When Healing Doesn’t Happen

This morning, as I was meditating, I had one of those special moments of awakening. As I was in the moment, I remembered that the last time I had a profound experience of awakening, I tried to cling to it, thinking, “I want life to be like this forever.” The moment I attached to the experience, it stopped.

I have found the same to be true in regard to healing. I remember times when I would suddenly feel completely well. I would attempt to attach to it as though I could squeeze that feeling into my body forever. Then minutes later, I would be uncomfortable again and wondering why nothing ever worked.

In reality, something was working. I could feel my wellness. It would have been appropriate to acknowledge how I was feeling and give thanks for it. Where I created an impediment was when I tried to grab on to it and make my body and mind submit to wellness, rather than allow it to simply be.

Energetically this is similar to cupping water in your hand and then squeezing your hand. Of course, the water immediately runs out of your hand. However, if you keep your hand cupped, the water lingers. When you are in a true state of acceptance, the water stays in your hand.

Attempting to make healing happen or hanging on to those moments of wellness doesn’t work. It must be allowed to simply become you. You surrender to the wellness and invite it in openly to have its way with you.

Getting overly excited doesn’t work very well either. Some years ago, I was healing a cut finger—eyes closed, singing to the cut to seal it. At one point I opened my eyes and saw that my sound healing was working. I got very excited and thought, “Oh, this is easy!” From that moment on nothing happened.

I asked my elder and teacher what had happened, and she explained that the moment I got excited, I was basically expressing my disbelief and doubt. She told me that you don’t get excited when you know it is going to work; you just do it. Healing is a matter-of-fact reality when you know, without doubt, that it will happen.

Dr. Artistotle describes the phenomena of excitement and ego quite well in this article: http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/how-does-perception-affect-healing. As he suggests, sometimes even positive thinking isn’t the kind of positive thinking that helps you become well. He suggests letting go of the “emotional roller-coaster” of being extremely excited or extremely depressed will help accelerate healing.

If you find yourself attempting by matter of will to grab on to healing, impressing it into your being forever; or getting excited and over-confident at the first signs of actual wellness, like me, you are probably going to discover these approaches don’t work, and your healing process actually slows down or can even come to a complete halt.

It is far better to open your heart and body to being well. Then graciously notice when you are feeling better with gratitude. You can feel pleased and grateful, enjoying the moment of your wellness, without trying to grab hold of it or becoming overly excited by it. When you can simply allow wellness to be fully accepted in the moment—letting it settle into your bones—you will discover moments of wellness occurring more and more frequently, until that is your natural state.