• Crux of Healing

    by Dr. James Strohl, Ed.D.

    11/17/13

     

    For a person to be maximally effective at creating what they want and reaching their desired goals it is important that they achieve a state of alignment – a state of nonresistance and harmony between mind, heart, body, and spirit. Healers, mentors, coaches, and counselors are most helpful when their attention is placed on assisting people to move into alignment and then helping them create whatever they wish to create from that alignment. Assisting others to achieve alignment by deeply trusting themselves and allowing their moment-to-moment experiences to emerge spontaneously, in whatever form they naturally take, is the crux of all successful healing interventions.

    Being in alignment means that one’s desires, attitudes, beliefs, expectations, and feelings are all in harmony. They are pointing in the same direction, supporting the same outcome , and aligned toward the same goal. When we hold conscious or unconscious thoughts and feelings that conflict with our desired goals, the resistance created by the conflicting forces results in negativity, pain, and suffering. Bringing all of our thoughts and feelings into alignment with what we want is required for a smooth transition to a positive outcome.

    When in a helping role, it is not necessary to figure out the details of how to restructure another person’s life in order to help them satisfy their desires and meet their goals. It is more beneficial to assist others to identify their own personal wishes and desires, and then help them move into a state of alignment with them. When in alignment, people automatically encounter and graciously engage the personal experiences necessary to move forward productively while appreciating that life is unfolding as it needs to be and that all is well.

    Healing is enhanced in others only to the degree that the healer is able to access their own state of alignment. When healers are in alignment, others are seen in their full potential and viewed as capable of accessing their truer, deeper selves. Therapists in this state do not perceive others in the negative, fear-based, diminished, critical, and distorted ways in which people typically perceive themselves. The way Jesus Christ functioned over 2,000 years ago is an ideal example of an incredibly refined state of alignment. Jesus perceived people in their pure, healthy state. Because Jesus related to others from an intense, energized version of an aligned state of being, while also experiencing them in that state, others were more inclined to access that state, believe it, and thus manifest a better reality for themselves.

    We are most helpful to another when we refrain from viewing them in a broken state and recognize the person they can ideally become based on their unique personhood and the specific life experiences they are encountering. In other words, we are of greatest benefit to others when focusing our attention on all the ways that their life experiences are providing opportunities for the expansion and enrichment of their psychological and spiritual states of being.

    It can be difficult to look at a situation in our life that we believe we don’t want to encounter and realize that, at the same time and on another level, it is something we honestly do want to encounter and will benefit from experiencing . When we make peace with an experience, by engaging it with a compassionate and accepting attitude, the broader relevance and deeper significance of the experience are revealed. It is then that we can fully appreciate all experiencing, and feel peace and hope while simultaneously acknowledging all the circumstances that surround an experience.

    The fundamental truth is that there is no right or wrong. Of course, we tend to label feelings good or bad and positive or negative. However, the feelings we describe as bad or negative are not actually wrong or detrimental. All feelings, no matter the label we give them, are helpful and productive life experiences that enhance our overall being. When living life from this perspective we appreciate the immense value and relevance of all experience. Furthermore, all that we encounter in life is then viewed as perfectly fine exactly as it is which leads to a recognition that all is well in our lives, and for that matter, in the entire universe.

    From this perspective, all objects in our perceptual field are experienced “directly” with unequivocal acceptance for what they are without the distortion of narratives and stories about them. We then realize that all experiences are simply being experienced for the pure joy of experiencing and our moment-to-moment perceptions of reality reveal that life is exceptionally dynamic, rich, creative, and productive. When engaging life in this manner we understand that a primary reason we are on earth is to better understand our relationship with experience itself and to fully enjoy the experience of being human.