Book – ‘Heal Your Past, Free Your Future’
As we approach the last 3 healing keys, I feel so much gratitude to those who have shared this journey of healing and discovery with me. I am still considering how best to share the material more widely, perhaps even more personally through support groups.
The key this month is one of the most uncomfortable for people involved in complementary healthcare to sit with. There are shadows in our industry, a history of cultural appropriation and engaging in sacred practices without permission or honouring of the lineage and source of that wisdom. The key below touches into the issue, but if you are a healer or therapist, please do read the full material. ‘Heal Your Past, Free Your Future’
Key 10
“I acknowledge my privilege and release all the ways it distorts my sense of equality, respect and reciprocity with all other people and cultures”
292 417 192 223
Today’s theme – what do we all want but can’t have?
I am often amused by seeing BBC weather forecasters constantly changing their short term predictions. Even with the best computers around, they struggle to understand weather patterns from a mathematical, retrospective modelling. I do feel that this belief that they can learn from the past to understand the future misses one crucial element – that the weather is an aspect of Mother Earth and she is conscious. Trying to predict her movements is like me trying to predict the behaviour or mood of my 4 year old a day in advance.
In a broader sense, life is inherently chaotic and our instincts tell us to look for some sense of control – the key element I allude to in the title. There might be a desire for physical safety, but also security within our finances, emotions and relationships. By looking for control, we try to resolve a perceived problem by eliminating its unknown and unpredictable aspects.
It sounds very tempting, and yet it would deny us aspects of our humanity and the unique challenges of living in uncertainty that can sometimes help us grow as souls.
I must stress here that I am not referring to genuinely threatening situations that diminish our life experience, such as war, poverty, racism, misogyny or homophobia. This is about those situations where we are inhibited by our innate fears, cultural programming and core beliefs rather than the reality of any particular threat.
I want to share a personal example here around my own desire for financial security. I have a special someone in my life, a former foster child, who has struggled in her early adulthood and offers me the gift of financial chaos – the chance to find inner peace and stability when we regularly, but unpredictably, need to step in and help her. I watch her life from within my own bubble of privilege and see how easily the state systems look to punish and sanction her whenever she makes the slightest mistake.
As an example, she weaned herself off medications she had been on throughout her adulthood without consulting her GP, and they withdrew her sick note immediately, without discussion.
The government then withdrew her housing, unemployment and disability benefits for 3 months, a loss of all that she depended upon for survival.
What is the underlying intention for punishing the most vulnerable people in our society? I can only draw one conclusion, which I don’t even want to put into print.
I could battle the system itself but have chosen not to do so here. There is definitely a place for opposition but the main action I take is to guarantee this person a safety net, denying the system the chance to fulfill any of its potentially harmful intentions.
What would happen if the people who administer this system take a stand? – like the housing officer who threatened her with eviction if she went even a week behind, knowing she had no income. To survive, cruel systems need to be enforced and when people start saying ‘no’, then the system has to change. I suspect we can all find areas in our lives where we have started to normalise unnecessarily harsh or punishing state systems.
That is my story, an aspect of my need for control. Do you have a story too? If so, what can we all do to help soothe our innate need for certainty? In times of genuine danger or oppression we must do all we can to control our situation and stay safe, but in more subtle circumstances, please consider the following:
Accept that control and predictability are not available so stop looking for them.
Reframe the stress of uncertainty as a necessary challenge, one that allows us to show our resilience, learn trust in life and our capacity to cope. A hero cannot be a hero without a challenge to overcome and if we can meet the unknown with excitement rather than fear, then we will likely create a more powerful outcome.
Rather than oppose what we don’t want, can we align with and energise what we do want?
With love
Andrew