A Gentle Guide to Healing

"My life has been transformed through my healing experiences since being diagnosed with breast cancer in December, 1999. At that time, I was devastated, terrified, and shocked. This wasn't supposed to happen to me. I had worked hard to take care of my health for many years. I did all the things I thought were essential to staying healthy. Yet clearly I had missed the boat. Something was terribly wrong. I might die long before I was ready to release this life and move into the world beyond physical form."

This is an exerpt from a booklet I'm completing called A Gentle Guide for Healing. It recounts my healing experiences since that diagnosis and what I've discovered that has helped me through this major life challenge and others which followed in its wake. My goal is to offer hope, practical suggestions, and guidance for people facing life threatening illnesses. The booklet also includes a series of writings inspired during meditation by Spiritual Sources that articulate what is beyond my conscious mind's capacity to know and express.

Here is an example from An Introductory Message for You from the Realm of Spirit:

The purpose of this book is to help you overcome your fears of cancer or whatever other illness you may be facing. Illness is not a death sentence, no matter what statistics or doctors may say. Illness is an opportunity for you to come face to face with yourself, with God, with your life, your choices, and your pathway to the future.

Illness alerts you to what you have been ignoring about your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well being. If you are in conflict with yourself in ways that you’ve hidden from yourself, your body ultimately gives you a message you can’t ignore. Even the way your body chooses to manifest an illness is symbolic of the underlying issues you want to face now so that your healing is complete and lasting.

This doesn’t mean that you should blame yourself for being ill. It doesn’t mean that you should throw up your hands and be angry that your illness is not simply an affliction bestowed upon you by a random and uncaring universe. Neither of these is true. Illness is an opportunity for growth and healing. It is not punishment. It is not fate. It is a lesson – like a class in school that you don’t want to take but is a required course for graduation. Illness is your teacher. You are the student who must meet the requirements of the subject you are studying. This subject is you.

What are you choosing for your life? What are you frustrated and unhappy about? What do you want to do or experience that you aren’t allowing yourself to do? How do you act like a victim? Why do you give your power away? Just who is in charge of you? Is it you or other people you have defaulted to? Do you want to live? Do you consciously or unconsciously want to die to avoid facing what you have been afraid to face? What are the messages your illness is sending you? Are you listening? Are you willing to listen? Will you allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to open your mind and heart to new possibilities? Do you really think you are in control of everything? Obviously, if you were in control, you wouldn’t have allowed this illness to manifest in your life. Where did this illness come from? Who and what do you want to blame?

If this strikes a chord with you or might be helpful to someone you love, look for A Gentle Guide for Healing which will be available soon from my office or www.lovetips.com.