When we learn the right stuff (for us), we begin to heal. And to keep healing, we must keep learning, tweaking and repeating.
It never ends. As it should not.
One of the primary pieces of wisdom that I feel I have solidified over the past ten years of my work is that healing comes not from being healed – it comes from learning how to heal yourself.
Sure, you might have a mentor or helper, a guide, a coach, a therapist, a bodyworker, a shaman, an acupuncturist, a therapist, a friend, and even, an abuser . . . (yes, even those who have harmed us can teach us, not that we should seek out such relationships or even necessarily stay in them, but we can absolutely learn and heal from the lessons of those experiences!). All these people can give us what is needed to spark that perfect combination of insight and fuel, so that we push ahead to our next level of evolution.
Without stimulus and contact with our environment (via these people in our lives and the world that influences and impacts us), our lives quickly lose meaning and we can get lost in nothingness.
For example, a baby will die if they are not held and interacted with. We, as humans, need social engagement that is nurturing and good to grow, learn and thrive.
And more importantly, without learning how we relate to it (the stimuli and environment) with curiosity and an open mind and a way of healthy action . . . as opposed to reaction . . . we aren’t human – we are merely prettied up reptiles, reacting and living out of reflex, fear and survival.
What makes this even more tricky is that most people don’t even know they are doing this.
Most aren’t aware that they are living in their primitive reptilian brains.
Our past traumatic imprints and the resulting survival energies and management strategies can become so elegantly intertwined in our behavioural patterns and physiology, that our survival and (apparent) success comes to depend on them. Functioning at this level, while doable in the short-term, comes with long-term consequences.
In the work I’ve done with thousands of people over the years, there seems to always come a tipping point wherein these ways of protection come back to harm us (mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, relationally, etc.). How that happens is dependent on how we’ve been nurtured and our genetics, as well as the true nature of our authentic being – our soul. We are all genetically predisposed to certain aspects of health and vigor and illness and disease. Some of us are naturally strong and robust like a Viking whereas others are lithe like a swan or nimble like a chipmunk. Likewise, some of us are more prone to mental illness, whereas our best friend might be more prone to autoimmune disease and another friend to cancer or heart disease.
When our true soul nature isn’t being nurtured, and we are pumping out what we “think” the world wants from us, we put ourselves on a slippery slope, and if we aren’t aware of these realities of the human condition, we can fall prey to the “bad” side of our genetics, so to speak.
How we find our learning (healing) journey, is unique to each person.
It comes down to how we interpret what we are given. And then, how we create and activate the necessary paths and pieces, so we can capitalize for the sake of OUR own good.
I mean, how many people have said that getting their cancer, their illness, their accident, etc., . . . was the best thing that could’ve happened to them (in retrospect, of course, and granted they survive/thrive).
I remember one of my teachers, Kathy Kain, telling us a story about a client of hers who was a high level athlete, and endured a horrific trauma and was left paralyzed. Function and independence as they knew it were gone. A different level of acceptance had to come online for them to keep living without bitterness and a vendetta towards the world that had stripped away their life. And yet, with learning (with Kathy and I’m sure other helpers, doctors, etc.) this person came to acceptance, learned to be independent again, and said that one of the truest gifts of the accident was that it showed them who their real friends were.
So, back to learning.
These people who have recovered and healed via their own acumen do so via engagement with self and the higher brain, and by learning much more about how they are reacting to their environment.
They want to know. They crave to know. They live to know.
I have observed, time and time again, when people get the real solid truth about their body, their mind, their nervous system, their traumatic imprints, and all the ins and outs and in-betweens, there is an awakening.
What wakes up are the pieces of the higher brain (that neocortex that is unique to humans).
Due to the fact that we as humans are among the smartest – from an intellectual standpoint, of course – living creatures on planet Earth, means that we must have THE truth from a biological level, so that we can make sense of our own physiology.
Why do we need the knowledge?
It is because what we were designed for through thousands of years living closely connected to the Earth, and what we are being given in the current industrialized world, do not match up.
This means that in order to adapt in a positive way, we need to literally hack the current situations that don’t allow for organic intelligence to just happen (for stress to release spontaneously; for tears to flow with ease; for parenting and nurturing of our young to be intuitive and fully empathetic; for anger to be processed internally without it becoming violence, and so on.).
Positive adaptation cannot happen easily anymore (generally speaking) because the conditions for natural adaptation are, for the most part, gone.
We must reverse engineer this faulty adaptation that has been the human condition, so far.
So, I’ll say it again: Learning is healing.
You are designed to heal.
When we learn, we heal.
But the instructions (on how to do this) have not been clear thus far.
If you haven’t had a chance to download and take in the many pieces of education I’ve created, so you can learn the language of your nervous system and help it re-adapt in a more positive way, please do.
All resources, articles and videos are here on my website, including drop-in classes, replays of past classes, and two online programs that I highly suggest checking out if you want to take your learning, and healing, to the next level.
Stay curious.
Irene.
