Animals hunker down when they’re healing…they do not fight the process. As I learn to do like the animal body needs, I continue to surrender and I find that my brain/body/ has so much healing to do still and often times that requires bed rest and total quiet even now several years into this healing process.
It’s not illness when the body needs to rest…it’s the demands of healing.
Highly intense metabolic processes happening that mean I simply have to stop and allow the internal processes to take over. I need to surrender to the wisdom of the body at those times. I generally don’t bother trying to explain to others anymore…not in any sort of detail, unless, of course, they understand which does actually happen more often these days. (See posts on healing here)
Also the fall and winter really change the pace of things in a radical way.
Spring and summer is like another world. I am intimately part of the world around me. (posts on the seasons here and here)
The deeper I move into this the more natural it becomes…also, the body seems to know what to do and as long as “I” get out of the way. I need only pay attention and I’ve learned to do that well. (learning to listen to the body)
Whether I am in bed resting and allowing (sometimes still quite painful processes too), or out in the world doesn’t matter (to the “I” it does, but not to life-force, which wants this body healthy and able and will do whatever it takes to get there. If you have pets you know how animals hunker down when they’re healing…they do not fight the process…that is what I’ve learned and continue to learn to do, largely) See: Healing a brain injury can hurt very badly.
No longer trying to explain, and ceasing to care whether people understand this process or not has been the most liberating part of it…still a process, perhaps, but it gets easier and easier.
Most people don’t get it.
And it’s not because they’re inherently unkind…they simply don’t have a frame of reference…some may behave badly because they don’t get it and that is the most unfortunate thing. Learning to allow that too since I cannot control others has been helpful. (this is a practice, it’s not always something that comes easy)
So I discovered getting pissed off, devastated and hurt about no one understanding is now truly wasted energy. Granted, I needed to go through that and do the mourning thing etc. Which means it wasn’t really wasted and once clarity came to me I was simply able to stop it…let it go, indeed. “They know not what they’re doing.” And guess what, I discovered I can’t make them know. It’s a lot easier to rest in that fact and save my energy for places where I can actually make a difference.
I am human, I still get frustrated and angry about it all from time to time.
I allow that too…allowing and loving all that arises has been a profound part of healing. I express in constructive ways and watch what happens and then let go again.
Activism around the issues of human rights helps too. We can do the above process while working for change. Remaining clear and nonreactive is critical when we are communicating the needs so many of us have.
***
Healing is developing intimacy with yourself… Meditation, too is the same.
***
A thought to leave you all with from Terrence McKenna:
You are not naked when you take off your clothes. You still wear your religious assumptions, your prejudices, your fears, your illusions, your delusions.
When you shed the cultural operating system, then, essentially you stand naked before the inspection of your own psyche…
and it’s from that position, a position outside the cultural operating system, that we can begin to ask real questions about what does it mean to be human, what kind of circumstance are we caught in, and what kind of structures, if any, can we put in place to assuage the plan and accentuate the glory and the wonder that lurks, waiting for us, in this very narrow slice of time between the birth canal and the yawning grave. — Terence McKenna
More:
- What does it mean to heal?
- Healing is not linear
- Healing is here
- healing is living ritual
- Healing is relationship, healing is radical community building
~~~
Support Everything Matters: Beyond Meds. Make a donation with PayPal Thank you!
Discover more from Beyond Meds: Alternatives to Psychiatry
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply