Tag: healing
Change and transformation
Change is a popular theme in terms of self development or self-improvement. Actually, change is happening to each of us all the time, without any deliberate intent, as we respond to what’s going on around us in our lives. In therapy, the client is helped to become more consciously aware of these changes, mostly tiny shifts, occasionally something more obviously noticeable resulting from a particular life event or crisis.
But all the time, each and everyday, little changes, little growth spurts or regressions, happen quite naturally but unseen. So exactly how useful is the active striving for change, or change being the object of therapy, or a personal goal?
Anyone who’s ever been involved in organisational change management knows that a smooth transition is one of the most difficult things to pull off, maybe impossible. And that’s because, desirable though it may be in theory, we are all more or less resistant to change when face to face with it.
Jung said there was good reason and justification for this resistance, and it should never under any circumstance be ridden over rough shod, or otherwise argued out of existence. Neither should it be belittled or disparaged.
On the contrary, resistance should be taken with the greatest seriousness as a vitally important defense. When there are strong resistances, the conscious attitude of the client must be carefully watched and supported. This support is therapeutically valuable, and it is often enough to bring about satisfactory results.
To summarise: change may be the goal, but it is always a challenge. Sensitive and positive support of those affected by it can help them steer a steady course through the transformational process, and achieve the desired aim. Managers and business team leaders take note!
Healing or Curing?
Healing is often confused with curing. But although there are similarities, they’re not the same thing.
The word healing actually comes from the old English ‘hal,’ which means whole, and it’s also the root of the word ‘holy’. The effect of healing is to make whole the parts of us which have become fragmented. Where we feel the pain of brokenness.
So what’s the difference between healing and curing? Healing may result in us having the strength to cope with situations and conditions that would otherwise be unbearable. But it doesn’t necessarily make them go away.
Curing implies that the condition is dealt with, so that it no longer troubles us, at least superficially. We search for cures for all kinds of common and rare diseases, but with healing it’s often the other way round. In our deepest distress, we are also at our most open, and then it’s healing that finds us.
Earlier this year, I was asked if I would see an elderly man who was in the final stages of cancer. We met regularly over a period of a few months. Sometimes he would be brought to me by his daughter, other times I would visit him in his home. He was charming, and a great character, and he bore his illness with fortitude and dignity. Would it seem strange if I were to say that they were joyful meetings? Yet they were!
We called them healing sessions, and he found them very soothing and comforting. Our final meeting, he was very weak, very frail. I sat by his bed, and we talked a little, and when talking became no longer necessary, we listened to the silence. When I left him, he was sleeping, and I knew I wouldn’t see him again. He died two days later. Afterwards, his daughter told me these sessions had made all the difference, not just to her father, but to the whole family.
The healing process brings a sense of deep inner peace. It releases energy that has become blocked by old hurts and fears that are nevertheless difficult to let go of, and which sometimes manifest as physical illnesses. It can allow us to come to terms with and accept things in our lives that are difficult and that require real courage and honesty to face up to. That require forgiveness.
It can allow us to see aspects of ourselves we are not so comfortable with, that we’ve rejected, and to acknowledge ownership of them. To do this is psychologically and physically extremely healthy, and indeed a vital step on the path to healing.
Curing and healing both imply the relief of pain. But healing is deeper. It results in an inner shift, and the benefits are felt like the ripples in a pool, improving the life of the person who has experienced the healing and, in all kinds of ways, the lives of the people closest to them.
Healing, wholeness, and holiness are all related through that little word ‘hal’. Which indicates that healing is much more than a relief of certain symptoms. It’s a deep and sacred process that brings us to fullfilment and completion, and in doing so empowers us to find the happiness we all seek.