spiritual healing
Only You Can Heal A Recurring Emotional Injury
We are all negatively impacted at times by certain events or people causing us emotional hurt and trauma.
If this is something that is currently weighing on your mind and you feel emotionally injured or overwhelmed today, then the following strategies may help you to overcome the recent setback you suffered.
Not only can these three steps help you to better deal with your current emotional injury, but it can also bring about lasting positive change in your life.
Step 1: Feeling Through
It is vital to process negative emotions. You should never try to suppress or repress unpleasant feelings. It is important that you allow yourself to fully feel your current emotion. Don’t think or rationalize, just feel.
Let the tears of sadness flow, lean into the fear or anxious feelings, or embrace the anger and disappointed. To process and ultimately resolve these feelings, we must first truly feel them.
However, do not spend too much time in this stage of the process. Truly feeling your negative emotions does not mean you must obsess over it or constantly dwell on it. A few hours, or at most a day or two, then let it go! Do not let it drag on for weeks or months, because this will not heal you and will only have a counterproductive effect. After the one-time ‘feeling through’, it is time to move on to the next stage.
The Supreme Source Of All Healing
Spiritual practice is unique for every individual. I have been drinking from the well of wisdom in the Vedas for the past 35 years, especially the Srimad-Bhagavatam, also known as the Bhagavata Purana, one of Hinduism’s eighteen great puranas.
The Vedas are the original Sanskrit texts of India’s ancient spiritual culture featuring a vast body of wisdom in every field of human life, to help the soul navigate this world and reach the ultimate destination beyond.
This ancient manual of life was compiled by Srila Vyasadeva, who is revered by great saints and seers as a literary incarnation of God. In Sanskrit, he is called a saktyavesa-avatara, which means one who is empowered with energy of Divinity to fulfill a distinct purpose. In the case of Vyasa, his Divine purpose was the writing of everything that humans need to know to fulfill their aims and completely awaken spiritually.
Although Vyasadeva was an avatar, and therefore not an ordinary person, he felt despondent after composing all the Vedas. His guru, Narada Muni, the great sage among the demigods, then appeared to him and explained that the cause of his despondency was that he had not yet fully glorified the personal feature of the Absolute Truth.
Taking this to heart, Vyasadeva then meditated deeply on the Supreme Personality of Godhead and wrote Srimad-Bhagavatam from his matured and purified realization.
In Vyasadeva’s own estimation, the most profound of all spiritual wisdom within the Vedas is found within the Srimad-Bhagavatam. And the cream of that cream he describes as bhakti, devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Ravished By A Sacred Centaur
I have studied healing for many years. Since making a conscious decision to embark on my true life journey, I have experienced many powerful teachers. Much of my work has taken me into uncharted waters and I have learned to welcome diving deep.
As the world speeds up, I have slowed down over this last portion of my life, to recover from an illness that I thought might take my life. This process has brought me to waters so uncharted they seem otherworldly, and perhaps they are. Fortunately, I have fully re-entered the world I thought I might have to leave, and fully accept the entire experience as a blessing.
Over this time, I encountered Chiron, the original Wounded Healer. He is a centaur in Greek mythology who was gravely injured and had the opportunity to forever leave his battlefield for the Garden of the Gods. But he chose to stay on the battlefield instead of going to paradise, in order to assist others who were wounded.
I have known Chiron practically all my life, so having a rendezvous him at a major crossroads in my life was no surprise. What was however totally surprising, was that this time I finally fell in love with this benevolent being.
There were many times, especially this last time, when I ran from Chiron’s embrace. I needed to be back in the world I had left behind, where I am primarily committed to helping others. However, there is also a practical reality to deal with. Our modern world is not an easy place to thrive in. Many barely survive physically, mentally or emotionally.
There is also an unspoken, yet imposed maximum period of recovery from illness, much like the time allotted to grief in our culture – a brief period before we are expected to re-engage with the ‘normal’ world and get on with life. But both healing and grief are highly personal journeys, and how it uniquely unfolds for each person is not for others to dictate, prescribe or judge.
Sound Vibration Heals Our Brain Chemistry
Thoughts have metaphysical power. Words, speech, singing and sound also have power. Everything we say, sing and chant has vibrational sound frequencies that changes the chemistry of our brain and the physiology of our body.
A positive sound vibration changes the brain to a calm, compassionate, highly intuitive state. Think of a baby laughing and how it brings joy to everyone who hears it.
A negative sound vibration abruptly shocks and damages the nervous system. Think of someone scratching the chalk board or yelling racist epithets, and how both make you nervous and angry.
We can actually improve our health with positive vibrations in the form of mantras. A mantra is a set of words, with a positive meaning that also has a positive vibration. When repeated over and over, this vibration permeates every cell of the body, igniting, healing and repairing these cells. It moves through every muscle, bone and organ.
This process changes the entire energy field, aura, and expands it. Done with enough practice and an open heart and mind it can increase our light to the point where we can heal ourselves or help others to heal.
Have you ever walked into a silent room and felt that there had been a conflict between the people who have been there, before you arrived? That vibration, positive or negative, leaves an energetic residue and is absorbed by everyone entering into it, unless that person has increased their vibration to the point where they become psychically impervious to other’s negative energies.
Energy Work With Lunar Herbs
The Moon is traditionally associated in healing and metaphysical practices with several flowers and plants, specifically herbs. Many of these herbs are silver, grey, or pale blue, as well as green, much like the Full Moon itself. Many of these plants are also associated with water, or grow near it.
There are several ways to use herbs in your practice, such as ingesting it in teas or other edible formats, and burning it as incense to purifying ourselves and our living spaces.
During the peak of the moon cycle when it is at its strongest during the Full Moon, is a powerful time to reflect on our emotions, the subconscious, healing, and parts of the body associated with water (blood, digestive system, reproductive system). We can enhance this powerful lunar energy by drinking an appropriate herbal tea, or burning an incense blend consisting of lunar herbs.
Different herbs are associated with the different energies of the lunar cycle. If you are working through some difficult emotional baggage, try lavender, wild rose, lotus, poppy, or kava-kava.
Since the Moon encourages healthy consumption of water and moisturizing, herbs like aloe vera, coconut, chickweed, or marshmallow and aniseed roots act as both natural refreshers and soothers. They are excellent to ensure healthy water absorption, and gels made from aloe are well-known as natural moisturizers.
If you wish to deepen your levels of compassion and understanding during a moon cycle, try mugwort, wormwood, or passionflower. Many of these herbs are edible and delicious. Just be sure to double check first, before adding them to your salad or your teapot!
Laughter Is A Spiritual Superpower
I believe there are energies on this planet that feed off lower vibrations caused by fear, anger, depression, anxiety, jealousy, perversion, and hate. The more time we spend in such lower frequencies, the more we will attract even more of those negative energies.
On the opposite end of the energy spectrum, there is joy, love, forgiveness, light , positive thinking, and laughter that keep us in a higher vibration. Laughter is in fact one of the most powerful ways to raise our energy vibration. It even helps to heal our physical body and keeps our mind clear and our thoughts positive. It can be like a life raft that keeps us sane in a somewhat crazy world.
A sure sign that someone is going over to the ‘dark side,’ is when they lose their sense of humor. I’ve had friends who used to have a great sense of humor, until they were sucked into a dark mental state, some of them also using alcohol or drugs to self-medicate (which dramatically lowers our vibration). It’s quite alarming to witness the profound change in them. No more joking or upbeat banter. No more laughter. Not even a smile. Nothing.
I have a long-time friend who lately shows a complete lack of emotional connection. The first time I noticed this change with her was when realized she had stopped making jokes. She also stopped laughing at my jokes.
Throughout our friendship we have always relied on our like-minded sense of humor to deal with life’s challenges. We had used our sense of humor to manage the ridiculousness in life, and even our own dysfunctional behavior. Nothing is healthier than to be able to laugh at yourself!
But then she started losing empathy and interest in others. She increasingly became emotionally unavailable and dissociated. It has been sad and scary process to see my friend’s vibrant personality slowly fading. I have tried to reach out and lift her spirits, but she only checks in briefly from time to time, and then disappears again into the shadows.
Spiritual Enlightenment Is Not A Fireworks Display
Many seekers desire spiritual fulfillment, or yearn for enlightenment, assuming it would instantly bring them wisdom, inner peace, and serenity. But instead, true spiritual growth is often delivered in challenging ways we never expected.
Increased spiritual growth often begins with life-altering events, unsettling discoveries, or distressing insights – such as realizing what has really been holding you back from attaining spiritual fulfilment. These learning curves can show up in many ways. For example, as an unexpected ending of a relationship, a health crisis, or the loss of a loved one.
Often, it shows up in the form of disruptive events that expose dysfunctional thought or behavior patterns that have been stifling your mental freedom, or a toxic mindset that has been hindering your ability to see clearly to break free from limiting beliefs and self-sabotage.
The term ‘spiritual enlightenment’ is used very loosely these days and has become a confusing concept to many people. The truth is that authentic spiritual enlightenment is actually not a very big deal. It is seldom the ‘fireworks display’ that our egos might want it to be.
Spiritual accomplishment is nothing to be prideful or boastful about. It is actually a very quiet process; inward and intimate. People who go through this process in an authentic way, report the experience as being a modest, intuitive alignment, rather than a dramatic breakthrough of profound elation.
Only once we have improved our intuitive alignment, are we subtly encouraged by spirit to not to stop there, but to muster up the courage to take further steps in our spiritual growth and evolution. We become increasingly self-aware and are able to assess what we may have done to contribute to the disappointments in our life, and how these dysfunctional patterns may have started.