One of the greatest miracles in\u00a0this life is the fact that for the most part, our bodies were designed to heal.\u00a0But one of the greatest challenges in this life is finding the patience to let\u00a0it happen. We never know how long something will take to get better and if we\u00a0don’t surrender to the process in its own time, it takes longer and becomes more\u00a0painful. A woman who worked out in my gym had a hip replacement and several\u00a0weeks later, she put on high heels and went dancing. As you can imagine, that\u00a0didn’t turn out well. Another woman I know had an acupuncture treatment for a\u00a0sore hip and when she got home, instead of resting her body, she weeded her
garden for the next four hours. Not much healing there either.<\/p>\n
Physical and spiritual healing have\u00a0different components but in the end they need to work together. The ultimate\u00a0goal of physical healing is to make right what has become broken, to get well
again after an injury for example. The ultimate goal of spiritual healing is\u00a0for healer and patient to work together to achieve wellness and inner peace.\u00a0When we allow both processes to work together, each in its own time, the\u00a0miracles happen. Cuts mend. Sore muscles relax. Bones knit back together. The\u00a0mind slows down. Our thoughts become more positive and our attitudes become\u00a0clear.<\/p>\n
During the 1980s, I took close to a\u00a0dozen trips to the Philippines to observe some of the world\u2019s greatest healers.\u00a0Following the ways of their ancestors, they did \u201cfaith healing\u201d or the laying\u00a0on of hands, as they gently infused healing energy into someone who needed\u00a0help. It was a beautiful thing to watch but after a short time of going from
healer to healer, I realized that they weren\u2019t all doing what they claimed.\u00a0Some of them were real and others were putting on a show,<\/p>\n
I found that many of them worked in\u00a0areas where there was extreme poverty, accepting a handful of rice or a chicken\u00a0as payment. But I also met some who charged a great deal of money and would\u00a0only work on foreigners who could pay. As with most things, their attitudes were\u00a0reflected in their results. When a healer was coming from ego and boasting to\u00a0be all powerful and responsible for someone else\u2019s well-being, there was a\u00a0heaviness in the atmosphere and people walked away disappointed. But when they were\u00a0coming from love and encouraged the patient to work with them, there was a\u00a0lightness and a sense of openness in the atmosphere. I\u2019m not suggesting that people\u00a0should not get paid for their work. We all have to live. But when money is the\u00a0main attraction or in some cases, the only attraction and the needy are turned\u00a0away, a lot of good stuff gets left on the table.<\/p>\n
I was constantly amazed and\u00a0astounded at what I saw in the Philippines, so much so that after my third\u00a0trip, I wrote my very first book, \u201cAwakening the Healer Within.\u201d I had seen\u00a0things and been places that very few people in the West had experienced and I
wanted to write about it. I didn\u2019t try to explain what I was seeing in
scientific terms. I couldn’t because I didn’t completely understand it and\u00a0therefore I had no ability to describe it. What I did write about was what I\u00a0felt, what I had learned and how much it had changed me.<\/p>\n
I was moved by the truth and\u00a0humility of one of my Philippine teachers when he said:\u00a0\u201cWhen someone claims, \u2018I can heal
you,\u2019 that isn’t the truth. In my earliest stages, I was caught in an ego trap.\u00a0I had a few techniques within my grasp and I walked around with a holier-than-though\u00a0attitude. I justified myself by saying that I was serving humanity, but when I\u00a0went beyond my ego and looked deeper, I realized I was not enjoying my work and\u00a0I was tired all the time. I was emotional and goal-oriented until I took on an\u00a0effortless attitude. I focused my love and caring on the person I was working
with and we both felt free and so much better.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few years ago, a female masseuse\u00a0whom I hadn’t seen in a long time came to have tea with me. I invited her in\u00a0and as we sat and talked, she grabbed a layer of fat around her belly. \u201cThis\u00a0isn\u2019t mine,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhose is it?\u201d I asked her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt belongs to the patient I was\u00a0massaging last night.\u201d<\/p>\n
I hardly knew what to say so I\u00a0changed the subject. As she left, she said something about how she needed to go\u00a0on a diet.<\/p>\n
I don’t think she was being\u00a0arrogant. She just wasn\u2019t getting the point. She hadn\u2019t taken the time to face\u00a0herself and see that while she worked with other people, she was healing herself.\u00a0If we leave the ego behind as we engage in what we call \u201chealing,\u201d we see that it\u2019s\u00a0a personal search and a desire to connect with someone else.<\/p>\n
As I traveled to the different\u00a0islands and cities all over the Philippines for a decade, watching the various\u00a0faith healers at work, I came away with the understanding that no one can fix\u00a0anyone else. The best we can do is work together and become mirrors for each\u00a0other as we both discover how to thrive and become our best selves.\u00a0When we\u00a0take a moment to tune into the rhythm of someone else\u2019s breath, we are closing\u00a0the gap and becoming whole. It takes a whole person to bring out the wholeness\u00a0in someone else and in this way, we are creating connection instead of\u00a0separation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the greatest miracles in\u00a0this life is the fact that for the most part, our bodies were designed to heal.\u00a0But one of the greatest challenges in this life is finding the patience to let\u00a0it happen. We never know how long something will take to get better and if we\u00a0don’t surrender to the process in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2419,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions\/2419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}