Is Spiritual Practice Healing You?

[Group Manager]

Author of Discussion: Group Owner
Relayed To and Posted By: Group Manager

"IS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE HEALING YOU ? "

You may think that spiritual practice and healing practice are the
same, but what I have seen is that spiritual practice focuses on
'Enlightenment'...the experience of being one with all things, whereas
healing practice
includes spiritual practice but focuses on complete and unconditional
self acceptance.


How can we experience peace...feel whole if we are at war...in
conflict...with parts of ourselves we don't accept or want to get rid
of?


Wholeness requires the absence of exclusion. Anything we don't
accept
about ourselves will be 'in the way' of our becoming whole. If we are
using our time
and energy to move away from what we don't accept we will stay stuck
in the patterns of denial and
self rejection.


I went into spiritual practice close to 40 years ago with the
blinding
illusion that if I got 'enlightened' that would be the answer to the
issues... 'the problems' in my life...the 'things' I wanted
spiritual
practice to get rid of.... the things I knew were in the way of my
peace and
happiness...my shame.. my anger... my sadness...my lonliness...my
fear of people...
my fear of rejection... my pervading sense of disconnection...my fear
of trusting in my
own intrinsic goodness and what I did instead was to place my
trust...and my value and sense of worth
in my 'good deeds.'
I was good only if I did 'good'.
I wanted to get rid of my judgments of others, my desires for
material success, my fear of failure, but most of all
I wanted to banish from existence the pervasive 'elevator
music' ...the 'background vocals'....that gave me the
feeling' I wasn't good enough."
What I have come to see is that the very things I was resisting were
the very stepping stones to my healing.

[Ken]

Spirituality is a nebulous phenomenon with different variations for
nearly every person that claims to be spiritual or on a spiritual path
or journey. The same may be true for 'inner' healing. What is a
spiritual practice? and what is a healing practice? I keep thinking
there should be easy answers to these questions but instead, any
proposed answer drives me down a rabbit hole of more questions and
confusion. A healing practice suggests wounds that need healing. What
are they?, how did I become wounded?, how does a healing practice heal
my wounds?, and why has 'spirituality' struggled to relieve me of my
pain when that is it's promise? I don't buy the notion that I haven't
been doing 'spirituality' the right way or long enough. What is
wholeness? and how in the world will I recognize it if or when I
happen upon it? I know what fragmentation feels like but how does the
healing journey (in contrast to the spiritual journey) bring those
floating and seemingly random puzzle pieces to the table to connect to
one another and complete the picture? As for unconditional self
acceptance - where is the model for how a human being acts, behaves
and lives when they accept the totality of their life? There isn't
one. Not the Dali Lama, not Mother Theresa, no one from the
domesticated civilized cultural story. If that is true, we have to
trust the gnostic journey and our own bodies to know. And ultimately,
what is the completed picture in the first place? Can we remotely use
language to communicate such a thing or do we know or come to know
during the healing journey that there is something essential inside
that will inform my life instead of a system that seeks goodness from
the outside? Ken

[marita]

This is such a juicy topic, and one very dear to my heart. Many
years ago I was studying a form of healing work called "Shamanic
Journey". My first shamanic spiritual/healing teacher got right to the
heart of this discussion by drawing a diagram of the terrain we were
about to navigate.

My teacher explained that this work ended up being a spiritual path as
well as a healing path,
as I shall explain, but in the beginning it is a healing path, which
opens up into a spiritual path.

There is a lot of judgement out there regarding shamanic journey work
because in order to do this work, your teacher has you practice many
skills such as contacting guides, and resources of many kinds so that
you can do the 'underground' journey. This sort of work appears on
the surface to be the opposite of an ascendant enlightenment path,
what you call the spiritual journey. Why would anyone want to
journey to my unknown, unconscious, 'underworld' and face
the demons, and the wounds, the things that scare us, and make us
angry and sad? This
was the question he was answering with his diagram. A spiritual path
seems so much nicer
that sticks with the positive, uplifting, enlightening places of the
mind and spirit.

In the diagram, he drew a small circle, which represented normal
waking consciousness. He then drew an oval that stretched up above
the normal consciousness circle and described how this oval
represented a typical spiritual path that was seeking
'enlightenment'. Many spiritual paths that stress rejecting sin,
overcoming weakness, detachment from suffering, and manifesting
abundance are all about moving away from our normal consciousness into
a higher state of consciousness. All of these paths stress the
hard work, diligence, and constant guard we must have against
distractions, and temptations. There are many examples of 'people of
the cloth' that though they dedicate their lives to a spiritual path,
and are teaching and guiding others, get tripped up by the most basic
problems of relationships with other people, and general issues of
regular day to day life, such as making a living. Walking a spiritual
path is considered very hard, and only saints and extraordinary people
have what it takes to walk this path. This is so strong that many
spiritual disciplines require their clergy to not marry or have
children so that they can dedicate themselves to their spiritual
discipline. This is clearly not an endeavor that is teaching people
more effective ways to live their lives, but is a special calling set
apart.

By way of contrast, let's look at a strictly healing path. When a
psychologist is trained to help people heal psychic wounds, he or she
quickly learns tactics the human beings use to side-step pain. One of
the foremost is to disassociate their consciousness from the pain of
the wound. The pain, shame, or fear is pushed into the unconscious,
and the person learns to live from a place without awareness of the
pain.

This kind of disassociation will appear as a person with little
feeling, a vague, or flat
appearance that is disconnected not from just pain but from most
feelings.
People use many ways to achieve this removal from pain, such as
alcohol, entertainment, distraction, and in a spiritual practice
mantras, manifesting abundance or happiness, or practicing detachment,
or simply praying to God for deliverance. The spiritual path often
teaches disassociation instead of truly releasing and healing the
cause of the pain and suffering. From disassociation the attempt is
made to leap-frog to enlightenment. Often the inner constriction and
wound, or trauma is considered the bad guy. It's the original sin, or
a 'monkey mind', or even a disease state, such as ADD or alcoholism.
Whatever it's
labelled, we are at war with ourselves. The difficulty of the
spiritual path, when
stripped down to it's essentials is taking the parts of ourselves that
have been forgotten
or hidden, and battling with them with the parts of ourselves that
are training to operate
more effectively from a disassociated state! It's a battle that you
cannot win, because
a part of you will always lose in this battle.

So, now I return back to the diagram my shamanic teacher drew. He
then darkened the part of the inner normal consciousness circle and
explained this boundary in this way "What holds normal consciousness
into such a small constricted circle are the wounds and traumas from
our
past that we shrink from. These boundaries keep our spirit and our
consciousness bounded in this small circle. The key to expanded
consciousness is to directly face, and befriend the demons of the
underworld, and as the barriers dissolve, the size of our
consciousness effortlessly grows. There is no arduous practice to
trick our way past our barriers, or difficult job fighting
distractions."

He was a pretty amazing teacher. So what he was teaching me was a
healing path. It is the trauma and wounds that not only keep our
consciousness restricted, but that also restrict our physical
bodies, and sow the seeds of disease. A practice that teaches the
'spiritual' skills needed to face and dissolve the constrictions and
wounds of traumas in our past ends up healing us, and then what was
so incredibly arduous and difficult becomes effortless. There is no
longer any dark hard band of fear, rage and sadness constricting us.
Therefore our awareness, our consciousness is able to flow and expand
and shrink in a natural fluid way. A healing path turns out to be
the very best spiritual path. The final part of the diagram
was a large circle that constitutes the consciousness as high and as
broad as the whole paper,
which is the consciousness that is freed from the constricting band of
the wounds. The
spiritual state of consciousness that results from this path isn't one
that is tripped up
coming off the cushion, this one is robust, and can handle the
vagaries of evil bosses,
confusing teenagers, and whining spouses with an open-hearted, loving
embrace.

What is also quite encouraging is that this same wisdom is taught in
our favorite stories as
a hero's journey. All hero wannabees are defeated and constricted
by some wound and fear
from their past. They all need to find the resources and guides and
allies required
to work through whatever the fears or barriers are to then be free at
last. The hero's journey starts with the descent down into the
darkness to get their asses kicked by their
demons. Their preconceived notions of how to survive in the big bad
world has a lot to do
with running away from fears, and being powerless. Often their worst
fears are realized,
and their egos take a lashing, to the point sometimes of being
completely stripped away.
So we find ourselves mostly face down in the muck having been
smacked down by
whatever life is handling out to us and deciding what to do next. In
the movies, you get
up, dust yourself off, find a couple of side kicks and a wise elder
and get ready for
the next encounter with fear, which is the heart and soul of the
healing journey.

[Linda H.]

I've come to think that spiritual practice and self-healing are one
and the same. The thing we need to heal first is our sense of
unworthiness. What's the use of doing meditation or other spiritual
practices if we just have moments of "enlightenment" and then go back
to our regular lives of feeling

"..my shame.. my anger... my sadness...my lonliness...my fear of
people...

my fear of rejection... my pervading sense of disconnection..." ?

These are the things we should be noticing, accepting and releasing
during or meditation practices as well as in our daily lives. It's
like Step 1 on the spiritual path.

When we can feel acceptance and even gratitude (and maybe a bit of
humor) for our negative thoughts and feelings, our vibrations will
naturally rise. Then, we're in a position to move even higher in our
spiritual progress.

[Clair De Lune]

I think we have a limited idea, culturally, of what sacredness is. In
this culture, we've made everything dualistic. "Sprirtuality" is
seperate from life. Right now I am reading a book called "The Soul of
Sex" by my favorite "healing" author, Thomas Moore, which describes
the sacredness in sexuality which is held far away from spirituality
in this culture. The Greek and Roman Gods did not shy away from
living life to the full, in all its drunken, sensual glory and I think
most Americans cannot understand the mindset of the Greeks and Romans
in that respect:revering a God who had an angry, philandering side
(Zeus), a Goddess devoted to sexual love and beauty (Aphrodite), or a
Goddess who was raped into her position of power (Persephone)- they
were not prone to the same dualistic notions, it seems, about
spirituality and the rest of the world, that our culture is. When we
see holiness and enlightenment as perfect beings, detached from the
material realm, a myriad of problems can ensue, the most basic being a
feeling of unworthiness.

Mythology is a rich and fertile ground for cultivating and
understanding a more holistic spiritual perspective, and thus, is also
more healing in its acceptance of so called negative traits -if a god
can be sexual AND holy why not me?. If we lose sight of our humanity,
we risk becoming narcissistic and like Icarus, who flew too close to
the sun (light) and got his wax wings burned off. Having been
disconnected from MY humanity due to insane spiritual beliefs/ideas, I
am reveling in the mud and muck of this varied world.

Right now, spirituality as a separate entity seems immensly dry and
depressing to me. In most ancient and traditional cultures I have
studied, "spirituality" is not separate from life. The Sami people of
the North Arctic, for example, religiously revere the reindeer they
live with, symbiotically, yet they also eat them as their sole protein
source. The natives of this country had a similar relationship with
nature. Perhaps the lack of peace and grounded-ness in this culture
makes it a necessity to get away from the world to find some peace and
self- awareness. Yet I find this beautiful world a remarkable and
sacred and profane temple. I am very drawn to shamanistic practices
and the emphasis on depth rather than height. The Coyote God of the
Native Americans also appeals to me immensely, the trickster who
always seems to screw up his own schemes but keeps trying anyway. I
see myself in his erratic approach to life and his ability to survive
the most difficult of circumstances.

It is not a coincidence that Jung studied the mythologies of a diverse
number of cultures and used that knowledge in his practice to instruct
and heal the psyche.

My spirituality is becoming a self-created entity, and I call it a
soulful-ality if that is a word, which is more in alignment with my
beliefs, my education, and my values. I feel more comfortable praying
to a Goddess rather than a God. As I heal more and accept myself
more, the more I create a religious and sacred perspective that
cultivates that and expresses joy for me. And I also become more
aware that this has always been inside of me.

I also feel that there are certain questions that healing and
spirituality encompass for me - How do I live with civility, love, and
create a cultivated and sophisticated life for myself? How do I meet
my needs in a respectful manner? What is my life philosophy? What
approach do I want to take in the world? How do I create a life that
respects and cultivates the varied and multidimensional parts of me?
What does my soul want and need? Going beyond self-acceptance, these
questions inspire me to take action in the world, and to live with
purpose, mindfulness, love, creativity, and intelligence - which I
think should be the goal of any spiritual practice.

[Group Manager]

Author of Reply: Group Owner

Relayed To and Posted By: Group Manager

Linda welcome to the group and thanks for your post and
perspective.....

i too thought of spiritual practice and healing practice as the
same.......but over the past couple of years i've come to redefine
'spiritual practice' for myself as my willingness to experience
exactly what is being presented to me in the present moment. if i
have a conflict with an aspect of my self or with another person and i
go to my cushion to pray or meditate to change that feeling
state....which essentially means i'm not accepting it......and get up
20 minutes later and say....'....i feel much better now '.... but the
conflict has not been solved i really haven't changed anything.....i
just put off till tomorrow what came to me to be embraced
today........for years i was guilty of mastering the use of meditation
practice to by-pass my painful feelings....that's what i came to
understand and believe as 'letting go'........now letting go
means...to let go of the idea 'i need to let go'......and to just
allow and embrace what's there......and what i've become aware of thru
that practice is the only thing that's in the way of that happening is
my judgment that what is going on in the present moment should be
another way....in other words resisting what is. there a koan about
this..
"no heat or cold".....the student asks: " where can i go when heat
and cold descends upon me?" in other words how can i use practice to
get away from what 'descends' upon me in life....the stuff i can't
control.... the teachers says, 'why don't you go to the place where
is no heat or cold?'..........'where is that place?' the student wants
to know........the teacher replies; ' when it's cold the cold kills
you....when it's hot the heat kills you?" where is the teacher
sending him ?......what is it that gets 'killed' if not the egos
attachment to its belief life should be different then it is right
now ?

i remember going to a week long meditation retreat and what i was
'sitting with' .....the focus of this retreat for me....was to ' let
go ' of the anger that was in me at the start of the retreat......by
the end of the retreat i was feeling calm and peaceful....not angry at
all...... i was very proud of myself for being able to use meditation
to 'let go' of my anger...'wow' i said...'this really works !"
.......then i walked out of the monastery.... saw that my car had a
flat......blew a fuse and the anger it took me a week to 'let go of'
returned full force in an instant.......i drove home.......criticizing
my self the whole way for 'losing it'..... promptly got into an
argument with my wife......retreated to my cushion in more conflict
then when i started the retreat.....the reality was i didn't let go of
anything....especially what i wanted to most let go of.

i now understand that the parts of me..... the aspects of the
personality....or the inner selves that are coming into my awareness
are coming because they need my attention......they are calling for
some kind of healing...perhaps a dose of self- forgiveness......
i.e. if a person who is sad or lonely or shamed knocks on my door do
they want me to let them go....or do they want me to let them in?

what i've seen over the years is that the parts i've been trying to
let go of seem to retrun home and knock on my door......am i willing
to let them in or do i deny them entrance ? Rumi has a wonderful
way of describing this in his poem The Guest House...................

atta dipa,
c




The Guest House

by Rumi


This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.




A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor:




Welcome and attend to them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.




The dark thoughts, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.




Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

[Linda H.]

Enjoyed the story about meditating for a week, only to emerge and
immediately go back to your emotional status quo :)
My story is even worse: I practiced Zen meditation for 12 years to
"transcend" my insecurities. Only to realize at the end of 12 years, I
had been sitting there the whole time saying "I'm a lousy meditator,"
"I'm a failure at Zen" "Look how poorly I compare to the other Zen
students," "Eveyone knows what a loser I am at this."
Thankfully, I can laugh about it now.
It took 12 years, but I finally learned the lesson - It wasn't the
koan that was important, it was those very thoughts and feelings that
I was trying to avoid that were important.