How can I heal?

Marcus T Anthony's new web site and blog can be found at: www.mind-futures.com.

How can you heal deep psychological trauma – what I would call soul scars? Here I am talking about deep-seated emotional pain: the hurt, anger, rage, fear and blame that emerge from being abused and beaten by others, or by life itself. These are the scars of betrayal.

Examples include being badly neglected by a parent, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or just failing badly at something that you deemed very important. Another kind of less obvious form of pain emerges from psychological manipulation by irresponsible and spiritually immature parents and caregivers. For example, a mother who has severe abandonment issues may be unable to establish the appropriate psycho-social distance/boundaries from her child. The child may then grow up unable to establish healthy, intimate relationships with others. At a spiritual level there arises the strong possibility of “possession”, where the parent’s psychic energy swamps the child, typically right throughout the lifespan. There is no escape even after the parent has died, as the spirit of the parent will continue to interact with the child’s consciousness field in precisely the same way from its afterlife. (For those who believe that life ends with the death of the physical body, you will be disappointed. There is no escape from consciousness).

Many people will give you a different answer to the question of what appropriate healing to seek. They will come from the biases of particular field of expertise and preferred methodological approach, and I am no different. I have worked much in alternative healing, and especially using inner child work and emotional depth healing.

The healing method used needs to match the problem that is experienced. There is no point going to the butcher if you want a loaf of bread, and there is no point going to the wrong kind of healer for psychological and spiritual problems.    

Here I am going to employ an intuitive reading of differing approaches to healing and mental health. I shall give each approach a percentage reading in terms of effectiveness. Afterward, I am going to outline what I believe is a very powerful approach which can facilitate the deep healing of psychological/spiritual trauma.

Drug-based psychiatry. 0%. Although this may alleviate the symptoms of emotional problems, and may establish a working state of consciousness which permits the individual to at least manage their own behaviours, it cannot “heal” in itself. In severe cases of emotional disorders, drug therapy may establish the base from which other and more genuine healing can be explored.

Psychological counseling (talk therapy). 1%. This approach may enable the personal to better manage their emotional states, and learn appropriate strategies for dealing with their pain, but it will in no way heal that pain. The problem is that conventional talk therapy remains intellectualised and ‘in the head’. It does not connect with the emotional body to the necessary degree.      

Affirmation and creative visualisation. 1%. In themselves, these are highly ineffective as tools for healing, as they do not connect one with the emotional body. In fact, many applications of these methods, as with NLP, are unconscious attempts to avoid the confrontation with the psyche. Visualisation and affirmation can, however, be very useful when applied with deeper emotional healing.

Hypnosis. 1%. Suffers from the same limitations as above. The consciousness field of the hypnotist is crucial. The unconscious transference of psychic projections during the session may be extremely damaging to the spiritual well-being of the person being hypnotised.

Meditation. 1%. Standard meditation practices do not deal with the emotional body, and merely quiet the mind.  In fact, meditation can retard healing, as it may ‘freeze’ the psyche if the person uses it to shut out the unconscious. However, meditation can help facilitate healing where the person relaxes, brings the mind to presence, and allows the deeper emotions to bubble to the surface and find expression. Note that this is rarely the case with most popular meditation practices. Meditation can therefore be spiritually regressive.

Hands-on healing (Reiki, Quantum Healing, etc.). 1%. While these processes can be useful in dealing with certain physical and energetic imbalances in the human consciousness field, they generally do not permit connection with the inner child or emotional energies which have split off from the conscious mind. Of course, some practitioners do go into the emotional level, making the process far more effective for deep healing purposes.

Intercessory Prayer (praying for a third party). 3%. Intention can assist shifts in the consciousness field, and may also invoke help from spiritual sources. The problem is that there is a general ‘law’ of spirit which states that each person is responsible for his own life, consciousness and healing. Spirit will not normally step in to heal you. There are, however, exceptions, where Spirit deems the healing to be for the highest good of all parties.

Regression therapy. 4%. This involves regressing to the point where the emotional pain was created, thus allowing the emotions to surface. This can be useful in initiating shifts. The problem is that it often offers no way to maintain the connection – the wounded child tends to split off again.

Inner Child work (e.g. John Bradshaw). 5%. This emotional work can be powerful, and may connect with the energetic splits within the psyche. However, it suffers from the same problems as the previous category. Still, there is generally a stronger understanding of the need for gentle ongoing connection.

There are many other kinds of healing processes of course. I cannot list them all.

What then is the best way to heal? Well, I’m not sure if my way is the best, but it is the best that I am aware of at this time. It involves the following processes. All of them are vital, as the process works at many levels. They will probably go in an order something like this, but there are no hard and fast rules.

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1.       Develop an intention to heal.

2.      Bring the mind into presence (This is simple, but not necessarily easy, as I explain here).

3.      Allow the emotional energy to emerge. (this requires a facilitator for those not familiar with such processes)

4.      Connect with the voice of the wounded “child”, and identify what it is saying, and what it believes. It will tell you this, or maybe scream it, if you just let it!

5.      Re-parent the child. Address the wounded child’s limiting beliefs. Identify the life story which it is acting out, but do not believe it. Speak to the child, reassure it.

6.      Use affirmation and creative visualisation to implant positive ideas into the mind while it is in the fluid and vulnerable emotional state. These ideas should be specifically addressed towards the limiting beliefs identified in step 5.

7.      Bring the mind into the real world of the present moment, connect with the body, and keep your attention there via a commitment to presence as the key value in your life.

8.     Take action in the real world which helps correct the false beliefs of the wounded child. This last step is vital, and often overlooked. You can actually get an intuitive sense of the right actions to take after reconnecting with a lost and hurt part of yourself, by asking Spirit for guidance at the end of a connection session. You should identify at least one action, and then follow through and do it. By taking the right actions, you demonstrate to the wounded child that you have the courage and the beliefs to move forward.

9.      Make an ongoing commitment to honestly see the ego and the games it is playing. Let the ego know who is boss (your spirit).

10.  Let go, and let God. The relaxing of the ego is essential for final healing. The final say is not yours alone.
11. Celebrate! Enjoy the moment. Laugh, dance, sing! There is nothing so healing as to laugh and celebrate the gift of existence.

My reading is that this process resonates at about 60% in terms of effectiveness (I’ll come back and check this last reading at a later date, for confirmation). As you can see, many of the processes which have minimal impact on their own, become far more powerful when combined with other healing processes. 

Finally, there are a lot of skills required before anyone can hope to employ this process effectively. It also requires help. You cannot help to learn all these skills by yourself. You need to find the right teachers.       

Marcus