I’ve been thinking lately about the healing process. Healing can relate to the body, mind, and/or spirit – or to the physical, mental, and/or emotional interior or exterior world in which we live, as well as the intersection between the interior and exterior worlds. I think of healing as an ongoing process, which like behavior change, is enhanced or impeded by the attention, energy, and/or effort we contribute to the process.
Below are some quotes on the subject of healing that I have found helpful as I contemplated this topic:
- Healing is … a continuous rediscovery of what it means to be alive … It is about living with the ongoing stresses and strains and difficulties – and joys – of life, but doing so in a way that we feel whole. Michael Lerner, PhD, Difference Between Healing and Curing, awakin.org
- Curing is what a physician seeks to offer you. Healing, however, comes from within us. It’s what “we” bring to the table. Michael Lerner, PhD, Difference Between Healing and Curing, awakin.org
- … we can create for ourselves a place of healing – a tiny island – wherever we find ourselves in this world, at any moment in the interstices of our busy lives. It is really in ourselves, in our emotions and in our memories, that we can each find our healing space. Wayne Jonas, MD, from How Healing Works
- Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you – all of the expectations, all of the beliefs – and becoming who you are. Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
- Healing is embracing what is most feared; healing is opening what has been closed, softening what has hardened into obstruction, healing is learning to trust life. Jeanne Achterberg
- Healing takes time. Despite great advances in medicine, the biggest part of your recovery is attributable to the enormous healing power inside you. The body heals itself according to its own timetable – anxious thoughts never hasten recuperation. Criswell Freeman
- It has been said that time heals all wounds. The truth is that time does not heal anything. It merely passes. It is what we do during the passing of time that helps or hinders the healing process. Joy Marshall
- Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives. Author Unknown
- There is a turning point in the course of healing when you go from the dark side to the light, when your interest in the world revives and when despair gives way to hope … Physicians and nurses know that a patient’s sudden interest in external things is the first sign that healing has begun. Esther M. Sternberg, MD, Healing Spaces — The Science of Place and Well-Being
- Symptom control medicine has nothing to do with healing. True healing can only begin to occur when cause and effect are included in the decision-making process … I have found that most (body) owners will make life style changes if they understand that it leads to healing. William B Ferril, MD, The Body Heals Without Toxic Drugs or Medical Procedures
- Embrace healing each day … We each carry our own unique medicine, and it is our honor and duty to develop it and share in the world. I feel an urgency for each of us to step up and offer our healing gifts. Elizabeth Murray, Living Life in Full Bloom
- … there is an inherent healing capacity within us all that, when properly released, can produce remarkable recovery, health and happiness. Wayne Jonas, MD, from How Healing Works
So, here are some questions for your own contemplation on the subject of healing:
- What physical, emotional, or spiritual healing do you long for?
- What actions are you taking to facilitate the healing?
- What are the healing gifts that you might share with the world?
While healing is different from curing, I think that we all have the capacity to facilitate healing, as well as the capacity to support the healing of others and the world in which we live. What comes to mind are words from a song by inspirational singer-songwriter and poet Carrie Newcomer Carrie Newcomer “… every (effort) large or slight shifts the balance toward the light.”