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Healing Happens:
Letters From Espanola
EK ONG KAAR KAUR
Last Saturday morning was beautiful. Early spring in the mountains!
Just warm enough to get your blood moving. Just cold enough to keep you briskly on your toes.
On a whim, I decided to drive down to Santa Fe, which takes about 40 minutes from my house. Went to one of my very favorite gardening centers, ‘Plants of the Southwest.’
Stopped for lunch at a small, hole in the wall Thai place. Spring rolls with peanut sauce, another favorite. Finished up with grocery shopping at a nearby organic co-op and toodled back home.
Spent the rest of the day puttering around the house. Fell asleep around 8 pm. A little on the early side, but not a big deal.
Overall, a straightforward, normal kind of Saturday.
And the first Saturday I have had like that in over two years.
A couple years ago, my body decided to reboot itself. My nervous system crashed. It took me to the point where driving for ten minutes took an extraordinary amount of effort. I could not be on the computer for more than an hour at a time. Reading in English was a struggle. Although, ironically, I had no trouble reading Gurmukhi at all.
Different parts of the brain affected in different ways!
There were hospitals, specialists, MRIs and blood work. Different doctors proposing different possibilities - none of them terribly positive. In order to envision a better future, I had to not listen to anything they said.
Instead, I prayed and opened myself to the possibility of healing. Did my research. Investigated alternative approaches. And dedicated myself to a discipline of herbs, supplements, yoga, and rest.
Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, my nervous system regrew (and is still regrowing). How much is lost for good? How much can return? Those are questions that time will answer, but I feel grateful today for what I have.
A morning shopping in Santa Fe without any difficulty is a great place to be.
Healing ... happens. Slowly. Bit by bit. Over time. And like any natural process, it has its own unfolding.
Healing does not necessarily feel good. The reawakening of something that has gotten damaged brings its own challenges. You have to be dedicated to the journey. To the fact that healing will stretch you. Take you out of your comfort zone. Ask you to think differently, to organize your energy and life differently.
Frankly, the fact that my body has come back like this is a miracle as far as I am concerned. But a miracle that the Universe and I created together. That Cosmic Intelligence brought me the information I needed, the people and opportunities that would help me.
But it was up to me to take hold of it, try something new and surrender to the Unknown.
The Guru talks about the Creator being one with and within the creation. That Creator is so accessible to us when we learn to flow with the intuitive self.
Synchronicity.
Watching what comes our way. Seeing what the hand of the One offers. The difference between thinking "I" have to know how to do something, and letting the Cosmic Wind guide me on a journey that I cannot predict or understand, but that somehow serves me better than anything I could have invented on my own.
That conscious partnership between a tiny finite being flowing with a Vaster Intelligence. That is how we have a chance to heal ourselves. By opening our awareness to feel, taste and touch that One.
One lesson in particular hit home these last two years. Not changing is how we stay sick. Funny thing is, not changing is what feels the most comfortable. Not changing is what feels easy.
Maintaining life in the same pattern doesn't create any waves. But then the dis-ease has no reason to leave. We make it feel at home, so why would it go anywhere?
Healing requires change. To change how we think, to learn how to feel differently, to cultivate new habits. Basically, to open up so that the energy of life can flow through us differently. And in that sometimes uncomfortable, vulnerable, challenging space of letting the energy move through our bodies, minds, hearts and life in a new way ...
Healing happens.
April 24, 2015
Conversation about this article
1: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), April 24, 2015, 5:54 PM.
What a delightful feast. Thanks to sikhchic.com that we get to share this heavenly travelogue, one of Sehaj that comes when you are at peace with yourself. "Rang haseh rang roveh chup bhee kar jaahi" [GGS:473.17] - "In Lord's love, they laugh, they weep, and also keep silent" Thank you, Ek Ong Kaar jio.
2: Ajit Singh Batra (Pennsville, New Jersey, USA), April 24, 2015, 5:56 PM.
Japji Sahib: "Aapay jaanai aAaped dey", that is, "He knows our wants and gives accordingly". It is my belief too, without any doubt. Basically, it is only through suffering that a person gathers courage, patience, and love.
3: Jagjeet Kaur Singh (Malaysia), April 25, 2015, 6:19 AM.
Indeed an interesting read for everyone. This sharing of your personal experience and how it was taking a downturn and your coming to a realization, and doing something about it to tackle the challenge, will give a lot of hope to those who think they have too many obstacles and impediments in their day-to-day life and cannot handle them, so feel dismal and depressed. Yes, the healing process is gradual but if one prays earnestly and is bent on overcoming the trials and tribulations, one will eventually succeed. Thank you for sharing. There's hope for everyone. Cheer up ... and change.
4: Parmjit Singh (Canada ), April 25, 2015, 4:24 PM.
The following excerpt should be on posters in medical offices above handout copies pages of the whole article: Not changing is how we stay sick. Funny thing is, not changing is what feels the most comfortable. Not changing is what feels easy. Maintaining life in the same pattern doesn't create any waves. But then the dis-ease has no reason to leave. We make it feel at home, so why would it go anywhere? Healing requires change. To change how we think, to learn how to feel differently, to cultivate new habits. Basically, to open up so that the energy of life can flow through us differently.