Potent Words: Surviving Versus Living

If you’re “making a living,” that’s a good thing, right? The bills (mostly) get paid on time, there’s food on the table, warm clothes for winter and a roof overhead. Maybe there are good schools for the kids and good health care for grandparents.

But what if you hate your job, are unhappy with the person you’ve become, dissatisfied with where you’ve ended up and long for change? Are you still “making a living”? And what does that mean, “living”? Isn’t it more like “surviving”?

Two words, meaning similar things, but with big differences.

“Survival” is when our basic needs for food and shelter are met and we have some sense of security. It’s the bare minimum required for a human being to exist. There is no thought beyond the moment you are going through right now, since the tasks associated with keeping yourself and your family fed and sheltered dominate your energy. They are so immediate that there is no room for anything else.

In survival mode, people stop listening to their hearts and the dreams that are carried there. Life becomes too busy, too full of necessaries until it is empty of everything else.

“Living” is what happens when we make time, even among the demands of basic needs, for hope, for grace, for things beyond the next meal. We truly live when we remember what our passion, our purpose in life is and pursue it, so that we get carried along on the universe’s stream, always moving closer to our dream.

In survival, there is just enough to make it through the day. In living, we have abundance, the faith that we have more than enough to see through to tomorrow and beyond.

All of us do both—survive and live. We all want to live, but it’s often very difficult to shift our outlook if we are surrounded on all sides by examples of survival and are constantly being given the message that dreaming is for kids and we’d better grow up and face reality and just do our job and stay in our places.

And yet, some of the happiest people are the poorest. Their physical circumstances are certainly challenging, but they don’t see them as a final destination. They are the ones who fiercely hold on to the belief that education will allow their children to rise above where they’re currently stationed in life. All they ask is for the chance to try.

In this light, simply surviving is no way to live.

Potent Words: Pity Versus Compassion

Language is powerful. It is the trait that sets us apart from other animals, although there are other species who you could say have some form of “language” (dolphins and whales, for instance). The distinction between those other species and us, though, is that we humans seem to have countless ways of expressing abstract concepts, and often, gradations within those concepts.

It’s been widely portrayed that the native peoples of Alaska have hundreds of words for snow. Actually, they have varying forms of similar linguistic bases that describe different snow-and-ice characteristics, something like our “slush,” “sleet,” “snow”.

Language is a potent communicator between people, but it’s just as powerful within the mind of an individual. We talk to ourselves constantly, from the moment we awaken each morning to the moment we fall asleep at the end of the day—even after that, if you count dreams, and I do.

We can never leave our inner voice, and the messages it conveys to us do more to shape our lives than any other influence.

The words we use, whether we’re thinking to ourselves or speaking out loud, carry layers of context. A single word brings with it a whole set of underlying perceptions, often dictated by the particular culture and community we are part of.

All this is simply a foundation for the point of these next few posts, namely, that words we often think of as having the same or very similar meanings, that we use interchangeably, are really vastly different when considered from the perspective of their underlying contextual layers. These layers are frequently based on emotional reactions, and whether we realize it or not, the word we use in a particular situation can deeply color how we respond to others in that situation.

This series is certainly not complete, but I’ve tried to focus on a few instances that I feel are particularly important, especially in light of healing.

That’s why I begin the discussion with “compassion” versus “pity”.

When we are confronted with circumstances in our own lives or the lives of others that highlight the challenges we all face as human beings, particularly in responding to pain (emotional, physical, etc.), we are given the choice to engage in many ways, depending on how we relate to those circumstances. Often, these circumstances produce a deep resonance within us. We can relate to having similar experiences, or we simply see the need for some sort of response from us.

In these instances, people often talk about feeling compassion or pity. The words are often used without regard to what each implies, simply to denote a desire to have a helpful or comforting interaction with the person involved in the situation. For example, someone’s house burns down, and we might say, “What a pity,” or comment that a particular gesture was “compassionate”.

Or, in another example, if you happen to meet someone who can’t see, can’t walk well, or has great difficulty speaking clearly enough to make themselves understood, you’re faced with an illustration of someone who is trying to go through life without the benefit of a trait (seeing, walking, speaking) that you usually take for granted.

Compassion and pity are, I believe, on opposite ends of a spectrum of responses to these types of situations. I think that, if you look at the word itself, how it’s spelled, it’s easy to keep the two straight.

“Pity” is an emotional response based on fear and misunderstanding. We “look down into a pit” and see someone in a condition very different from ourselves. From our vantage point far above them, we can enumerate all the things that separate “us” from “them”. We work to keep “them” at arm’s length, throwing things into the proverbial pit that we think will alleviate the misery down there, but not considering how we might help the person get out. We focus so much on the current condition they’re in that we don’t look at the potential of where they might be. We become so consumed by fear (“Oh, what if that were me—thank God that’s not me—I couldn’t imagine living like that!” that it restricts our response to actions that will preserve our position of power. We think that, if we can maintain that “higher ground,” we’ll somehow insulate ourselves from the possibility of future challenges for ourselves.

“Compassion,” by contrast, is “coming alongside another human being”. The “passion” at the end of the word implies that, somehow, the heart has to be deeply engaged. From this perspective, we see someone eye to eye, even when that’s uncomfortable for us. We don’t let ourselves get bogged down or overwhelmed by the other’s circumstances, but we don’t shy away from “getting our hands dirty” in order to help them help themselves. We relate to and interact with them on the basis of our shared humanity, always working to preserve their dignity and maintaining a respect for them. This respect and love for a fellow human being are the roots of compassion.

In a healing situation, the pity response is when we simply give pills or patches for pain management, increasing the dosage as the pain gets worse, without any deeper consideration of the other, non-physical components of pain as well as the non-clinical aspects of drugs (i.e., how they affect the mind and how those effects feed into a person’s self-concept and interactions with the world). Pity says, “It’s not my problem” once the meds have been given, and caps off any change in prescription with, “There, that should take care of it”.

The compassionate response involves actually listening to someone talk about pain, even if they’ve already gotten a pill for it. Why isn’t the pill working as well as it’s supposed to? How does the patch make them feel on an emotional level, and does the person believe they have adequate opportunities for dealing with these emotional and psychological parts of their treatment? Are there other, non-pharmaceutical, alternatives that could be tried? Is the person receptive to those? Am I, as a healer, open to the fact that I may not be the one who can best provide help to a particular person, and if not, how do I respond to that?

Compassion is a process, not a single action. It’s a series of questions that engages two people in response to a situation, not a desire to simply have all the answers so you can tie up all the loose ends and move on to the next project. Pity is easy and doesn’t require self-examination or thought, but compassion challenges us to discover what we think and then often further encourages us to expand our perspective to include ideas we never would have considered before.

When we “have pity on” another person, we rob them of their essential humanity. Putting anything “on” someone else implies that we are the ones in control. “Having compassion for” someone is completely different. It preserves the common ground between us and them. To me at least, “for” is more active, more interactive, than “on” when other people are involved. You, as the person responding in compassion, must decide how involved “for” is going to be, and you also must accept that the other person’s response to “for them” might not be what you expect.

One of the most wonderful consequences of a compassionate response is the opportunity it provides for us to see others grow. I have seen this over and over in my own experiences. Once, I was working with someone who was in severe pain, facing death sooner than planned. Fear, hopelessness, anger, mistrust and loneliness were all making things even more unbearable. The individual wasn’t sure if reiki would help, didn’t put much faith in “weird” stuff like that, and didn’t even know if they wanted to have to interact with yet another person.

Sometimes, the best sessions occur when we simply let things take their own natural course. I spent a majority of the time I had with this client talking—no, let me change that, it was mostly listening, seeing where the conversation was headed, and asking a question that would keep it moving. Anyone who was observing, thinking about reiki in the “traditional” sense would have thought I’d just wasted over an hour and called something a session that was no such thing.

When this client did, in fact, die, the comments I received from those close to them at the end and who had seen the session all focused on a few things—disappearance of pain that had been unresponsive to any other treatment, laughter, and peace.

When I’m coming to the end of my own journey here on earth, I hope there is someone who won’t just pity me and hand me a pill and say, “Call me in the morning”. I’ve got to get through the night, and so do those around me!

No, I want a compassionate response, someone who isn’t afraid of my crying, who will talk about anything or nothing, even laugh, as I make my peace and take my leave.

Teaching Moments

“Education is the manifestation of perfection already in man.”—Swami Vivekananda

What do our words and actions teach others? What do we learn by observing the words and actions of others?

You don’t have to be a “teacher” in order to educate someone. You do it by being who you are, indelibly shaped by your experiences and guided by your beliefs.

There are plenty of obvious examples of this. Parents show their children how to tie shoes, make sandwiches, drive cars and balance checkbooks. They sign kids up for piano lessons, dance or martial arts classes, religious instruction, sports clinics or art camp, and tutoring in preparation for college.

But what are you teaching others simply by going through life? When you have a brief conversation with a fellow passenger on a train, or stand in front of someone in the grocery store checkout line, the opportunities for being observed are countless. Whether it’s to notice the book you’re carrying on that train, or the different vegetables you’ve got in your cart, these can spark curiosity and encourage exploration, expansion of another person’s horizons.

We each hold unique knowledge that only we can pass on. Stories, songs, images, ideas—these are the vehicles for learning that humanity has relied upon for millennia. They will change as our society changes, to fit the needs and desires each generation has with regard to how they communicate and understand. (If you need an illustration of this, just consider the difference between sending messages with pigeons and sending them via e-mail, or hearing a village monk play a flute after a three-day pilgrimage as opposed to choosing from among ten thousand songs by pressing a button on your MP3 player.)

Each time we are presented with new information, we are also presented with a choice. Do we wish to further our knowledge and incorporate new material into our reality, or do we want to remain where we are?

To deny anyone this choice by restricting their exposure to education or limiting their access to it is one of the gravest disservices imaginable. For someone to say, for instance, that you can’t learn to read because you’re a girl or because you’re black or because you’re blind and can’t use print books like everyone else or because you can’t pay to attend a fancy school or because no one else in your family has ever done it before or because your parents work in a particular profession or worship in a certain way … These ideas may seem to make perfect sense to those who hold them, but from the outside looking in, they don’t.

Perhaps I’m thinking about this a lot since today, I will take sixteen boxes of Braille books to the post office and send them to a pastor in a very rural part of Malawi, a country in central Africa that is arguably one of the poorest places on earth. I’ve been sending books to this pastor since 2001. Where he lives, there’s no running water, no electricity. There are no services for people with disabilities, including the blind. In many cases, rather than going to school, they are sent out to beg by their families.

Not content with this outcome and knowing that, like every other human being, the blind and disabled have dignity, are respectable, and, most importantly, can learn and want to learn. So, he has gone from village to village and organized true grassroots groups of these people, teaching them to garden, to cook. Women who are blind have learned to cook. The Braille books have been passed from one person to another to another. Now, instead of one person reading them and discarding them, they may get read by twenty people, maybe more. Each person who touches the pages gains knowledge they didn’t have before and sees into a part of the world they never could have imagined before.

Once that’s done, I’ll go back to my “regular” job of teaching piano. It doesn’t matter to me whether you are five or seventy-five. All I need in order to teach you is your desire to learn. It is a great privilege to watch students of all ages, from all kinds of backgrounds, discovering an expressive art form. Teaching, for me, is about passing on the things I think are precious–art, knowledge, belief in the innate power of the human spirit to rise above challenging circumstances–that inspires me to teach. These gifts shouldn’t die with me. I have a responsibility to pass them to others, whether they are in generations younger than me or those who began life before I did.

Even writing is a form of teaching, and I’ve learned more, I think, from the various blogs I’ve visited than I have from any other aspect of the Internet. Perhaps this hasn’t been “pure” knowledge, as in verifiable facts. But the sheer volume of possibilities to catch a glimpse of the world through someone else’s eyes is unparalleled anywhere on earth.

You can only give people the chance to choose. You can’t force them to follow your logic. For every person who chooses to change, there is one who refuses and remains in their current situation. To judge one as “better” than the other is easy, especially if we believe strongly in the advantages of one way over the other.

Today, I’ll be helped by many people. The woman who drives me to the post office has grandchildren of her own. What will I learn from her as we talk, laugh, carry boxes, maybe share a cup of tea? What will I absorb during my piano lessons, and who am I to say the “wisdom” of a 7-year-old is more or less valuable than that of a 12-year-old or an adult? That’s a judgment I refuse to make.

Judgment is, in its own way, a lack of education. If we can’t accept the endless array of humanity around us without a basic level of universal respect regardless of differing viewpoints, then what does that teach others about us? More importantly, what does that teach us about ourselves?

First Snow

October is a strange month. You can have bright blue days of seventy degrees and sunshine and nights scented with dry leaves and the neighbors’ woodsmoke. Then, not less than a week later, you can be getting snow.

Yesterday, we got our first snowfall of the season, although I’m not sure purists would call it “snowfall” because for a big part of the day, it was mixed with so much rain that it was coming down in clumps instead of flakes.

My afternoon students made it to their lessons before it got too bad to drive, but the evening crew didn’t.

I love teaching piano. So much of it is figuring out each student’s particular mind and designing the best lessons possible for them. Even two sisters, or two students who started at the same time, or two of the same age, all present differences that I find both fascinating and challenging.

But I enjoy “free time” as much as the next person, and there is certainly plenty of things I can fill it with. Yesterday was no exception.

At first, I thought it would be nice to just curl up and read. There’s nothing like a damp, cold day with grey skies to encourage staying tucked in.

But there were groceries to buy, dog blankets to wash, compositions to work on, phone calls to return, writing to do, a calendar to fill in for November, mail to sort and bills to pay.

Before I realized it, I’d filled the time, and it wasn’t “free” anymore.

What do I have, beyond clean dog blankets, an organized datebook, a smaller stack of mail on the table?

This time last year, I was in between trips to Poland and Kansas for piano recitals and lectures. These autumn days always make me look back over what I’ve done and where I’ve gone, remembering the people I met along the way, some of whom are still traveling with me yet, others departed long (or not so long) ago.

Perhaps this is a harbinger of old age, that autumnal season in life, when we are past the majority of years we’ll spend on this earth. If so, what life event coincides with the first snowfall?

Holding Up the Stars

In every aspect of life, from business to art, there are people at the top, and there are people at the bottom, with countless others in between.

We hear a lot about reaching our full potential, and we try to do this. But just as one person’s fingerprint is unique, their potential is, too. We have our own ideas about just how much we can achieve, and, whether we like it or not, the feedback we receive from the people around us plays a big part in shaping these ideas.

When we are children, no matter what environment we grow up in, we absorb things from around us. These can range from language and pronunciation to parenting style. They can include notions about what kind of career we will have (notice how many funeral homes include “and son” in their name!) to who we will marry.

No wonder, then, that we get ideas about what we can—or can’t—do, expectations that many people simply accept without thinking about where they came from, who they came from, and whether or not they are truly theirs.

Not everyone can become an internationally renowned musician, best-selling author, millionaire athlete or top-flight surgeon. Not everyone can become a teacher, farmer, veterinarian, secretary, cook, mother, or garbage collector.

To say that “surgeon” is better than “garbage collector” is impossible, since both are necessary. Without the surgeon, we have no recourse if something needs to be repaired in or cutting out of our bodies. At the same time, without the garbage collector, we would soon be overwhelmed by waste and clutter.

There are always people, in various callings, who will garner most of the public attention and recognition. Those are the “stars”. But for every one of them, there must be thousands of others behind the scenes, keeping things running smoothly.

We are all intricately bound together, from the surgeon to the garbage collector. The surgeon discards used sponges, needles, syringes and gloves without thinking twice about what happens to them once they leave the operating room. So the surgeon is directly connected to the garbage collector. Their salaries may be different—six figures versus five—but both callings, both professions, are invaluable.

Each of us is a star, and our light is the brightest thing in someone else’s skyscape. We shouldn’t necessarily go around trying to be this light. If we did, got caught up always wondering how a particular action or word from us will increase our shining, we’d become unbearable.

But every once in a while, particularly on the days when someone stops to mention it to us, it’s good to consider this, and even take time to savor what we’ve done that has inspired growth in another human being, lifting them higher so they, in turn, can become brighter stars in their own universe.

“Pain” is a Four-Letter Word

I thought I was done with “four-letter words”. But …

Emotional and physical pain are part of being human. Not that we should expect them, but they do occur, and no one is exempt.

Western medicine has developed a vast array of drugs to combat pain, both psychological and physical. Even so, it’s the elephant in the living room—definitely there, but too often, not discussed.

People on both sides of the patient/physician spectrum have deep-seated notions about what’s “acceptable” as far as expressing pain. We all, at some level, think that it’s “better” to simply endure silently or with as little fuss as possible. “Complaining,” “demanding,” “difficult”—all these words are the last labels we want attached to us as patients.

We’re taught to “quantify” pain to try and understand it better. We say, “On a scale of 1 to 10 …” On this scale, 1 is barely a nuisance, while 10 is so excruciating it is unbearable.

If I’ve learned one thing, both as a healer and as a recipient of healing, it’s that people’s scales are all different. One person’s 3 is another’s 9.

Many people have also absorbed the “no pain, no gain” lesson a little too deeply. (I know I have—and then I wonder, “How am I supposed to relax and receive if it hurts so much?”.)

Medical students spend a lot of time learning how to fix the body, diagnose symptoms, and prescribe drugs that will produce specific results. With so many drug choices, pain can become just another symptom to assign a chemical solution to. We hear, “Tell me where it hurts,” or “Describe your pain,” but seldom are given much more than a few minutes to try and respond. Yet too often, pain robs us of our ability to communicate clearly, both with ourselves and with those trying to provide healing.

Pain is one of the biggest obstacles to effective healing. You can’t “just relax” if you’re in such severe pain. You can’t “just take some deep breaths”. Pain clouds our ability to process information, take suggestions, or sort through the emotions that get kicked up when we’re hurting.

Drugs often only add to this cloudiness, and many people either use too much of them to sink into oblivion, or avoid using them altogether in order to maintain mental clarity.

It might not make any difference at the general level whether the pain being experienced is psychological or physical. But how we, as healers or caregivers, approach our calling with respect to pain management has to flow from compassion and understanding, not simply a practical desire to “make it stop” or “get rid of it”.

The first step on this road is to acknowledge that, as healers, we are not going to be able to alleviate all pain. To think that we have this kind of power is arrogant and can be deeply harmful to us and our clients.

Second, we must go beyond simply having people rate their pain on a 1-to-10 scale, or describe it as “hot,” “cold,” “aching,” or “stabbing”. We can, and should, ask all these questions, but don’t just stop when you’ve gotten the answers you want.

Pain is a companion. Long after the appointment has ended and the prescription has been filled, people will still be living with it.

The approaches to managing it are as varied as the kinds of people we encounter as healers. What brings relief to one person with a particular condition may have no effect on a second person with the same condition. Pharmaceutical companies produce drugs that work on a broad range. If we are providing truly compassionate healing, we must target the specific ways that each of our clients can find and experience pain relief.

Sometimes, when there is no way to change the actual situation, simply being heard and acknowledged is enough to bring tremendous relief.

Pain manifests itself in innumerable outward responses. People lash out or withdraw. They cry. They stop speaking. They scream. They pass out. Pain increases the severity and duration of asthma attacks. It raises heart and breathing rates, heightens muscle tension, exacerbates inflammation, causes insomnia and anxiety, depression. It has such a capacity to stir up every realm of life—physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual—that it is no wonder that so much “treatment” is aimed at eliminating it.

I have talked with many, many people, both as a healer and just as another human being, and heard many stories about the pain of loss, disease, disappointment, grief, loneliness, separation, disability, depression, injury, aging. Some conversations have been less than five minutes long, while others have been dialogs that span years, decades.

I don’t stand above these encounters, looking down on them and thinking, “Oh, here’s what you should do”. I try to see the circumstances from the perspective of the one I’m listening to. How would I feel, for instance, if my daughter dropped out of school, or my brother got angry and refused to speak to me for the rest of my life, or my employer let me go with lame excuses after I’d worked for ten years? What is it like to feel powerless to control myself when presented with a particular chemical? What must it be like to lose a husband after thirty years of marriage, or learn that I have a disease that will gradually rob me of my ability to think coherently? How would I respond if, on an ordinary drive, my car was hit head-on and I woke up three days later unable to walk?

The answer I have is, “I don’t know”. But I can ask questions, listen to the responses, and learn. By learning, perhaps I can pass something along to someone else in a future conversation that will help them.

And, if there is no “concrete” suggestions to be made, just the asking and the listening are a gift that goes too often overlooked.

We can find “concrete” aids to pain management—medication, meditation, music, massage, just to name a few. But there is no substitute for compassion and no prescription or dosage instructions for understanding. These must spring from the heart, without regard to how the other person will receive them, repay them, or respond to them.

Courage Comes in Many Guises

Yesterday, I went bowling with a group from my church. Now, I make absolutely no claims to greatness. In fact, when asked if I was interested, I think I only said that I did bowl, not that I bowled well.

I lived up to my own reputation for ungreatness. I finished my first game with a 34. I thought, “Oh, next time will be better–maybe I’ve just got to get warmed up.”

Oh, it wasn’t, though. My second game earned me a whopping total of 7.

In jest, I said that I would tell people I got four strikes in a row–just wouldn’t tell them how long it took me to get them, or that they were “broken” strikes.

But really, what’s the point of my going bowling with a bunch of people? It was to have fun, and I definitely did that. I think it was more frustrating for the people who were so graciously (or mercifully?) giving me suggestions to try and make me better.

But really, it was a lot of fun. If I want to demonstrate publicly that I’m good at something, I’ll walk up to a piano. In that realm, I’m great, and I’m getting better.

This morning, I got a certificate for being “Bowler of the Day”. Everyone thought that was great. Me, I turned really red. Mention was made of my “courage”.

At first, I thought, “Oh, come on! How much courage does it take to go somewhere and pay money to eat really greasy pizza, wear hideous shoes, and throw a ball that weighs more than some newborn children?”

I was just about ready to dismiss the whole thing as sappy–hey, let’s give the blind lady an award!–and then I stopped myself.

To me, it’s not “courage” at all. I do all kinds of things every day. (I came home after church and vacuumed my house, and I’ll take out the trash later, plus write an article, practice a Beethoven concerto, feed my dogs … you know, typical Sunday or every day stuff.)

“Courage” is a sort of catch-all word. It’s what people call it when you do things they don’t think they could do if they were in your situation. So, for most people, doing lots of things without looking seems really scary and close to impossible.

It’s not, and I spend plenty of energy convincing people that it’s not. Many folks learn this, but many more don’t. Still, even if they come to accept that I, or anyone else with a disability, can do things they don’t think they’d be able to manage, “courage” is the word that gets used to describe what pushes us to do them anyway.

To a majority of people in my church, who only see me on Sunday mornings playing piano, the idea of my bowling, or flying cross-country with my guide dog, or cooking–all those things just seem too big, and they can’t get their minds around them.

But, little by little, they’re all learning. Whether I’m helping carry chairs from one room to another, bringing dishes to potluck suppers, or any number of other tasks, they’ll figure out that most of those things are no big deal to me. They’ll stop being a big deal to them, too, and there won’t be any more certificates for courageous bowling.

That’s fine with me. Mark Twain once said: “On the whole, it is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.” To me, there are plenty of other things more courageous than a blind person bowling. Save the accolades for the soldiers fighting overseas, the police who work on some of our most dangerous streets, the people facing daily struggles with the pain, loneliness and heartache caused by lifelong illness or family disintegration.

We all have to have courage at some point in our life. Courage doesn’t mean we lack fear. It simply means that, faced with a situation that induces fear either in us or in others, we find it within ourselves to keep moving forward. We refuse to let doubt or others’ misunderstandings limit what we choose to accomplish.

Mind Over Matters

I know, that title looks like a misprint. Should be “Mind over matter”, right?

Not really. As a healer, I am being reminded time and again that, while the physical aspects of what I do are important–pain relief, improvements in sleep, relaxation–there’s a huge component that is “behind the scenes”.

The mind-body connection is no news to anyone with even a mild interest in how we go through life. Whether you’re coming to it as a healer or as a recipient of healing (and we all fit in both categories at some point in our lives), that connection, and the interactions between the mental and physical spheres, can’t be ignored.

Symptoms that manifest in the physical realm can certainly be treated with varying degrees of effectiveness purely on the basis of their physical traits. For example, how many times have you taken aspirin for a headache, or antacids for heartburn, or cold medicine to get rid of congestion? We do a lot of those things without even thinking about it, content to just get rid of whatever physical problem is bothering us.

But because the mind and body are so closely bound up together, it’s prudent to consider what it is that underlies those physical symptoms on a psychological/emotional level. Is the headache caused by tension related to a hostile work environment? Are problems in the family so severe that they are literally making your stomach churn?

I’m not suggesting that every physical ailment springs from our minds. After all, viruses and bacteria are abroad in the land, and you can’t think or feel your way into or out of infections by them.

But the mind, and its potential to both help and harm, is a powerful force. We have plenty of new technology to take stunning pictures of the brain at work, and vast strides are being made in understanding what parts are active at various different times. We have developed a huge array of chemicals to alter how the brain works, and we continue to progress in our grasp of how people learn, acquire behaviors based on cultural influences, and process information.

But we have no way of knowing if we have reached a figurative wall in our understanding. We don’t know, for instance, what the limit is to how much information a mind can recall. We can’t quantify most of what goes on in people’s heads.

The mind is deeply mysterious, and its role in healing can be tremendous. For instance, painkillers for the most part don’t actually do anything to the nerves that are transmitting that scream of “I hurt! I hurt! I hurt!” They suppress the area of the brain that handles those transmissions. Talk to anyone who has had to rely on painkillers for a long period of time and you’ll often hear that, while they do help, they often cause mental fogginess that’s an unwelcome side effect.

Is there a way, then, continuing with pain as an example, to harness that potential in the mind to produce a painkilling effect or enhance what can be achieved using narcotics?

In a word, yes.

Not everyone’s mind is exactly alike, and while there are some general guidelines that can be useful when trying to work from a psychological starting point, the best thing one can do is listen to each client and discover what will be most effective to him or her. Someone with a highly active mind may struggle to do meditations independently, yet they may have a high degree of success with guided meditation in which the healer reads aloud. Why is this so? Because for a person whose mind is always in motion, filtering all those inner distractions–not following every train of thought–can be supremely difficult. Consequently, they feel that, if they can’t do it on the first or second try, or if they can’t do it for even three minutes, they can’t do it at all. Hearing someone else’s voice and having images described so that the mind has something to fix on can actually be very freeing for this type of client.

You won’t figure these things out by having clients fill out forms. You also won’t see this on the “front lines” of Western medicine–in emergency rooms, operating rooms, or in the ICU during serious illness.

It’s very easy to get caught up in the illusion that, as a healer, if you aren’t actually changing bandages, stopping the bleeding, or doing hands-on medicine, you’re not effective or important. Personally, I struggled with this, and still often do.

But recently, I have been reminded that there are many types of healing and, consequently, there must be many kinds of healer. To heal the body is a priceless gift. But a body without a healthy mind, spirit, or heart is no more than a complex biological machine.

I am discovering that, while I have some skill in the physical aspects of healing, my true calling seems to be more along the mental/emotional/spiritual lines. This kind of healing work doesn’t get noticed much–fine with me. It can get lost in the hustle and bustle that is modern medicine.

It’s not a one-off job, either. If you want to help someone understand their own mind and see them realize their own potential to capitalize on the vast power that is latent within them, you can’t do it in one session. Often, it can feel as if you’re going in circles, reworking the same lesson for the six hundredth time.

Yet with each pass, something is getting in, going deeper, being absorbed and incorporated, until change occurs and the person is living in a new way because they wanted to change and grow.

Listening to people, accepting their decisions without judgment, and, when you’re granted the privilege, witnessing this growth are the rich rewards we can look forward to as healers. I don’t force people to come looking for me so I can “fix” them or demand that they change. They find me, begin a conversation, and, sometimes, get something out of our interactions.

This is what matters–that we treat everyone with compassion, whether we heal with our hands or listen to another’s heart. We must all “take matters into our own hands,” think for ourselves, choose for ourselves, act for ourselves. Giver or receiver, we can only control our own self.

But, as I am discovering over and over, in ways large and small, when we embrace our true calling with joy instead of trying to be all things to all people, our effectiveness in healing skyrockets.

Psalm 8: “What is Man”

Some of the most powerful writing is expressed in the fewest words, and Psalm 8 is no exception. The last time I wrote about one of the psalms was in February 2007. I’ve been prompted to take up that thread again, in no particular order. The psalm appears in quotes, my commentary in parentheses.

“Oh Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
(Whatever name we use to identify that which is beyond us—creator, universe, source, god,–the sheer wonder we experience when contemplating the vastness, infinity, and power of such a one as that is almost impossible to set down in words. This sentence, with the exclamation point that couldn’t wait until the end, is as good an attempt as any.)

“Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”
(“Enemies” and “avengers” aren’t always necessarily people. Events, illness, circumstances,–we can even be enemies to ourselves if we keep ourselves from making choices, or purposely choose ways for ourselves that we know lead in a direction opposite of where we are supposed to be going. As for “babes” and “sucklings,” these are the people, events or circumstances that, though they seem simple on the surface, have a profound effect on our lives. We can never tell where inspiration or direction will come from, or who will be the messenger. If we approach everyone with the openness to accept what they have to give us as lessons, then we are always prepared to receive, even if the lesson takes a lifetime to absorb and put into practice.)

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?”
(As if “the work of thy fingers” wasn’t enough to send chills running up and down my spine—consider that phrase next time you stand and watch an eclipse or any other astronomical event that’s not as “ordinary” as the rising and setting of the sun—“What is man, that thou are mindful of him?” … the idea that the creator of the universe holds each of is in mind leaves me speechless. I once heard a choral setting of this psalm, with very close harmonies for this particular verse. I can’t remember who composed it or who sang it or even the specific notes. But the effect of hearing those men’s voices, echoing in some hall somewhere but, even more, continuing to echo in my own mind, is one of the most profound musical events I have ever experienced. I will never forget it to my dying day.)

“For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.”
(This verse always makes me think about the power of reason and choice we have been given, as well as the great abilities of expression—language, art, science, philosophy,–that set us apart from other animals. With those gifts, though, come the responsibilities of using them in ways that are constructive and reflect the compassion and wisdom of the universe.)

“Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.”
(This is just an extension of the previous verse and puts specific expression to it, mentioning the animals of earth, water and air. From the great whales to the tiny hummingbirds, even if we can’t see a use for a particular creature, it has its place, and we must honor it and preserve it as best we can.)

“O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”
(There are nine verses in the psalm (three times three), and it ends as it began. So much of creation is circular and spiral—galaxies and orbits, planets and stars, cells and atoms. How fitting that this expression of wonder should be a circle, too. That wonder, whether it’s at the forefront of our minds or carried as an underlying principle, should be with us always.)

“Hope” is a Four-Letter Word

Having spent several days writing this “four-letter word” series, it struck me that there were a lot of negative emotions that got touched on.

How fitting, then, to end with hope.

Hope is what we search for when we feel like our own life circumstances, whether physical or emotional, are going to overwhelm us. Whether it’s the prospect of dying, loss of a job, the end of a relationship, serious illness, disability, or natural disaster, outside events can and do stir up our deepest yearnings for security. We want to feel safe in our own skin, even if the outside world is filled with uncertainty.

There have been plenty of depictions of hope as the light coming into the darkness of a current situation. But if we can’t even turn our head that tiniest fraction of an inch to see that light, then we have no way of seeing the source of hope.

How do we, as healers, help anyone when they become paralyzed by their own circumstances and the emotional responses that prevent action, decision, or motion of any kind?

Usually, it’s simply by standing still. We can want to help someone with all our heart. But until they’re ready to move, there is nothing anyone can do to change that.

We can also throw a lot of words at people when they’re hurting because silence feels inadequate and like a failure. Sometimes, even speaking is too much, demands too much effort. Pain is a profound thing, and if it’s deep enough or pervasive enough or severe enough, often it just makes people shut down. They can’t say anything, let alone listen to anything that’s said to them.

In these situations, despite what we might want to do to make ourselves feel as if we’re having some effect at all, the best thing we can do is be quiet and wait. Even in silence, the fact that you have not left will register, even if it’s not acknowledged. Pain is a lonely place, and even if there is no escaping it (and there usually isn’t, even with drugs), it is comforting beyond words to know that someone has chosen to stand beside you, not expecting or demanding anything at all, just being there.

No matter how long this slience and stillness lasts, if we set aside our own agenda and time frame, we will often witness the re-emergence of hope. We may never understand the causes of pain or be privy to the emotional depths that another human being descended to. But seeing them begin the process of finding their bearings again, seeing their situation through more than the single point that was directly in front of their eyes, that is a gift that will bear lasting fruit and deepen your ability as a healer.

Hope is “HOLDING ON TO THE PROMISE OF THE ETERNAL”. It says that, no matter what our current state, we are not ultimately confined to our physical bodies and existence. We are not bound by the capacity of our mind. We are beings of spirit, an individual for the brief moment in time that constitutes this earthly life, yet an integral part of the limitless universe. We carry it within us always, even though we may temporarily lose sight of it.

At those times, when we can’t seem to find it on our own, we have the gift of one another. Even if we are unable to reach out to someone in our need, there is always someone who will reach out to us, stand by us, carry us when we have no strength to lift ourselves above our emotions, help us stand when we are ready, and encourage us as we take the first steps that will move us further along our path.

These are the people that reassure us by saying, “Just wait … the dawn is coming”. These are the people who, when hope returns, bear witness with us to the sunrise.