Sweet Surender

It is no secret that I have been pursuing what true health is for the past 5-7 years.

When I began, I used to think true healing was something I did all alone, with focused willpower. But now I know that was a pattern or my ego talking, or just an erroneous assumption.

I also see many people with a different type of pattern, sometimes I had/have this one too, the idea that one had/has to outsource to others to help them to heal, because they believed they couldn’t do anything themselves. This is the ‘Fix ME’ pattern. This also is/was a pattern or ego defence. Our society often reinforces this belief. It places all the power outside of ourselves and gives others ALL the power. It relies on others to heal us because we are too small or not enough. It also gives us someone to blame if it doesn’t turn out as we expected.

But nobody outside of us can heal us (maybe if they have Christ consciousness or other elevated states of consciousness…but this is extremely rare and I have only read a few instances of this. I believe it is rare as few in the world have this elevated states of consciousness at the moment, but in time I feel we will all get there…it may take a few lifetimes but I believe we are all evolving towards this. Feel free to disagree…)We do have to do it ourselves. But NOT in the isolated disconnected way I described in the beginning of this article. That implies we are NOT connected to others or life and that we are isolated individuals. We think we are but that is not true. (If we were truly separate beings then we each could live alone fully self sufficient forever. I don’t know about you, but I would be hungry in a few days and totally unable to find food for myself if there was nobody else around.) We all interrelate and need the skills of others. During the Covid lockdowns this became very clear to me how we needed others in many ways from providing food or medical care to just social interactions and without these, we as individuals and as a collective suffered. We ARE all connected.

Neither of these beliefs/patterns usually will lead to true healing in the long term.

I speak for myself now as I write this, but they sure are difficult to move past or integrate. It is easy to stay stuck in these patterns. We/I have had decades of conditioning that reinforces these too. We have been taught to believe these patterns and the deeper the belief has been learned by the body, the harder it is to begin to carve out a new path believing something else. It is harder but not impossible. So we have to be more compassionate with ourselves…I tell myself I was a very good student and bought into a lot of false beliefs, so I have to be patient and kind as I re-write these patterns/beliefs.

What is true healing? It does not necessarily mean curing a condition, it means become whole. Often less emotional triggers about the issue. We have inner peace. We can still have a medical condition and be healed. It is how we feel about it inside. How much emotional reaction or resistance we have to a situation or condition determines our state of wholeness. We can also be cured but not necessarily healed, if the root causes of why the condition began in the first place have not been adequately addressed. Often the issues just morph into a new form or condition. In the physio clinic it was common for example for people to have back surgery for a chronic condition and then have a shoulder that required surgery soon after etc. The pains/injuries just moved.

We do need to ‘do’ the work ourselves, we can only heal ourselves but we actually have to be open to receiving healing from the universe/source/the field/through others. We also may need to use practitioners or other healing modalities to help assist or catalyse healing. We need to do it ourselves but we also need the assistance of others or their modalities. We can use anything that allows our innate nervous system to initiate healing. Think about the placebo effect….something triggers the body to heal itself. We laugh about this but anyone who laughs doesn’t realise the deeper implications of placebo. It’s not that the treatment modality was fake BUT something allowed or triggered the innate nervous system to heal itself. This is amazing. If I could teach people how to use the placebo effect to consciously create healing I would…this is a miraculous ability for healing itself our bodies have.

This may sound far fetched but think about what your body naturally does if it suffers a cut or fracture. Cuts often heal themselves or maybe they needs stitches to keep the two sides close to facilitate healing. A doctor may need to assist the fracture to be in better alignment to facilitate healing but the bone has to heal from within us. No cast or surgery can heal it for us.

Our mindset also plays a large part. I saw this regularly in myself and others and it is one of the reasons I began to ask bigger questions. How come people with the same injury take varying lengths of time to get better? Look at what else is happening in that individual’s life. Usually the slower one to recover has one or more other factors that contribute to their nervous system being dysregulated/they are in chronic stress. They might have work or home issues, addictions or just faulty beliefs. For example a common belief I heard was, ‘My mother has the same bad knees and she needed a lot of surgery etc, that’s why I have a bad knee.’

True healing is a re-connection with SELF. Our innate haling system is part of this. Trauma is considered not what happens to us, but what happens in us as a result of a disconnection from our SELF. This is not a purely spiritual idea or concept, it is also being uncovered by science and taught with various trauma/somatic therapies, including Dr Gabor Mate’s Compassionate Inquiry, as he has been quoted as saying as much. Other trauma/somatic therapies are similar, Internal Family systems talks about the Self and I have been told Somatic Experiencing has deeply spiritual ideas as well. This Self, is the part of us that in meditation is called the observer or witness. It is everywhere and nowhere. It is beyond the body. It is a field. (We are just a series of quantum fields and potentials when you go deeper into what we are made of) The field is also science fact, read Lynne McTaggart’s book, ‘The Field’. Carl Jung called it the Collective un/conscious. We are in it even if we are not conscious of it. We are all connected via these field/s.

All the 12 Steps programs including Alcoholics Anonymous or Al-Anon have the foundation that recovery (re-cover….the Self) is dependant upon surrendering to a Higher Power- in whatever form we decide that Higher Power may be. 12 Step programs are deeply spiritual and aim to connect us back to ourselves. These programs are also very successful for many people when they practice consistently over time. These programs ask the person to reflect on their not so good traits or habits, surrender them to their higher power and make amends where possible. It is an ongoing process, to become aware of their behaviour and admit to themselves and their higher power whenever they fall short of their ideals and surrender these to their higher power. It is a life process that for ever evolves into a deeper practice and connection to Self and other’s.

So our own thoughts/beliefs /actions all contribute to it…so doesn’t it make sense to become aware of the patterns limiting us and restricting our life and surrender all of these patterns that keep us small, limited, chronically stressed…as we surrender or acknowledge them to ourselves and the universe, we help others via the field. Surrounding is admitting we cannot do this alone but require the universes’ or something bigger than us to assist us.

When one heals, we all get the benefit. So we can all help each other. We can do this consciously or unconsciously. I am choosing to do this consciously and understand the mechanics/science behind it all.

Surrender is a vital part of true healing, but for me, it can be the most challenging. I have been great over the years surrounding some issues. This often fools me into believing I have surrender sorted. But I am aware that there a few patterns of mine that I am asking to surrender, I keep asking to surrender, I keep thinking I am surrendering, but then I feel a little odd sensation in my chest. I notice somewhere within me is holding on, resisting surrender, it is a part of me that doesn’t trust surrender. It feels like if it surrenders and lets go, it will drop over the side of a cliff and fall into oblivion. .. I do get frustrated at times with this scared part of me, I admit. I also know being frustrated with it will not help, usually reinforces it. So I practice self compassion with this frightened part that is terrified to surrender. It fears it it will be annihilated. It fears there is no higher power and it has to do it all. I notice this part and I am compassionate with it. It is a process and for this particular issue in my life it is still an ongoing practice to integrate this fear. I am human and I have not yet reached Buddha status. But I remind myself that surrendering has worked well for me with many other issues. I just have found a big one that requires a little more TLC and patience…patience is not a trait I have been known for, but maybe this is teaching me.

There will be a very good reason for it all, because the universe/higher power is always expanding for our highest good ….I just haven’t got the level of consciousness that can see this issue from the higher perspective, YET. But I intend to keep practicing and reminding myself of all the times surrendering has allowed me to integrate unpleasant issues and emotions. True healing is not a destination but an ongoing ever deepening spiral upwards towards higher awareness.

Work with Jo to improve nervous system regulation, relieve chronic stress and address if any unintegrated emotions or beliefs are contributing to your chronic condition/pain/injury.

www.johadley.online