The Book
An Inner Calling To Write Help Healing Happen
After 30 years of observing and studying healing in others and myself, I gave in to my inner calling to write a book about my perspective on healing. This perspective encompasses a diverse nursing expertise in cardiovascular care, hospice, health/wellness education, pastoral care, women’s health, complementary/alternative health, and last but not least, holistic nursing.
I am honored when I am trusted and invited into the private and intimate lives of people, to support and walk with them as they endeavor to overcome life-threatening illnesses, chronic disease, death, and loss of all types. Their wisdom informs me and guides me in my spiritual coaching, as well as in teaching classes and writing this book.
Curing and Healing
There are startling differences between curing and healing. Curing is sometimes possible, but healing is always possible. The basic requirement of healing is simple but not always easy to create in our busy lives. We must recognize and meet our basic spiritual need for connection. You must connect and know, deep in you that you are spiritual. It is an internal connection.
You are a spiritual being with human needs. Most of us were taught the opposite is true; human beings with spiritual needs. This is not a play on words, but the truth of who you are. You, as a spiritual being, have spiritual needs, which, if unmet, destine you to feel an inner hollowness or emptiness. It is the continual search for the answer to the question, “Is this all there is?”
The awareness of and meeting of our spiritual needs comprise the healing process. This connection is with yourself, others, and most importantly with Source Energy, or that which you give credit to for your creation. Some of course call this God, Great Spirit, Jesus Christ, Allah, or Universal Power or Presence. I simply use the word Source Energy or Source, which gives you the freedom to substitute your own appropriate label.
Connection and disconnection occur every hour of every day of our lives. We are simply unaware that we possess this magic key of connection for creating the healing process. Connection only happens in the present moment.
Neuroscientists and Connection
Neuroscientists are beginning to interpret research in a way that suggests the brain is designed to seek connection and oneness. We need transcendental experiences. These indeed are fascinating times we live in. Unfortunately, none of us were taught the importance of the skills of connection. So we must learn them.
If we pay attention and learn to recognize our need for connection, it becomes more fun to live life and experience our humanness. There are some experiences that support connection. Being in nature, color, flowers, beauty, music, happy children, prayer, mediation, giving and receiving love are only a few. Any experience that creates a sense of oneness and unity within, and helps you feel more connection to others and to something bigger than yourself, is healing.
A True Story
The following is a true story that exemplifies disconnection in the midst of a life-threatening illness – in this case, cancer. It is important to point out that the book, classes, and spiritual coaching are not limited to helping with illness or death, but rather they provide an overview for bringing healing to your life regardless of your level of health. However, cancer is one of those experiences that instantly brings our fears and anxieties to our conscious mind. It is as if a giant spotlight shines out to uncover every dark corner of fear and disconnection in our way of life and being. This is an experience that has the potential to create isolation, fear, and disconnection from ourselves, others, and Source Energy. It is also a time when reconnecting is absolutely vital to quality of life.
Over the past two years, I worked for one of the larger hospices in Florida, as a community educator. In this role, I was the first person many potential hospice families and patients met in area hospitals or physicians’ offices. In this role I experienced both the advantages and disadvantages of our conventional medical system. I write about it as “the good news /bad news” of the curing system. Disconnection was the name of the game. Life threatening disease and possible death were very real possibilities.
One memory will not leave me, and has motivated me to keep writing! I vividly remember seeing people who were being given chemotherapy at a local oncologist office. I loved these physicians who were smart and well trained, with good bedside manner and excellent clinical skill. Their patients and families adored them, and so did I. However, these excellent physicians appeared to be unaware of the power of a healing environment.
The chemotherapy room was scary and stark. Images of the faces of the patients in that room receiving chemotherapy haunt me to this day. Tethered to the end of an IV line, their faces spoke volumes about their thoughts and feelings. And they were not positive thoughts and feelings from the looks on their faces. I remember forty to fifty recliners shoved up against those stark white walls forming a huge circle.
The Only Beauty
The only beauty in that room was the beauty of the nurses, the patients and the families. Their dedication, caring and spirit were beautiful. The families and nurses untiringly were the solitary source of connection. But the environment did nothing to support connection and was not joyful or hopeful. There was no laughter; no music; no art nor color. In other words, very little environmental support for emotional nourishment.
For hours, these patients were required to sit in their recliners and stare at those bare white walls. I really can only image what thoughts and feelings went through their mind. Their only diversion was the nurse checking the progress of the chemotherapy drug dripping into their veins, or studying the mood and appearance of others across the room. In the back of there minds was always, “ Wonder if they have the same cancer?” and “Are they doing better than I am?”
As I would leave this brand new utilitarian office, I would mentally restrain myself from going into that room and scattering bright colored swatches on the gray floor…anything to brighten up the environment and help them connect with something else…. Color, beauty, laughter.
It Is Easy to Imagine a Different Scene
As I got in my car, I would begin to daydream about how easy it would be to make a difference and change that environment. I even debated if I should talk with the good doctors. In my mind’s eye, I could easily envision music playing with headphones for each patient, soft lap throws in favorite colors chosen by each patient, lush green plants, flowers, walls painted a beautiful color, art work or murals of the beach. In my daydream, it was a beautiful soothing room filled with a sense of connection.
Most importantly, I would ask each patient how he or she was FEELING about taking his or her chemotherapy. I would ask them if they believed it would help them? What do they believe will be their prognosis? I would want to know about their beliefs? I would want to know their hopes and dreams. Our beliefs are powerful and have the ability to connect us to that which we desire.
Neuroscientists are now able to photograph the chemical and neurological pathways a belief creates in our brains. They are beginning to understand the power of our beliefs. If the patient believes chemotherapy is poison, then I wonder what effect that will have on his prognosis? . Common sense alone would say this is a huge source of stress, indicating disconnection. How much different if the patient could be taught that their beliefs about chemotherapy could be seen as a healing elixir directly from Source Energy, brought about by nurses, doctors, and chemists. This is an example of creating connection in the midst of disconnection.
Unmanaged stress in the body is also emerging as an indication of disconnection. Stress is not conducive to healing and health. It is a symptom of spiritual distress, which creates distress in our minds and bodies. Visualization, guided meditation, and prayer are tremendous healing tools capable of enhancing our sense of connection.
In my daydream, I would teach each one of the patients these valuable skills of connection. The physical body cannot distinguish between a positive image in our minds and the actual experience itself. Our bodies react the same. So those patients could have been taught to close their eyes and image a peaceful, safe, happy place, and their bodies would respond as if that was exactly where they were. Healing happens more easily when we are calm, peaceful, and relaxed.
Research that could help us live healthy lives and what we are taught by media and medicine, have not kept pace with each other. Medicine has been extremely slow to incorporate the knowledge of the profound connection between our bodies’ immune systems, our emotions, thoughts and stress. This is called psychoneuroimmunology or PNI. What you think and feel has a profound effect on the quality of your life and possibly the level of cure you are able to experience in your body.
Healing Is Always Possible
Healing is always possible and begins with the recognition of your true spiritual nature. When this truth is allowed to permeate our thoughts, feelings, and actions, our body is enlivened. Even with an experience of cancer, there is still the potential for achieving connection. You experience an eternal connection - your true birthright. You say yes to life, absolutely, regardless of the appearance your life is a reflection it is a reflection of the truth you are. This is the origin of self-healing and is the key message of my book, Healing: It Isn’t What You think It Is A Holistic Nurse’s Perspective on How to Help Healing Happen, which.is to be published in 2007. In the mean time, the information and techniques I am writing about, I utilize in my classes and individual spiritual coaching sessions. If you would like to learn how to Help Healing Happen in your life, please contact me to schedule an appointment. I look forward to meeting you.
About The Cover Design
The foundational concept of how to help healing happen is knowing and living your life as the spiritual being, you are. There are no ifs, ands or buts! From this knowledge, all choices are made. All healing happens from this acknowledgement, understanding, and belief.
This logo is a combination of geometric form and color. It is a symbol to help visualize a complex and yet simple process. It is paradoxical…simple and complex. Just like the process of healing. The symbol represents the end result of the process of awakening and becoming consciously aware.
It is a life long endeavor, and some spiritual leaders would say, the very reason for our existence. It is only through our conscious free will choice, that Source Energy has expression in our physical bodies, our relationships, and our environment.
This design represents the very esoteric and the very mundane of life. The mundane and ordinary are ripe with opportunity for connection, and an honoring of your spirituality. It is from the Divine Energy that surrounds us, breathes us, and gives our physical body life, that we create and are energized and renewed.
Since we are made in the image of Source Energy, which I call God, it is moments of connection and choices, filled with integrity, compassion, love, and joy, which then infuse this same energy into our physical existence.
In meditation, I prayed for a symbol that would be helpful in understanding healing and, most importantly, connection. About 10 minutes into my meditation, the image came to me. I picked up my journal and drew this symbol. As I looked at it, I began to write about the process of healing and connection.
When you step into the INTENTION of CONNECTION, you create healing opportunities ripe with connecting moments. Synchronicities happen that are so wonderful you simply have to acknowledge, only Universal Source Energy could have orchestrated the connection.
It is my sense that looking at the image helps us remember who we are, as spiritual beings, capable of self-awareness, healing, and acting as conduits for Source Energy. It helps us begin our remembering and acknowledgement of the true existence of all life. We are then healers of our self, our environment, and others. We are the conduits for love, peace, joy, compassion, and hope.
The Circle
This circle represents our spiritual essence, which is Source Energy. The shape of the circle is significant, as a circle has no beginning and no end. If accurately represented, the outside of the circle would be fluid allowing the Source, or God Energy to flow in and out.
The Diamond
The diamond represents our humanness, expressed as our physical body and our physical world. The top of the diamond represents where the Divine Source Energy, infuses our physical body and world. If you are looking directly at the symbol, the point on the left represents the Self, or the Mind (not brain). The point on the right side of the diamond represents Others. The point on the bottom represents nature and our Planet Earth. This is our physical existence.
Source Energy, at the top of the diamond, connects directly to Self and Others, and Self and Others connect directly to the nature and Earth. The edges of the diamond are also fluid, allowing Source Energy, represented by the circle, to flow in and out of the circle to the diamond, and from the diamond to the circle.
The Three Intertwining Circles
The top circle represents Source Energy, the circle on the left represents Self or Mind, and the third circle represents Others. This symbolizes the divine connection between all three. This is the truth of sacred relationship with Source, our Self, and Others, balanced and whole.
Notice how the circles intersect with each other, creating connection and symbolizing the power of connection to create wholeness and healing. This is very significant. Notice the placement directly over the image of a person sitting in the lotus position. It is the heart of the symbol. A person who is living their life with conscious intention, integrity, and love, is expressing Source Energy through connection in all of life.
Design Note: The graphic designer for the book cover is Rob Melvin of EnvisionaryDesigns.com. Rob is also my webmaster. If you would like to inquire about his services, please visit his website or send an inquiry to Rob@EnvisionaryDesigns.com. He’s been an invaluable resource and I highly recommend him.
