Which level of healing are you missing?

Ever notice how a problem you’re working on doesn’t seem to budge much? You work at it from one angle, but the final answer seems to elude you. Maybe by taking a few steps back we can identify what parts of the puzzle need munching on, pacman like, in order to solve it.

We notice a problem in ourselves and find ways to try to heal it. But on what level are we healing? In Reiki, and increasingly in Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), we talk about healing on the 4 levels. These are the physical, the mental mindset, emotional and spiritual. What do these mean?

Physical – this is perhaps the most obvious. We feel pain in a part of our body and we move to resolve or reduce it. And yet when it comes to taking regular exercise or eating plenty of good quality food, how much do we let ourselves down? The 5 portions of fruit and vegetables that various health agencies around the world recommend are actually a minimum. The American National Cancer Institute now recommend up to 9 servings for maintaining good health – 5 is apparently barely adequate.

Emotional – In Western society we’re taught to repress how we feel, especially the bad feelings. It’s not safe or acceptable to express sadness, jealousy, rage or fear. They’re weaknesses. So we learn to bury them. It could be in the knees, or in a vital organ, anywhere so long as we don’t have to feel them. I find about 70% of my clients tend to bury those horrid feelings in the solar plexus area as it’s too painful to be able to have it near the heart area. Unfortunately, burying doesn’t mean that they go away. With time and denial, the knees may give way to arthritis, that vital organ to cancer and so on. Locking away painful emotions has the hallmark of Victoriana to it – haven’t we moved on more than a century from this? I’ve come across nothing better than EFT at clearing painful emotions related to appalling experiences like rape and abuse, to less distressing feelings. Perhaps finally we can allow our emotional selves to come into the 21st century.

Mental mindset – our constant beliefs help define who we are and what we can achieve. Morris Goodman had his neck broken in an accident in his 30s and was left only able to blink his eyes. His doctors told him this was his life. By maintaining a radically different focus and aim, he learnt gradually to regain movement in his body to eventually be able to walk out of hospital unaided. Our thoughts help create who we are and how we can heal ourselves The problem is we’re mostly unaware of the thoughts racing through our minds.

Spiritual – Perhaps less obvious, healing on the spiritual level can be a means to growth and self development. It’s possible to say that the problem arose in the first place to help you grow as a person. Figuring out what is the problem on a spiritual level is about enquiring within yourself for answers. It doesn’t require you to adopt a particular religion. As a friend, who describes himself as a “devout atheist”, has found understanding what the word spirituality means has involved stepping out of his comfort zone and exploring the world of the unknown. Being logical has helped him answer many questions, but science couldn’t come to his aid to explain how someone from severe Alzheimer’s could find his uncontrollable shaking to ease naturally after only 8 minutes of Reiki. Exploring the unknown was the only way to start understanding something that his experiences to date had not provided him with. Healing on the spiritual level doesn’t mean that you leave logic at the front door – bring it along and question with an open mind what you experience. Your truth is far more powerful than the most complicated series of double blind experiments.

The Healthy in Mind viewpoint: if your problem isn’t healing through work on one level, consider what other level you would benefit from working on.

Article Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008