Our advanced medical technologies, vaccines, and diagnostic tools are necessary to save and prolong life. We are taught only medical professionals have the ability to cure us and, healing doesn’t require our attention or participation. However, despite witnessing how wounds slowly mend starting with your first skinned knee, we still don’t believe we play an active role in our healing. A healthy person doesn’t question whether a deep bruise or cut will heal or not. It might be annoying, but it will heal in due time. The body will always choose to move in the direction of health if it is able to.
What is Healing?
Healing is your body’s ability to fight infections, and accept organ transplants, heart valves, stents, hip joints or pacemakers. After a biopsy or surgery, how do your tissues mend so that you don’t have to return to your doctor for more stitches, glue, or staples? The ability to repair tissues, correct mutations in our DNA, or turn genes on or off showcases the body’s unique ability to heal. This is healing which medicine and science have yet to fully understand nor re-create.
But healing is not restricted to just our physical bodies. Overcoming disease or injuries elicits emotional, mental and/or spiritual traumas that aren’t normally addressed. We are led to believe that once the physical problem is “fixed”, a person can move on with his/her life. The exception is oncology, where patients are provided an interdisciplinary team of allopathic doctors and integrative practitioners who address their physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and/or energetic needs.
Emotional, mental and spiritual traumas are sensed internally but invisible to others. These may lead to feelings of fear, anxiety, pain, anger, poor self-esteem, self-loathing, social isolation, or an inability to connect with others or nature. The root causes may stem from traumatic experiences that individuals were ill-equipped at the time to understand, process and release. Future growth and development may understandably be impeded.
Our Levels of Consciousness Develop Simultaneously
In humans, movement and emotions develop simultaneously. Dr. Feldenkrais said, “For every emotion there is a physical expression.” For example, an individual with poor self-esteem stands and moves differently than one who is confident. In Awareness Through Movement® lessons, students are presented movement choices to compare different movement patterns that may or may not resonate with their bodies. They are often surprised to learn their beliefs about movement are not permanent or that change is not age-related because their brains demand it. Movement choices, as well as emotional and behavioral choices, form the basis of empirical learning and self-improvement. Through movement, Dr. Feldenkrais challenged his students to realize their potential as autonomous, conscious human beings.
Healing Involves the Entire Self
Earlier this year, I was learning a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® lesson which briefly put my body in a position that constrained the left side of my diaphragm. Instantaneously my mind flashed back to a serious cycling accident decades ago where my breathing was inhibited. I felt an immediate sense of panic. However, instead of racing into panic mode, I sensed I was lying safely on the floor and was able to observe my panic pass through me and slowly dissipate.
Healing is not limited to just the physical body, just as a rehabilitated joint cannot work in isolation and must be integrated back into the rest of the body. We cannot separate our physical bodies from our subconscious, emotional, mental or spiritual levels of consciousness or energetic bodies, whether we choose to acknowledge them or not. Unlike children, adults don’t allow themselves to release the energy of their trauma. I believe this is why healing is never linear and why healing takes time. Each physical injury or traumatic event affects the entire self, and therefore healing can only proceed when trauma is resolved in its entirety.
Trauma is an experience not an identity. Assuming trauma as a new identity prolongs the healing process because it adds another level of complexity which we must consciously address. Trauma will resolve because it is a temporary condition. It doesn’t redefine who you are, but it shapes who you become.
Healing Requires Conscious Participation
Healing transcends all borders, ethnicities, languages, cultures, space, time, beliefs and identities. It requires active vigilance and conscious participation. That means to make conscious choices that support your body’s innate, dynamic intelligence for nutrition, exercise, hydration, discomfort and rest. Healing is dynamic and influenced by thoughts, negative and positive, which manifest as conscious and subconscious intentions. Willpower uses the mind to dismiss, dissociate, distract and disempower the body.
A harmonious, healthy life is impossible if it is littered with internal inconsistencies and strife. By regularly practicing self-reflection and self-awareness, we intentionally bring our thoughts, speech and actions into alignment and take full responsibility for our health. Maintaining a healthy balance of your physical and energetic bodies, and your emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being facilitates healing. Becoming a conscious, independent human being is work and it doesn’t mean life gets easier. It will constantly challenge you and sometimes bring you down to your knees, but the rewards of inner peace and health are immeasurable.