or nothing. There are no half measures or gray areas.
Forgiveness is more than just an emotional healing process, it is also an empowering metaphysical practice. If we do not release something completely, we continue to hold some level of negative energy that continues to affect our current vibration, which diminishes our quality of life and negatively affects our future happiness.
The Modern Practice Of Spiritual Healing
In a world driven by science and technology, the value of our spiritual health is rarely recognized or appreciated these days, yet it is an essential aspect of our holistic health and well-being.
The truth is that spiritual healing has been practiced since the beginning of time to promote physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being. Our ancestors were much wiser in this regard. They had a holistic view of health and wellness that not only focused on the physical and mental, but also honored the spiritual or metaphysical aspects of our existence.
In ancient Egypt, for example, illness was treated as a battle between good and evil, and magical remedies were used in addition to herbal medicines. In ancient Greece, holism underpinned everything, and the soul, mind, and body were considered one.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, a holistic system practiced for at least 23 centuries, healing is achieved by balancing the yin-yang life force energies that permeate everything in the universe. In the indigenous healing traditions of Native America, holistic health is represented by the four quadrants of the ‘medicine wheel’ or ‘sacred circle,’ namely the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual states of being.
In Christianity, spiritual healing is documented with many references to the healing power of faith and prayer. The Bible also refers to the spiritual gift of healing, and there are several accounts of Jesus performing miraculous healings. In Hinduism, Ayurveda is a five-thousand-year-old Vedic system of medicine that seeks to restore the balance between the body, mind, and spirit.
Betrayal Blindness And The Family Scapegoat
I have a good friend who was raised by a mother who constantly belittled and talked down to her. She never defended herself, because she grew up believing that she deserved her mother’s abuse, because something was wrong with her causing her to always say and do the wrong things.
Once she graduated high school, she moved out of her mom’s house. Her life became much more peaceful for several years, until she started noticing that her brother was following in their mother’s footsteps by adopting the same kind of toxic, abusive language towards her.
It oddly became evident to her one year at Christmas time, when she gifted him a beautiful, crocheted blanket that she had been working on for many months and he rolled his eyes and made some disparaging remark about it. She then started noticing how pompous, ungrateful, and narcissistic he truly was. Growing up with him, she always assumed he just had bit of an ego or a macho attitude, but now that she had gained life experience and wisdom, she realized he was simply an abusive jerk.
Still, she chose not to criticize or judge him. In fact, she did the opposite, she encouraged his long-suffering partner to stay by his side and continue to support and love him, because she understood that he was also just a product of his upbringing, like herself. Meanwhile, he faithfully continued judging and belittling her. Because that is what he had seen their mother do all his life.
But one day, something inside her finally shifted. She had reached a point of no return and decided to start standing up for herself! Enough already.
The Basics Of Reiki
Reiki is popular concept in modern spirituality, metaphysics and energy healing. It is therefore good for anyone interested in these fields to have a basic understanding of this technique to engage in discussions with likeminded people in a meaningful way.
The term reiki is a combination of two Japanese words. Rei means ‘divine wisdom’ or ‘divine power,’ and ki means ‘life force energy’ or ‘vital human energy.’ Reiki is therefore a ‘divinely empowered life force.’
Reiki, or rather the system of Reiki, was developed in Japan a century ago by a Buddhist monk known as Mikao Usui. He was a renowned spiritual man who dedicated his life to being of service to others. While seeking spiritual awakening on Mount Kurama, north of the Japanese city of Kyoto, he was divinely inspired with the gift of Reiki. It was introduced to the United States in the late 1930s by Hawayo Hiromi Takata, a Japanese-American woman who received training in Reiki in Tokyo and became a master practitioner.
Although it is more commonly known only as a form of energy healing, true Reiki is in fact a comprehensive spiritual practice and a conscious lifestyle. Yes, it involves the healing of the mind and body, but it also proposes living in total peace with oneself, and being aware of your own unique purpose and spiritual light within. The system of Reiki seeks to remove the layers of fear, worry and attachments that conceal our innate brightness of being.