Deep Self-Healing

Like many aspects of my life, the seeds of this book were sown in my personal garden of experience long ago, taking many decades to bear fruit. While taking many years to unfold, a unique series of events led to a period between the start of 2015 to early 2018 that was for me, a profound period of self-healing and transformation.

After some gentle encouragement, I decided to lower the veil of my normally very private disposition and document my own story, in the hope that at least some of it may help others better understand their own life experience and personal path of healing.

My story here is of a deeply personal journey of mind/body/spirit healing, in which I’ll also explore the many faces of bitter emotional pain so common to many of us. These include feelings of grief, worthlessness, isolation, powerlessness, lovelessness, anxiety, guilt and self-doubt (among others).

Such emotional conditions were born of many sources–but include the usual suspects of family dysfunction, distorted views of myself and relationship breakdowns. All of this came up for examination, understanding, healing and release. But accompanying this were also powerful body-mind states, that I never realised were lying dormant within that eventually also made themselves known.

It is my sincere desire that by sharing my own process in working through such tough emotions, I can show others that there really are ways to heal them–and that by healing them you also heal yourself. Self-healing then opens many doors that lead to other parts of yourself that also need attention–and this process by its very nature is a gateway for soul evolution or soul evolution along your own life journey.

I’d also like to show that no matter how young or old you may be–as my own intense healing started at age 53–and whatever your personal circumstances may be, it’s never too late for deep self-healing.

My process also brought along many unexpected, fortuitous and wonderful changes, changes I never thought would–or even could–happen to me. And yet it was all achieved (along with deep reflection and self-acceptance) by consistent meditation practice–which is something readily available to everyone.

My journey took place even while I led what was a relatively “normal” lifestyle in contemporary Western society–i.e. following a regular work/home routine (albeit, punctuated by some rather challenging catharsis!). It was a far cry from the renunciation or solitude of the wilderness or living within the quiet walls of a monastic retreat. During all my process, I was never quite sheltered safely from the everyday ruckus of the outside world–yet I was still able to let my inner-self run freely.

Many people of course, have written inspiring accounts of their own unique journey of self-healing, arising because of unexpected circumstances such as severe illness, accident, or extreme survival challenges. Some have written accounts of their transformative self-healing through time alone in isolation, living with few outer resources in order to initiate a kind of complete self-confrontation. Others have gone through profound healing following near-death experiences (NDE). I believe we can all learn something relevant to our own unique path from each of these stories.

One common theme uniting these accounts, is that some type of extra-ordinary personal challenge–or set of circumstances–provided the catalyst or trigger for the healing journey. And this was true for me too.

I’ve worked in the natural-healing field for over two decades now and during that time I've answered countless questions from clients about their physical health and emotional states. In answering their questions, I’ve tried my best to educate too, so that they can take more control of their own health and healing.

Consequently, the “teacher within” called to me in the writing of this book. Through my own personal story interwoven with my professional-healing experience–plus a healthy dose of self-development work–I hope to elaborate some of the key principles of mind/body/spirit healing. In doing this, I seek to share some of my insights as to what the deeper work entails and give some practical advice on just how to navigate your own healing journey.

At present, I work principally as a traditionally-trained homoeopath and Bowen therapist, but my studies and healing travels also include homeopathic facial analysis (HFA), herbal medicine, flower essences, nutrition, and a sprinkling of other bodywork and allied therapies.

My background gave me a solid grounding in science and the Western-scientific health model based on biochemistry and pathophysiology. Equally, I’ve had extensive experience with healing practices based on energetic and holistic healing, as well as more esoteric metaphysical principles. More or less, I consider myself quite fluent in all three healing languages and can converse between them quite freely.

Healing is More than Physical.

Despite the groundswell of interest in complementary medicine–and after around twenty years of clinical practice–I still find the predominant view of health and healing is firmly rooted in treating the physical body only. Therefore, I still use a health language based on standard anatomy and physiology with my clients at least 95% of the time. Of course, it’s understandable given that it’s the physical body we inhabit every day–and this body that we’re using as a vehicle for life-experience regularly feels pain and gets sick. So naturally, when were in pain we simply want the problem “fixed”.

The dominant paradigm of Western medicine drives our thinking to accept that treating a sick physical body is basically all that’s required. While I have deep concerns about many aspects of that system–especially the business model–I’m not totally anti-Western medicine per se.

Physical bodies do need a lot of care, they do present lots of complex problems and we do need many tools in our healing toolbox. I certainly believe in using the right tool for the job and in some areas, like emergency medicine, Western medicine is the most appropriate primary-care tool. Like all healing systems though…