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Creating Maps of Consciousness for Healing
"The cure will not become a long-term healing unless we apply our own intent, and follow through with changes...Our old habits and behaviors will reassert; we'll return to wherever we started." --May Shifting Consciousness News
Many, many of you responded when I wrote about The Physical and the Metaphysical: Body Reflecting Spirit in May. This month I'm returning to the topic of body and spirit healing. The integration of our spirits with our bodies is essential to our internal harmony and balance. That integration is also central to self empowerment when we are dealing with illness and dis-ease.
A Story of Radiance
I was smudging a student of mine a few years ago when my attention was drawn to her chest. Something had changed; the energy felt different, though she was her usual shining self. At a class break, and in private, I mentioned my experience. In a matter-of-fact way, she said, "Oh yes, I had a mastectomy since I saw you last month."
This began for me an inquiry of several years: how was this woman able to shine despite such surgery? What had she done with her fear, loss, and all the other heavy feelings that accompany cancer? How was she able to carry on with her spiritual exploration (my intensive) when so many people become totally focused on their illness?
I spoke with her and her fellow light workers to find some answers (thank you Valerie, Susan, and Ellen). I was intrigued with the visualizations and practices they were using. Yet I didn't put any of their teaching into practice until I began to address my own illness six months ago. Then I drew on everything I knew to discover the spiritual and energetic causes, and how to bring my body and spirit back into balance. Much as I wanted to "fix" myself with changes I might make in diet and herbs, it became clear that surgery would be necessary. Still, I set the intention to do everything I could to strengthen my body, and transform the thoughts, attitudes, stories, and habits that had resulted in my physical imbalances.
To encourage all of you, I want to share what has worked for me. Of course there are whole books and courses on integrative, body-spirit-energy healing; I know I am just touching the surface. Yet, sometimes it is the most simple reminder that can get us back on track. As everyone who engages community support, spirit support, and personal intention learns, the rewards of transformation-in-the-midst-of-illness are remarkable!
What follows can be applied to any procedure for anyone-a CAT scan, blood donation, surgery, dental work, mammogram, radiation and chemotherapy, organ donation, lab work, IV infusions, and so on. You don't have to be "sick" to try out, explore, and develop your skills in self-empowered healing.
Creating a Map of Consciousness for Healing: Setting Intent
It is useful to think of creating maps of consciousness-routes we can follow when we are well and when we are ill. Think of the map as the steps you can take to get out of a funk and back into a good place; re-mind yourself of your larger intentions in this life; release what no longer serves; and find practices to heal your body, spirit, and energy day by day. Think of the map as a guide to changing the message for your energetic, spiritual, and physical recovery.
The first step to creating a map is to ask "What is my intent?"
We all know what a challenge it is to figure out and name what we want. We're far more skilled in complaining and whining about what's wrong than we are in envisioning a different future!
Intent can include how we want to feel; what support we'd like to seek; what we need to let go of; what changes in lifestyle we are willing to make (or not); what we want to understand (what is not clear about the illness, or why we got it, or what to do); what daily practices will help us; how we want to talk about our issue; and what kind of response from others would help us.
It can help to express intent as a decree, such as: "I see my body healthy, strong, energized, whole, and joyful." It's OK, even good, to go into detail. For example, every time I took an herbal dose, a pill, or a meal, I said, "I feed my health, balance, and energy. I intend to strengthen muscles and release pain. I forgive myself everything I cannot do, and did not do." The more we envision our healing, the more likely it is to happen!
Our words, and the intentions they express, carry energy, so it is really important to reflect carefully on what we are trying to manifest. The process can help us clarify desire and notice any hesitations we have, as well as the strength we are carrying. Only if we discover that we are putting limitations on the outcome can we address those limitations.
For example, it became clear to me before my surgery that I didn't fully believe I could heal myself with spiritual light, even though I see the healing effects on others I work with all the time. Releasing this belief (along with the self sabotage, half-hearted intent, and lack of consistent focus that accompanied the belief) was central. Shifting into the alignment, gratitude, and visualizations like those that follow became my practice for reframing my focus. Observing and listening to the reframing became one of the main lessons of my whole experience!
This is the intent I repeated daily before surgery and during recovery:
I see an easy surgery, filled with light, love, and long-term healing. I intend that the light of the laparoscope uses its highest intelligence for physical illumination and energetic healing. I intend a quick release of all toxins, energetic and physical, from drugs and anesthesia.
I see my healing as smooth, quick, and requiring minimal pain medication. I see a full reunion of body, soul, and spirit post-surgery.
I intend that my recovery be easy, radiant, empowering, and fast. I see my reconfigured body luminous in every cell, strong and healthy beyond my wildest dreams. I see the re-union of body and spirit ongoing, deepening, and shining into the world.
Of course you would frame your own intent and use your own words as you create your map of consciousness.
Creating a Map of Consciousness for Healing: Visualization
Guided visualization is pretty universally recognized as helpful to both the experience of surgery and to post-surgical healing. The simplest guided visualization helps people calm down and breathe deeply. A self-created visualization helps us to "see" what is going to happen in a positive way. It is another piece of creating a map of consciousness.
What my lightworker friends taught me is that we can visualize, in detail, an entire process beforehand. Whether it is a visit to the dentist for a child, or to a surgery for ourselves, we can see it step by step and bring our intentions into each part of the process. This lets us engage consciously with the personnel, the machines, the fluids, and the drugs we are going to encounter. Both scary parts and our healing process can be consciously reframed.
Here is a generalized template you might use, substituting your own words, intentions, and health specifics.
See yourself entering the hospital with your allies, guardians, loved ones, and spirit helpers who have agreed to come with you. Visualize all the people and places you will pass-admissions, cleaning staff, nurses, hallways, rooms, the anesthesia/prep team, instruments and machines, fluids, the surgery team, the post-operative team.
In this visualization, bring your appreciation, gratitude, and intent for the highest good and highest vibration for everyone involved. Greet the intelligence of the machines and tools, asking for their cooperation. Appreciate your own body and cells, what they have done for you, and what they will continue to do as they heal. Visualize the human web of support that surrounds you. Visualize the whole procedure, including your fully healed self.
Repeat your visualization several times until it feels whole and complete. This strengthens your intent and your active engagement with the process.
Creating a Map of Consciousness for Healing: Alignment and Support
I was guided frequently to "align" myself during my six-month healing process. I kept asking what alignment meant, how I should align, and with what.
Alignment describes adjustment in relation to another, a reorganization of relationship. It means to be "lined up with" your web of support, which can include human, mountain, spirit, the elementals. It leads to a release of conflict and weighing-down feelings, and a reorientation to what is important in one's life. It can be a vehicle for moving your energy and experiencing new vibrational and energetic states.
To come into alignment, I used two meditations I refer to frequently, the Moving Energy Meditation for releasing heavy and taking in lighter energy, and the Earth-Cosmos Meditation to strengthen and align my connections with the earth, the heavens, and the sacred mountains I am most connected to. I visualized light in my cells. I experienced the union of body & spirit. I greeted and acknowledged my helpers, human and spirit, feeling our connection and reiterating my need for support. I repeated my intentions for surgery & healing.
If you need to rest, you can do your alignment practices lying down. It is amazing how quickly you can shift back into a peaceful place simply by changing your mind and refocusing your intent.
It is helpful to trace the route on the map you've created-to repeat intent, visualization, and alignment practices-multiple times in a day. I often repeated these steps multiple times in a day. Whenever your spirit sags, pain takes over, or you stop believing you can be healed, you can use these practices to return to the connectedness we know we all share.
With any dis-ease or illness, the more support we have-physical, spiritual, mental, long-distance-the stronger we feel. I took courage from consciously connecting, frequently, with my helpers and allies and the human web of support that surrounded me. I took prayer ties-made for me in ceremony by my shamanic circle-into my surgery to remind myself of, and tap into, the huge energy field of love and support surrounding me. When I woke up the prayer ties were beside me; all during my hospital stay, they helped me feel supported. I also had my large black Panther (stuffed animal) with me in the hospital room as a wonderful companion (his presence elicited some interesting responses from the hospital staff). The point is, it does not matter how childlike, mystical, or strange your needs are: if they help you heal, honor them!
Creating a Map of Consciousness for Healing: Recovery and Reconfiguration
During recovery, repeating your intention re-minds you of where you are going and what you are trying to do. It helps you remember to do energy-feeding and spirit-feeding practices to keep yourself focused and positive.
Visualization and alignment continue in importance. Rest, self forgiveness, and creating a nourishing healing space for yourself can become a part of your map for healing. Daily repeating a decree like "I see my body healed, strong, radiant, and full of energy" keeps you on track, as does deleting thoughts not contributing to your desired outcome.
You might also see light beaming into the areas of your body that are healing, expressing daily gratitude to your body, cells, and stem cells. This helps us learn to carry on a consciously reciprocal relationship with our cells, paying attention to the food, oxygen, chi, exercise and silence we offer them in exchange for their life-giving work. We can see every cell shining with our essential light. No one else can do all this!
All possibilities are open. We do not have to walk old roads, carry old pain, repeat past illnesses, or hold onto what was familiar. We can "reverse the river" and embody light. We can replace old stuff with "the elixir of life." We can follow our maps of consciousness to feed our transformation and healing in powerful ways.
Summary: Principles for Creating a Map of Consciousness for Self-Empowered Healing
Your map is made of steps you can take daily to change the message for your physical, energetic, and spiritual transformation. Each of the following principles contribute to the whole:
- Listen to your heart, asking "Tell me what I need to know."
- Clarify your intent: for health, for healing, for wholeness.
- Envision the "best outcome" and "highest good."
- Look for support. Receive it. Remember it on your challenging days.
- Release the heavy (worries, fear, pain) and "cancel" thoughts of doubt, fear, judgment. Take in lighter, more inspiring thoughts, energies, and focus.
- Be in alignment with your body, not in opposition to it. Listen to the messages it is trying to give you; replace thoughts of "fighting" an illness with a more cooperative, reciprocal focus.
- Feed your health (not your illness) with your words, the stories you tell, and your attitude.
- Engage everyone involved (people, machines, receptionists) with your intent, your vision, your health.
- Visualize the whole of your surgery or procedure and what your healing will look like.
- Create a nourishing "place" for yourself and your spirit, a parallel world which you can visit any time.
- Remind yourself: "I have power. I have the power of intent, of focus, of connection, and of seeking wholeness."
If you need help clarifying your intent, the spiritual issues at play, or practices that would be best for you, remember to ask!
Meg Beeler
Earth Caretakers
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"Disease is an attempt by the body to call us back to earlier wounds and jolt us into dealing with them." - Julie Motz, Hands of Life
"It is our divine right to have healing for ourselves." -- Valerie Heckert
"Everything in our physical world starts in the invisible realms. This means our train of thoughts affect our health on all levels. The words we use also create the world we live in. Thoughts and words are "the as within" that create "the as without." - Sandra Ingerman
"If we take [old] memory with us, we will re-create the same old world." --Aluna Joy
"...we suggest you talk to the body. You are not only speaking to the physical you but to the you that houses the consciousness that has been yours for eons, for that is what your guides are--the collective consciousness of all aspects of yourself that have ever been. You are wise beyond belief...Know without a doubt that your own wisdom is held inside you... " -- Helen McCarthy
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