Dorena shares some thoughts regarding….Shaman Practitioners

     Shaman practitioners should be as equally respected as the allopathic physician would be.  Medicine reflects patterns that run deep in our culture.  For fifty thousand years shamans have used expectation and suggestion to help people heal.  An important aspect of Shamanism is that it provides us with ancient means of solving everyday problems as well as life’s major issues. 

     Medicine which took shape in the second half of the nineteenth century was not devoid of this understanding although most doctors left it decidedly in the background.  Compared to the spectacular physical effects of therapies such as antibiotics, vaccines, and irradiation, the mind’s effects seemed trivial.  Moreover, by the middle of the twentieth century many authorities claimed there was simply no need for the concept of “mind” or “consciousness”, these terms were merely unnecessary symbols of the brain.

        A shaman is a healer, a person who helps others.  A shaman works with the energy that connects human beings to the incredible power of the Universe – a work that involves journeying and shifting back and forth between realties.

       Shifting mind – sets or moving between worlds in full consciousness is a subtle and delicate process.  Learning to do this requires the ability to change one’s perception, to drop limiting assumptions, to allow for the possibility of an expanded reality.  Shamanism is a way in which we can expand our knowledge by expanding our awareness of the world around us.

       The wisdom of these indigenous, land-based people of the earth can help guide us to a re-balancing of our nature and of the natural environment that is necessary for survival in a world of increasing interdependency.

       A shaman is defined as an individual who received the power to cure directly from supernatural beings through dreams, visions, or spirit possession.  This opposes them to the bone setters, herbalists, etc. who derive their power to cure from a naturalistic knowledge of curative substances and techniques.  The existence of these other types of cures in the native tradition shows that naturalistic philosophies are part of native Meso American thought and that shamans are just one type of healer.  Yet, because they deal with an emotionally charged world beyond ordinary perceptions, they are often regarded as the most powerful healing specialists. 

     Shamans may also use non-magical treatments such as herbal medicines, but these are used within the context of an overall magical treatment.  Although the patient may benefit from the biomedical effects of the herbs, he or she is led to see them as part of an overall magic solution to the problem. 

       A model of how the world is constructed lies behind shamanic healing.  Shamanism is simply based on the laws of nature as Native Americans see them.  This traditional world view is fundamentally animistic.  People believe that an animating force is contained within all living things and moving objects.  Animating forces are the essence of life.  An animating force is usually called a soul al alma in European languages, but this translation distorts its meaning by adding irrelevant Christian connotations.                         Anthropologists have sometimes conceptualized the idea of animating forces as a visit by the shaman to another spirit world.  The traditional shaman seeks greater awareness of what is in this world, not awareness of another world.       Uncontaminated animistic philosophy is relatively simple.  All things move and act because their animating forces give them the power to do so.  In the native world view, no distinction is made between symbolic physical effects or between psychological and medicinal causality.  All significant actions are the result of animating forces at work.  The forces exist in a hierarchy of power with the sun and moon at the top and the stones at the bottom.  The animating forces of humans are in between these two extremes.  Humans have total power over stones, which have no animating force, but no power to change the motion of the sun or stars, which have powerful animating forces.  Humans dominate animals.  Beings that are more powerful dominate humans.  The traditional shaman seeks knowledge of these forces.  The traditional shaman’s quest for knowledge has its own spiritual rewards beyond being simply a practical means of curing.  The community is drawn into the quest and support it as a religious calling.

        When herbalists and shamans exist in the same community, the herbalists are enlisted for routine medical problems where sorcery is not suspected and where a positive outcome is likely.  When illness proves to be more intractable, a shaman is called in to deal with the underlying animating force.  The shaman, on the other hand, confronts the underlying animating forces.

         Shamanic curing begins with a consultation.  The consultation has several important dimensions.  First, the consultation is a visit to a person with special professional knowledge.  Second, by means of visions the shaman may also consult other more powerful beings.  It is a necessary first step in a cure that links the patient to beings that can help him or her.  For this reason, the consultation practically always includes prayers and offerings.  The linking of the patient and shaman to higher powers is almost a reflective act in which the presence of the supernatural is constantly brought to mind through hundreds of small altars in houses, on the roadside, and in public places.

        Diagnosis depends on the knowledge of how different illnesses manifest themselves.  A shaman acquires such knowledge from study, visions, and experience.  Each type of disease manifests itself in a different way.  Each culture has developed different diagnostic traditions.

       Weakness and depression, for example, can be interpreted as symptoms of a loss of animating force.  The loss of animating force, soul loss, is a serious illness treated by practically all shamans.  In many ways, soul loss is essence of illness.  If the animating force cannot be returned, the patient will die.

        Shamans in the East feel the pulse of the patient (pulsing) to determine the illness.  They state that the blood of the patient accuses the sorcerer who has caused the illness.  They say the crystals, made of quartz or colored glass, arrive magically and have the power to reveal an illness inside the body.

        The visions of the shaman are always important.  There are often times in the diagnostic process when the shaman will retire to receive visions.  Shamans speak of certain symbols that they look for in their dreams.  The vision symbols vary from shaman to shaman and from culture to culture.

       Shamanic diagnosis and treatment go together.  The shaman starts treatment as soon as the illness reveals itself.  As more is learned, new treatments may be started or prescribed.  Treatments are logically related to the way that an illness is conceptualized.  Illnesses seldom are simple, so treatment can be complex.  The patient and the patients family provide the material for the treatment.  The shaman tells them what to buy and when the rituals will be held, and shaman receives a fee for his or her work.

       The core of belief that supports shamanic healing is supported by myth.  Each shaman has a personal myth that explains how he or she began to cure and how that power was acquired.  This personal myth needs to be conceptually separated from the actual learning process that shamans go through to acquire skills. The personal myth usually tells of a dramatic trial in which the person almost dies and is forced to recognizing that he or she is destined to be a curer.  To turn away from this path that the tutelary beings have set for one would bring their wrath down on the person and probably result in his or her death.  The myth is widely told and serves to explain and enhance the shamans power to cure.    

         Other psychologists have recognized the uniqueness of shamanic consciousness and have sought to develop forms of therapy based on ancient shamanic methods.  One of the most familiar forms of this is that of guided imagery.  Basically, a shamanic journey can be considered of his own mind and guided imagery.  It is the shaman’s diligent exploration of his own mind and consciousness that enables him to make these other world journeys and return with wisdom for his own path and for others.

       Two stages of shamanic healing – the strengthening of personal power, and the counter actions against power of the illness – the shaman uses methods and medicines designed to encourage the sick person (mind, body and spirit) to participate in his own healing process.  In shamanic healing both the shaman and the sick person share the view of the interconnectedness of all aspects of life.  The task of the shaman is to make the sick person fully aware of the significance and meaning of the dis-ease.  This awareness goes beyond physical and mental awareness into spiritual understanding of the cause and effect of the dis-ease.  In the shamanic healing process, the shaman and the sick person share a level of awareness which they are able to communicate , spirit to spirit.  At this level of awareness the sick person is able to choose to restructure himself toward health by redirecting his own energies, realigning with those of the universe.  But most importantly, the sick person must be the one to choose this.

       It is natural that this attitude is greatly misunderstood – particularly in Western society which views the healing process in terms of success and failure.  Shamanic healing may be best viewed as a process of awareness of choice.  The outcome is viewed as a choice made, rather than a success or failure on the part of the sick person or the shaman.  Scientists are striving to find a framework in which to understand, explain, or measure this process.  Although such cases are exceedingly rare, they do exist and they do defy conventional measurement of definition.  It may be that the interactive healing process of the shaman and the self healing of the sick reaches a level we can only speculate on metaphysically.  Perhaps it is best to approach such phenomena in shamanic healing by remembering one thing:  The shaman seeks clarification – not verification.  It is also useful to remember that self healing comes from the working connection of body, mind, and spirit.  To follow the path of the shaman,  we need only to open our minds and our hearts to the wisdom surrounding us.

       The practice of medicine is both a science and an art.  The first level of good medicine care is to “do no harm”.  Much of the nutritional scientific dilemma involves differences of interpretation between the “provers” and the “experiencers”. I believe experience comes first, then proof.

       A shaman practitioner’s dedication and spirituality are admired.  They can fail to cure, they can disappoint some people, but by and large, they are respected like medical doctors in western culture.    

Resources:

Dow, James W. (2000) “Central and North Mexican Shamans”                http://www.oakland.edu/~dow/oersonal/papers/cnms/cnms.html

Dossey, Larry M.D. (1999) Reinventing Medicine

Haas, Elson, M. M.D. (1992) Staying Healthy with Nutrition, The Complete Guide to Diet & Nutritional Medicine.

Sams, Jamie.  (1951) Sacred Path Cards

Sams, Jamie. ( 1988) Medicine Cards

 Solomn.com (2000) “Medicine Man”                 http://www.solemn.com/shamanism.htmlWiggen, Rev. Nancy (2000) “Spiritual Counseling, The Inner Center.

               http://www.theinnercenter.com/shaman.html                                            

Dorena shares her experience about  the body’s wisdom…

     Nothing is wholly separate and independent.  If you alter any one dimension of a system you influence all the others.  What changes structure changes our mind and heart.   All that exists in the revealed world has a living force within it.  Born at the time when human consciousness began to grow; awakening to realities more subtle than those of the everyday world, has led me to the idea that everything in nature has a soul and every healer employs a method of healing that is hers and hers alone.

     As a keeper of culture and tradition, I am an initiator of the mysteries and the secret knowledge to the connection with the invisible world and the supernatural energies that derive from it.  I believe that all natural disorders… (diseases) are a reaction of the disturbances created by humans.  Health is restored to the sick by re-establishing the balance between the person and the cosmos and exorcising the disturbances with rituals, herbs, Reiki, and other natural medicines.

     To access cosmic forces requires a high degree of knowledge.  Becoming a shaman takes years of painful initiation and many initiates die from the hardship involved.  I have undergone many trials.  My personality and nervous resistance was tested.  It was through active initiation that I was introduced to experience other realities.

     In Reiki, my hands pass over the client’s body.  I can literally experience their pain in my body.  The aura materializes to reveal diseased tissues and / or organs.  Healing is then concentrated on the aura to restore its color.  To heal, we must rebalance the mental, physical, and spiritual energies.   Meditation has allowed me to move into the body to decipher messages from the cells.

     Once I’ve decided on what the establishment is reflecting and valuing,  I am able to speed up the recovery.  If I try to overcome what is going on, my own personal awareness becomes stiff.  My body provides information like a dialogue corresponding carefully, needless to say, teaching at the same time.  Even though the clients questions might be different, it is as though new patterns of thought are being nurtured.  My tissues promote healing so as to be expressed spontaneously.  By changing illness, we’ve changed tension and stress.  The body is released and some spiritual part or clue is revealed.  There… awakens the soul.

     Criticized by who I knew, created confusion and whispers broke out.  Personable, willing to travel, and come February, would bring a trip that would stimulate me.  The gentle sounds of nature are a great importance to my body.  I can feel the power and have lived in a time when being alive acted as though the universe were a deliberate thought, more than an absolute emphasized, mathematical complement.  And with much loss in the Christian faith, it is an interesting turnabout for this century.  

     Earth in its embracing sacred display offers the self and the world a chance for the changes to be initiated.  One example has been the use of humor to deal with circumstances and situations.  Humor can be genuine, or it could be “tears of a clown”.  Some of us become the victim or its opposite, the aggressor ( hurt before getting hurt).  “They won’t let me change”… “Just wait for the funding for the current research on the effects of complementary health,  Reiki and other natural remedies”… Minds are physiological body systems;  ordinary images having no favor expensive treatments as real.  As I consider and pay attention to the dynamics around me, it gets easier to recognize these and many tactics.  

     Reiki is noninvasive and gentle.  Reiki represents changes, consciousness, mild curiosity to experience the disease, accepting, pulling in the universal life force and recovering from illness or injury.  One who experiences Reiki is less anxious …..more calm and relaxed.  The answers come to our awareness with ease.

     A little confusing at first, feeling healthy represents heightened awareness and acknowledging our responsibility in having created the situation or condition and being no longer afraid.  Through loving connection and support, everything I believe to be true, has made me aware of the precious gift I had been born with.  I am willing to release the need for resistance.  Changes are immediate and lasting.  The words, body systems, slowly being depleted and searching to the point of death into the unknown:  these should be the most important functions of the body.  This picture concerns us in our modern day logic, which I have come to realize so well on a spiritual and mental level.  When we can maintain our positive energy with certainty we become a radiating center of light.  Reiki is one way to give back.

     I discovered that learning about the world in which we live, a responsible person is a giving person.  To me, true prosperity begins with feeling good about myself.  It is enough to move my work, to say these or whatever words come to mind.  And it is the path leading back home.  Healing happens, this is the mystery.

     I remember as a mountain, sharing desires, information and material things with such focused awareness.  I feared the night.  The trees let in the light serving as a vertical protective force, dividing the dark half and the light half.  There I found, can be a remarkable communication if one would just ask.  When the trees were given the opportunity to spread, they notice everything I was thinking and feeling.  The Adam and Eve trees are open and accepting, that’s a fact.  My being, once there, will be solid and protective.  This story can lead us to so many more questions than those we already have – questions about parallel worlds, what reality really is, and which is more solid, the spirit world or the world in which we live we mortals of the earth plane.

     The old ways of natural belief provide moments of penetrating what we feel as guided.  Natural talks about belief beyond energy, beyond the grasp of the intellect receiving a fulfilling answer reveal a spiritual strength and depth we may never previously have tapped or known about.  

Mindfulness…

The closer we come to knowing  how and living in a way that honors and reflects wholeness,  the greater will be the quality of balance and harmony that we experience in our lives.  A good place to begin is exactly where you are.   Begin by bringing your mind to a place where it doesn’t stray.  If it strays, bring it back.  Use your breathing technique silently letting your breath guide you into a steady focus on the present moment and begin by balancing your rhythmic breathing.   Your mental energy will gradually begin to settle and stabilize with your calming and mindful breathing.   Mindfulness requires being fully present, here and now.  You can only manage the moment.  Every moment is an opportunity to increase your awareness.   Mindfulness is not some strange abstract or imaginary exercise.  It is a productive way to bring your life alive and in balance and to discover what is real and true for you.  By staying focused on what you are doing and thinking will help you get back on track.  .. simply noticing which way your attention is most drawn  will help you become more balanced in the present.  You begin to see clearly what is really going on inside you.  The essence of mindfulness is to be aware of what you are sensing, feeling, thinking, wanting, and intending to do at any given moment.   Your real source of balance lies in remembering that you are more than the chatter that you hear in your head.  You are also the presence of mind that knows these thoughts… you  are able to see through them to the creative intelligence that underlies and sustains them.    As you learn to understand how your body, your communications, and your behavior, you will feel more confident and better equipped to guide the course of your life and find balance moment to moment , day to day.

Living In Balance, Joel Levey and Michelle Levey

buttocks and reaching with the top of your head toward the roof of the car…  Instead of slumping over the steering wheel, straighten and lengthen your arms. …

To deal with emotions other than sadness, you can try a different exercise.  For example, even if you’re not angry or anxious right now, you can practice by thinking of and picturing something or someone that really gets you furious or .  Fearful.  Get worked up……

Really feel it…...

Pay attention to how you’re breathing .  Is your breath short or shallow?.... Is your heart beating wildly?....  These are some of the physical sensations that go along with anger and anxiety…

Now consciously breathe deeply and slowly:  Fully inhale into you abdomen, chest, and back, then gradually let out all the air….

Do this until each round of breathing exercise is effortless…

Notice that as you have changed physically, you have also calmed down emotionally.  Are you still irate or angry?...  You used your body to affect your mind.

Why do we feel alienated and lost?

Few of us have lost our minds, but most of us have long ago lost our bodies. – Ken Wilber

Most of us have punished, abused, hated, or ignored our bodies at some time, if not regularly.  Not much has changed over time.  Stop to consider what has happened in your life.  Where there reasons you might give some thought to here?….

Were some inherited?  What did the religion of your family teach you about the body?  Is it something to be ashamed of or joyfully celebrated?...  Is your body a blessing or a curse?...  Are some part of your body acceptable but others not even mentionable?... Is the spirit high and good but the body low and bad?...

Were you physically abused?... Sexually abused?... Did it make you hate your body as the scene of the crime and want to escape it?...  Did you numb your whole body or certain areas to the pain in order to survive, cope, and adjust?...  Did a rape or beating make you dissociate from and leave your body?....  Did you come away with the belief that the body is a source of pain and powerlessness rather than pleasure and power?...

When you were growing up, did your family touch affectionately or have little to no physical contact?...  Was masturbation disapproved of or allowed?...  In you social group, were outward displays of closeness considered improper manners or expected behavior?...   Were people proud of their physicality, or did they try to hide their bodies?...  Did they hold themselves stiff or swing their hips?...  Was sex considered natural and pleasurable or something to be despised yet endured?....  Were menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth rued as woman’s curse or considered a celebration of life?....

Were  you even in a serious car accident?... Have you been mugged, raped, kidnapped, or robbed?....  Did you undergo a terrifying surgery?...  Were you in a war?...Were the experiences so painful and frightening that feeling became unbearable?...   Do you still flinch and avoid certain things?...

Did you even inflict hurt on someone else, even unintentionally?....  Did you ever kill a person or animal, even accidentally?...  Did you ever hit someone younger, smaller, or less powerful?...  Do you wish you could vacate the body that committed the damage?... 

When we’re taught to hate our bodies, we’re also taught to disconnect from them.  The origins of how we feel and live in our bodies are many underlying attitudes and beliefs that prevail in our families, cultures, and educational systems. 

We repress the experience of our bodies to protect ourselves from threatening pleasure and pain.  We also become disconnected when others take over the functions of detecting our own bodily states and estimating our strengths, weaknesses, needs or desires.  How often have you continued to take a medication after it has ceased being effective only because it was prescribed for you, not because of what you felt in your body?....  You can use bodyways to help you get back in contact with your own body so that you, not someone else, knows when and how much to eat, sleep, drink, exercise, work, play and so on…..

And the more at home you are in your body, the more competent you will feel.  Knowing your personal boundaries, respecting your body, and being in touch with its wisdom and power can all contribute toward freeing yourself from feeling overpowered by others….As a victim or potential victim… When we are truly embodied, living fully from within our bodies, that feeling gives us a presence that is empowering.

Experience:  When Do You feel Anger, Fear, Grief, Love ????

How do you know when you’re comfortable, in pain, bored, or terrified?.....

How do you know when you trust or don’t trust someone?......

How do you know when you’re happy, said, pleased, disappointed, or neutral?....

Remember the last time you laughed so hard that you cried and the last time you cried your heart out.  Even though in both situations tears came out of your eyes, didn’t you know the difference?......

Did you know that from thinking about it or from feeling it in your body?.....

The next time you’re angry, frustrated, peaceful, scared, or in grief, ask yourself…. Where in my body do I experience this feeling/emotion?......  what are the specific sensations of this feeling/emotion?.......

We have no feelings unless we have physical ones.  It is through our bodies that we know love, that we receive it and give it… and other emotions.  Even when we speak, our bodies often contradict our words……

When we become more aware that we have inside us resources for knowing and evaluating, then we begin to develop an inner source of confidence, which has repercussions in our self-concepts, self-esteem, morality, and behavior, as well as in our relationships, health, and creativity.

What we reject in ourselves is usually what we most need to befriend.  Once we accept it and respond with compassion, it can heal or blossom….

What we need to learn is how to be an accepting, kind, and understanding friend to our own bodies, as we are with our dear friends…. When we establish an amicable relationship with our bodies, they are sure to respond in kind…. With comfort, pleasure, energy, strength, flexibility, ease… and wisdom…..

If you’re interested in transforming your life, a shift in attitude will take you a long way…..

Getting Started: 

Experience:  Everything is Connected……

Stand up and walk around the room or through the house…..  be relaxed and loose as you can….  How easy is it to move ?......  Notice how you feel ... then stop !

Now tighten part of your body… for example, tighten your right fist.  Holding that tension, try walking again.  What happens?......

Can you swing your arms freely, or does your whole right side get stiff ? …..

Does your throat tighten too ?.....

Does your step change ?.....

And how do you feel overall ?.....

Is it possible to smile genuinely when your fist is a big knot ?.....

Try this with any other part of your body – squeeze your buttock, clench your jaw, suck in your belly… see what happens….

How we are in one part of the body can’t help but affect the rest of the body… And how we feel physically can’t help but affect how we feel emotionally…..

The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience.  Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around…… Throughout history,” tender, loving care”, has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing….  Larry Dossey  

Experience:  Identifying Your Needs or Goals, As Well As To Be Able To Communicate  Them To Your Practitioner … 

It is useful to have a sense of what’s going on in your body. 

Let’s begin by writing some things down……

Before you begin answering some of the following questions…. Take a few deep breaths with your eyes closed so that you can focus inwardly.  When you feel ready, open your eyes and read a question.  If it helps you to feel more, close your eyes again.  Do whatever you need… walk, sit, lie down …..to sense what’s happening in your body.

1. Do I feel balance in my body ?  Are the top and bottom halves, front and back, right and left sides equally developed, strong and flexible ? … ( note any area that feels massive, weak, flexible, or rigid.

1. Where do I feel limited or restricted in my movements ?...  Where am I anxious and tight or tense or fearful ?..... write in what matches your feelings.

1. Where do I feel free and relaxed ?.....Where am I easy and comfortable in my body ?.....

1. Where do I feel pain ?....What does it feel like ?..... Does it burn like a hot poker ?..... Is it sharp as a knife ?..... Is the ache as heavy as a truck ?....  Does it pierce like needles ?..... Does it have a particular color ?.... If you have difficulty describing it, just write “pain in this area” …..

1. Where do I not feel anything ?  Note places of numbness….

1. Is a part of my body trying to tell me something ?......  What is the message?

You can ask a general question… such as “What would help you the most” .. If nothing comes up as a word, image, or feeling you can be more specific and ask for a yes or no. 

Any doorway you walk through first will lead you to many others.  As you experience, you will gradually empower yourself to make your own decisions.

Over the years, the more you do this, the more adept you become, and the more your body becomes your friend and ally in living with greater ease and comfort, with greater well being.    

This allows you to prevent exhaustion, pain, and disease, or at least to understand it.  This is a lifelong process, and at times can be frustrating because it involves zigs and zags rather than moving in a direct line.  Learning the language of your body develops from an enduring commitment to know yourself, to undo the physical and emotional patterns that limit your sensitivity and authentic expression.      

Experience:   A Journey Toward Healing

Lie or sit down in a comfortable place and loosen your clothing so you can breathe without restriction.  Close your eyes and focus your awareness on how you’re breathing.  Take deep, full breaths….

As you inhale, silently repeat to yourself ,  “ I am.” ..  As you exhale, say “Relaxed.” …  Spend a few minutes getting relaxed……

Now bring your awareness to whatever area of  your body needs your attention because it is in pain or under some other stress.  Don’t try to analyze why it’s so, nor try to change or control it.  Just notice it as it is.  As you become aware of this area, are you also aware of any emotions ?....  Again, don’t analyze, change, or control them.  Just notice what they are.

With your eyes open or closed, make your right hand into a shape of expresses how the area you’ve focused on feels.  You might want to stretch your fingers long or curl them into a hard fist.  Let your hand do whatever it needs to do to reflect how your body feels….

Hold your right hand in that position for several minutes and observe it.  Then let your left hand take on the shape of how you’d like your body to feel if it were not in pain.  If your right hand is closed and tight, maybe your left hand is open and loose… Do what feels right to you.

Slowly move your attention between your two hands, between the shape that represents how you’re experiencing your body now and how you’d like to experience it.  Gradually let your right hand change into the shape of your left.  Notice how your body feels after you do that and how you experience the related emotions…..

When you’ve finished,  if you’ve had your eyes open, close them and bring your awareness back to your breathing… breathe deeply several times before you open them….   Courtesy of Clyde Ford, D.C.

Experience:  An Experience of Felt Self

The felt sense is the foundation or ground of everything that forms your internal experience.  It is the means through which you can learn to hear what your body and mind are saying.  It can heighten your sensual enjoyment and provide the entryway to certain spiritual states.  It can enhance your sense of balance and coordination and improve your memory.  And it can make physical and psychological therapies more effective.

Exercising:  Deciding on your terms

Since no one approach can do everything for you, and because there are so many available today, selecting which one to work with may confusing and daunting.  Practitioners themselves often disagree on how to deal with certain conditions and which way would be most effective for you to reach a certain goal.

            One way of looking on your terms is by way of the arts.  For example, pottery, painting, drawing, and sculpture …. all use different materials….clay paper, canvas, charcoal, paints etc… but the underlying creative process itself remains the same in every art. This is also true in healing. While there are different ways of working with the body, healing as a process remains the same.  What was static or blocked gets moving again; where there was separation or fragmentation, there is now unity or wholeness… so the decision becomes which  one may serve you best in what you’re seeking help for at this particular time.

            Knowing your preferences can help you in choosing……  

1. Are you more at ease in one-on-one exchanges or in groups?

1. Do you like attention focused exclusively on you in private sessions, or do you learn better in a class situation?

1. Are you uncomfortable being alone in a room with someone?

1. Do you prefer to be a passive receiver and let someone else take over, or do you want to know what’s going on and be involved in the outcome?

1. Would you rather work with a method that is self-directed or with one that is teacher-directed?  Do you need a structure imposed from without to keep you focused?

1. Do you want an orderly series of appointments or would you rather wait and see what happens?

Example:  When you want to travel, how do you pick where to go?  Do you need nothing more than a captivating photograph to send you to the phone to make reservations?  Or do you carefully weigh one country, state, national park, island, or mountain range over another by reading everything you can get your hands.

            Gardening is a useful metaphor for understanding the difference between seeking symptomatic relief, on the one hand, and trying to get at underlying causes of hurt and caring for the hurt area, on the other.  When your vegetables grow small, disease-ridden, and lacking flavor, you have two choices.  The choice is between attacking and nourishing…… The sages of the world over have affirmed for centuries….. love is the greatest healer there is….. that’s why it is important to approach your choice with a gentle attitude of nurturing that which is already good and wise within you rather than an aggressive stance…  

Exercise:  Automatic Patterns

While sitting in a chair, cross your arms at your chest.  Did you cross right over left or left over right?  Whichever you did is your automatic pattern.  Now cross in the other directions.  Which is more comfortable?  Which feels awkward or strange?  Try the same thing by crossing at your ankles and knees.  Do you always cross from the same direction? Clasp your hands.  Does your right thumb rest on your left or vice versa?  Is that crossing the same as with your legs?  Now stand up.  While standing, notice to which side  you shift your weight.  Do you tend to twist your torso always to the left or to the right?  Are you doing all your crossing in life from the same direction?  Achieving balance is what it’s all about… and also gives you a taste of other possibilities….

Discovering the Body’s Wisdom by Mirka Knaster