I remember that, some years ago, I became aware of the paradoxical use of the word "patient" to refer to those who are in a healing process. “Patients are no longer patient,” I said to myself. And yet, there was a time when the act of healing was an act of patience that transcended the connotation of waiting, and encapsulated the faith and trust that sustain patience over time. Those who healed in presence with themselves and with life unfolding in the process were, indeed, patient.
Now, think about this term again and how we understand health and healing today. The reality is that very few of us have the trust and time to be true patients. Modern medicine, with its infinite gifts, has conditioned us to expect immediate healing through external agents, making us forget what it truly means to be patient and to give our body and soul the time they need to extract the nectar that can emerge from disease. Our collective imagination has taught us to understand healing as a war against what makes us sick, instead of a truce with the body and its incredible innate wisdom, and this has been a mistake with numerous consequences.
Take a moment to remember the last time you were sick or something in you was out of balance. Now, if you allowed yourself to see your life on a large scale, beyond daily responsibilities and everyday worries, can you recognize any kind of wisdom contained in the illness? Any loving, but possibly painful, message that your body was trying to give you? If you take a few steps back and allow yourself to see your life through a wide-angle lens, I'm sure the answer to the previous questions would be yes. A resounding yes. But reaching this point is not always easy, because our current paradigm makes us see ourselves as victims of illness, not as agents of change in the face of it. “These pains you feel are messengers, listen to them.” said the Sufi poet Rumi. But simply suggesting that illnesses or health conditions, both physical and mental, offer us valuable and important messages can be perceived violently for many.
Now, I want you to be very clear that I am not asking you to adhere to my vision of healing and illness. However, as someone who aims to accompany others on their own path of acceptance and reconnection with themselves, it is essential for me to express my position on healing so that you can decide if it resonates with you and what you are seeking in your own process at this moment. I believe that a fundamental aspect of healing is recognizing our own ability to make decisions aligned with our vision, because if one aspect should shine in any healing process, it is self-empowerment. Every form of genuine healing should be a process of empowerment accompanied by humility, two terms we may not be used to seeing side by side, but which cannot truly exist in their full brilliance without containing each other.
So, with all this in mind, the question arises with all its force: What does it mean to heal?
For each of us, this word has slightly different connotations. Many of us tend to think that healing is the process through which we get rid of certain symptoms that make our lives uncomfortable or difficult. And while this can be a beautiful and important aspect of healing, a more holistic view points to healing as a process of deep expansion and connection. Healing then means learning to relate to all our parts, learning to express, feel, honor, and even love all our nuances. It means opening up to life and to ourselves in ways that were previously inaccessible to us. Healing is knowing our authentic Self, and above all, it means remembering our connection with All of Existence.
Perhaps this idea of healing is not the same as the one we are used to, and I will tell you why. Usually, we like to think about health and healing without considering its most fierce and fundamental counterpart: death. But again, if the idea of what healing means does not include the certainty of the encounter with death to which we are all destined, then it is impossible to approach the understanding of what healing truly means. In fact, I would dare to say that for countless beings throughout history, the most relevant healing process they experienced in their entire life was the one that led them to death. Paradoxical, isn't it? Well, only if our idea of healing is contained solely in the possibility of escaping death or some aspect of our life that we find unenjoyable or difficult to accept. But if we return to the description I referred to in the previous paragraph, we can understand that for many of us, the process of death is the most intimate process with our authentic Self that we will ever experience in life.
I believe we need to dare to begin expanding our idea of what it truly means to heal, so we can become the patients we have forgotten to be. The reality is that the healing process can be a process full of intimacy, power, and beauty. It is a process of approaching our own truth, remembering our values and beliefs, and expanding them. Every illness can lead us to an encounter with ourselves, an encounter whose success is not defined by escaping death, but by encountering life.
I think I will never get tired of quoting Jeff Foster when he wrote, “Your pain does not want to be healed, it wants to be held,” because it reminds us that the greatest gift of “healing” we can give ourselves is to receive and lovingly embrace all those aspects we have rejected or avoided feeling for so long. Healing asks us to carry out the greatest act of courage of all; to feel the impossible to feel, the impossible to accept, what no one in their right mind would choose to love. I am not joking when I say that simply writing these words generates an alchemical process in my heart that I would dare to call healing. Perhaps apparently nothing has changed, and yet, something has already softened in me, and the sensation in my body is tangible, and this deeper intimacy with myself, lets me know I am on the right path.
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