“Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.” ~Hippocrates
The word “healing” usually evokes a mysterious undertone. Many of us want to heal but we don’t know what to expect during our healing journey and how to really go about it. The truth is that healing is a transformational and regenerative journey that is different for everyone, depending on how far and deep we want to go.
On the road to healing, we often wonder why healing takes so long and why it isn’t always an easy, simple, and pain-free journey. Healing may take a long time or it may take minutes depending on our situation, awareness, and approach.
Often, healing can take a while because we are trying to reverse our state of being from one of disease and discomfort to one of health, which may take some effort, especially if we have energetic and physical wounds related to our birth and upbringing – as well as from our ancestral line and even past lives.
In this article, I wanted to dive deeper into why the healing journey is not always quick and easy. We have all heard of miraculous healings that took only a few seconds, so spontaneous healing is possible. No matter which route we take to healing – changing to a healthier diet, talking to a therapist, or embracing prayer – we will most likely encounter puzzling roadblocks.
However, the journey of healing can be an empowering experience if we know that it can take many twists and turns. The following are my 13 reflections on the healing process and how these factors can impact our healing journey.
1) Every cell has a particular consciousness reflected in its energetic vibration
“Healing is about transforming the consciousness, creating a resonance within a person so that the healing can reach them.” ~HA-Tony Neate
When we are developing in our mom’s womb, our forming cells differentiate and develop into various tissues of the body. The way our cells develop and their integrity (their energetic state) is based on many different factors, including our parents’ genetics, their health at the time of conception, the environment in and around the womb, and what our mother was eating, drinking, feeling, and thinking while we were developing in the womb.
When we are born, we start our life with a certain constitution or integrity of different parts of our body. Our constitution is based on the energy, and therefore, the health of every single cell in our body.
However, our genetic makeup at birth is not set in stone because the integrity of our body can change depending on our environment while growing up and what actions we take as adults to heal ourselves (these changes are studied by the branch of science called epigenetics).
The wonderful news is that we have the power to change the cards we have been dealt at birth. Some of us may have more difficult challenges to overcome but changing the energetics or consciousness of our cells is very much possible and it is our birthright.
2) We replenish our cells and have the opportunity to increase their integrity with each renewal
“The body is a self-healing organism, so it’s really about clearing things out of the way so the body can heal itself.” ~Barbara Brennan
Every single day, some of our cells die and are replenished by new ones. With each new cell, there is a new opportunity for us to change our health for the better. With every new cell generation, we can (slowly or quickly) increase the viability of our organs and the overall health of our body.
We already know that we can re-grow many of our damaged organs such as the liver and skin and that most, if not all, of our tissues and organs can be regenerated. Just like we are not victims of our circumstances (genetics, upbringing, etc.), our cells are also not frozen in time, destined to stay the same.
As we heal on different levels – spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically – and improve our lifestyle and diet, our new cells and the body as a whole will reflect these changes.
The different kinds of cells in our body have specific renewal cycles that range anywhere from one day to many years. With each cycle, the subsequent generation can develop higher or lower integrity, depending on how we lead our lives. But what’s important to keep in mind is that we always can change the health of our cells.
3) Our lifestyle affects the vibration of our cells
“Healing is simply attempting to do more of those things that bring joy and fewer of those things that bring pain.” ~O. Carl Simonton
How do we go about changing the health of our cells? The more energy (prana, shakti, life force) our cells have, the more resources they have to do their job as effectively as possible. The higher the energy available, the greater capacity and resources cells have to live outside of the survival mode and to help other cells in the body work optimally.
We can say that these high-energy, high-vibration cells also have a higher consciousness that helps them navigate life with more effectiveness and power.
If our lifestyle is poor and we have energetic blocks from birth or our life experience, many of our cells are cut off from their life source, becoming weak and malfunctioning.
This can occur on a local scale in a specific part of our body, or it could be systemic, lowering the function of the whole body significantly. What we commonly call cancer is nothing but a group of cells that has suffered energy depletion and has become sick and ineffective in some way.
If only one of our organs is affected, and the rest of the body is in good condition, the body can make up for this imbalance and help the ailing organ recover. However, the more energetic or physical blockages we have (in reality, all of our blockages are energetic), the more we are likely to experience systemic weakening, or symptoms of weakening, through the whole body. Inevitably, disease is the result of systemic energy blockages and vital life-force depletion.
4) Our body is an ecosystem of different cells, microbes, and energies
“We are not victims of our genes, but masters of our fates, able to create lives overflowing with peace, happiness, and love.” ~Bruce H. Lipton
Like humans living in a society, our cells are part of a greater ecosystem of the body. They can help each other but they can also weaken and damage each other.
For example, the more healthy are the cells of an organ, the more likely it is that the organ can recover from a health crisis because the healthy cells can positively impact the damaged cells (give them more energy) and help them heal. This is exactly how we humans work as a society when we work together to help and uplift each other.
It is definitely possible for us to get out of a difficult situation alone, but it is quite easier if there is someone very healthy and empowered to help us on our journey. Just like people who need help can’t help us without further weakening themselves, our unhealthy cells cannot uplift our other unhealthy cells successfully.
Our road to health is essentially a holistic process through which we can get assistance from many different healing modalities and people. We are surrounded by abundance, and there are always people who are able and willing to help us. We just need to be willing to ask and understand that we are all a part of a vast network of human cells that create the body of the planet.
5) Our mind and our body must cooperate for healing to occur
“Meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fear, our anger; and that is very healing. We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work.” Thich Nhat Hanh
What happens if we are not working with our body to allow it to heal itself? What if we are continuing with an unhealthy lifestyle, addictions, toxic relationships, dwelling in the past, and not forgiving ourselves and others? We remain stuck in a cycle of disease and we feel like we cannot heal or grow as human beings. What can be done in this situation?
Because healing is a holistic process, we can start our healing journey at any level we feel is doable for us. Some people find it easier to improve their diet, while others look for a coach or therapist who can help them heal past wounds.
In the long run, we will have to work both on our body and mind to heal effectively. Remember, health is a long-term lifestyle that we can personalize according to our interests and goals.
And if we don’t feel like we can make any moves toward healing, maybe the best way is to acknowledge where we are in our life and make peace with our situation. Acceptance is a powerful entryway into the realm of healing.
6) Healing happens in reverse starting with our latest injury or trauma
“The place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.” ~Cheryl Strayed
Another difficult and sometimes discouraging thing about healing is that it can take time because we have to take the necessary steps to initiate healing and stick with the process to see concrete results.
In fact, when the body is regenerating, it goes backward in time, and we experience all the ailments we had in our life in reverse if they didn’t heal properly in the past. However, this time around, the body is truly regenerating, rebalancing, and healing itself. Our body is so incredible that it knows exactly which injury/trauma to heal first and for how long.
When we experience detox and healing crisis symptoms, we tend to think something is wrong and are tempted to stop the process. For example, if we change our diet, we may experience some unpleasant detox symptoms and think that the protocol is making us sick and that it is not working.
Because our body has to go through a process of regeneration and letting go of energies and emotions that are stuck, the healing journey might be intense for some of us. Many life experiences are suppressed in the body because it does an excellent job of keeping us alive by minimizing pain and experiences that we may not be able to consciously process and integrate.
However, just because these experiences are swept under the rug, doesn’t mean we are healthy and that the unhealed events won’t keep us stuck in life in the form of panic attacks, anxiety, cancer, and autoimmune disease.
For us who experience significant discomfort during a healing crisis, it can be helpful to slow down the healing process so that we can continue on our healing journey without completely stopping it. Grounding (walking barefoot on earth), eating something higher in fat (avocado or coconut), or eating a small amount of cooked vegetables or tubers could help us ease our discomfort but still keep us regenerating and healing.
7) We need to really want to get healthy consciously and subconsciously
“Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.” ~Tori Amos
At times, we can find ourselves stuck on our healing journey and unable to make any strides toward healing. Even if we accept our situation, we are still suffering and unable to make any positive changes toward our well-being.
When we find ourselves in this predicament, the next question we need to ask ourselves is if there is something about being sick that is meeting some of our needs for connection, belonging, sympathy, and care from others. In essence, does staying sick create more connection in our lives than being healthy?
The challenge here is to go into our shadow far enough to see why and how we are benefiting from remaining sick. Just being aware of our real reasons for not healing (by making our subconscious patterns conscious) can help us to let go of them, especially if we can work with a therapist that we trust to integrate this part of us that doesn’t want us to heal and lose certain benefits that come with staying disempowered – such as care and connection.
8) The timing for our healing has to be right
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” ~ Vivian Greene
Sometimes we don’t have all the knowledge and ingredients to start on the healing journey. Maybe we are not in a stable enough job, relationship, home, or monetary situation where our body can allow us to start healing. Perhaps we haven’t come to a certain realization about ourselves or haven’t met the right therapist who can guide us on the path. For so many different reasons, we may find ourselves unable to start or progress on our healing journey.
Prioritizing self-care and setting a concrete goal to give ourselves time and space where we can let go and heal is both necessary and worth it. This can look like scheduling a range of dates on a calendar when you plan to begin and ensuring you have the time, energy, and space to commit to starting your healing journey with the most determination and excitement.
Forcing ourselves to heal prematurely or too quickly can create hesitancy on our part to go back into the healing process. We need to find the fine line between stability and exploration so that we are comfortable enough to start and stick with the healing process for the long haul.
9) We need to be safe and relaxed on our healing journey
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming of it.” ~Helen Keller
For many of us, our bodies will not let us start the healing process because we currently don’t have the resources or aren’t in an environment that can support our healing.
In this situation, the body is not working against us but wants to ensure that we can handle the sometimes painful and exhausting side effects of the healing process. Our body doesn’t want us to be re-traumatized or over-stressed by finding ourselves in a situation where we would experience symptoms that we can’t handle.
To start our healing journey is to be in a vulnerable state, and therefore the first step should be to find a very supportive environment and community that would facilitate our delicate state of exploration and being.
Overall, we need to be very discerning when it comes to the environments that we consider. Ideally, we want to be in an environment where the people around us are fully supportive of our natural and holistic healing journey and have our best interests in mind. If we can’t find these environments “at home,” it is absolutely advisable to look for them through retreats and long-term healing center stays.
10) We sometimes have to take it slow
“Our way is not soft grass; it’s a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upwards, forward, toward the sun.” ~Ruth Westheimer
As we start our healing journey, many of us want to heal as quickly and completely as possible, but this doesn’t mean that it is the best way for us to heal. Our body may need time to go through all the stages of healing and may need to oscillate between cleansing, regenerating, and stabilizing.
For instance, we might decide to go on a vegan and even a raw vegan diet, but we may need to ease into it because our body is not used to digesting and processing this new kind of food and its alkalizing chemistry.
The best thing to remember is that healing is not a race or competition – that our body may need time to decide to let go fully and heal, and depending on our levels of disease, dictate how fast and deep this process should be. The important thing is to listen to how we feel intuitively during every step of the process and trust that it is our body’s way of letting us know how best to navigate the process given its innate intelligence.
Therefore, we should not be hard on ourselves if we are not healing linearly and “according to the book.” Healing is truly a personal process and there is no right way or one-size-fits-all regimen that will benefit everyone in the same way.
11) We need to listen to our intuition
“The sun never quits shining. Sometimes, clouds just get in the way.” ~Unknown
Listening to our intuition on our healing journey can help us calibrate how long we should conduct a certain practice, which therapist to choose, or when to start a particular healing modality. Our intuition can also tell us when to stop a cleanse that may be too harsh for us or which relationships to let go of that are preventing us from healing.
Trusting our intuition could be difficult for some of us who have experienced trauma around making choices that we thought were in our best interest but that led to a negative experience. We also may be reacting out of fear rather than our intuition.
As long as our decision feels right to us and is not made from a reactionary, fearful, or fight-or-flight mode, we can trust it and navigate the events that unfold with presence and peace of mind.
Since our gut is composed of more neurotransmitters than the brain, our guts are sensitive to frequency and can pick up and tell us more about our environment in the form of intuitive feelings than our conditioned brain which uses patterns and past experiences as reference points to decision-making.
12) Our mind is a powerful healer
“One of the most healing things you can do is recognize where in your life you are your own poison.” ~Steve Maraboli
Many of us underestimate how the way we think about ourselves, others, and the world, affects our health. Some of us are doing all the right things: exercising, eating a very healthy diet, meditating, and surrounding ourselves with good people, but we are still not able to feel better.
In this situation, we may be hurting because of past trauma that we never processed or by not forgiving ourselves for doing something we deem as wrong. Just holding on to these two roadblocks – either consciously or unconsciously – can slow down or even prevent our healing goals.
Unexpressed emotion, just like toxins and chemicals, can cause blockages in the body’s energy flow, which can deplete oxygenation of these areas which “starve” and degenerate over time. Indeed, the mind and emotions are intricately connected to physical health, and any traumas and unprocessed emotions that we never fully processed from the past could be the root of why many of our efforts are coming up fruitless.
If we focus on having thoughts that support our well-being and take steps to release our past traumas and negative feelings about ourselves, we can bypass many physical roadblocks to our health and even heal them seemingly miraculously.
In the end, it is our belief about what is possible for us that can hinder our healing progress, which is intricately tied to transformation and expansion. As we expand our notion of who we are and come to terms with the notion that both we and others are doing our best on this difficult planet, it will be easier to forgive ourselves and others.
Once we release this stuck energy and let go of past hurts, our road to healing will be easier as dietary and lifestyle efforts will be able to create faster, more tangible results.
13) Sometimes we can heal quickly and miraculously
“The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.” ~Hubert H. Humphrey
Some people experience very quick and complete healing that oftentimes seems like a miracle. A miraculous healing can happen because, through our journey, we somehow release stuck energy from our bodies very quickly.
For example, we might have had a past life regression session where we made amends or peace with something or someone in our past life. When we released this energy in our session, our body was freed once again to function in harmony.
The type of roadblocks we have on our healing path and how deeply we need to dig to understand and heal them psycho-somatically will determine how quickly we can heal. Healing is a process, and we can only make steps in the right direction and follow an intuitive protocol, since we may not always be conscious of why we are sick in the first place.
As we try different things and have the intention to find our balance and internal harmony in the world, the right people, healing modalities, and opportunities will come our way to support our healing journey. Perhaps we need a bit more laughter and connection to feel whole again.
We just have to trust that the best medicine is what our body needs at its core and which it has not been getting. Which part of our lives needs just a bit more nurture? And if the answer is found in unresolved pain, we should be willing to commit to getting through the dark night of the soul, which can manifest as a release of suppressed emotions, accompanying physical symptoms, and confrontation of unpleasant memories.
Your Unique Healing Plan
“Forgiveness is no longer an option but a necessity for healing.” ~Caroline Myss
The more informed we are about our body, mind, and spirit, the more we can be empowered on our healing journey and relax when we encounter challenges. Because it took us years, centuries, and even lifetimes to create an illness that we are experiencing, it may take us some time to heal, since we have to change our vibration, one cell at a time.
The healing process will look very different for each one of us, and we should never compare ourselves to others. Trying to heal faster doesn’t always mean it’s better, because forcing healing can take us into another traumatic situation. My recommendation is to follow your intuition when deciding what to do on your healing journey and then start introducing a new practice one step at a time until it becomes a habit.
Choose an entry point into the healing that most resonates with you and toward which you have the least resistance. The best thing about having the intention to heal and being committed to the highs and the lows of the healing journey is that you can create your unique healing path that works at your own pace and that is even enjoyable, knowing that it leads to the best version of yourself!
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