Dis-ease is not something to be afraid of. It is part of nature and so is not unique either to humans or the modern age. But how we view it is important. For many it is a problem to be overcome, an inconvenient blip which distracts us from the real focus of our lives. But there are alternative understandings.
Finding the Way Back
The approach taken in Reiki is that physical dis-ease is the voice of our bodies, calling us back to wholeness. If you try to silence the voice, it will come back, only next time it will be shouting. Listen patiently and allow the pain to show you what needs to change inside.
This understanding of sickness enables us to release a measure of fear. Sickness is not the enemy. It also presents an alternative metaphor. We are used to speaking of our relationship with disease as war:
He passed away after a heroic battle with cancer.
Instead of fighting sickness, we allow it to lead us into parts of ourselves that we preferred to keep locked shut.
Openness
Our best friends on the journey is openness. Some of our most deeply buried pains heed not the spiritual warriors who uncompromisingly cut away at all that stands in the way of enlightenment. Indeed, they will only allow themselves to be wooed out by the gentle hands of love.
For many, this is the first obstacle: the idea that you need to fight something. We have been conditioned to believe that change requires struggle, resistance, and finally one side conquering the other. In the world of survival of the fittest, rich robs poor, big beats small. This is the currency of our everyday lives. We assume this applies to the world of healing, and so draw a line around certain parts of ourselves, call them unacceptable, and try to obliterate them.
The way to resolve emotional and physical conflicts, however, is not by dealing a crushing blow to the weaker side.
Acceptance
As I walk further on your path of healing, I look back and wonder why it took me so much time to learn that acceptance is the heart. It is the very core of healing, and of love. We find acceptance in the phenomenon of reiki, and we learn gradually to accept ourselves. With tenderness towards our sickness, then, we find transformation.
There is no competition and no race. We think the promised land lies far off, but when we get there, we see that it has no borders. We’ve always been there; we just didn’t know it.
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