Nothing Greater

I had a poignant conversation with a dear client this week. He was talking about the latest treatment he was going for to seek an answer to his painful condition. His hope is resting in it working. He commented with certainty that the device is said to be the most powerful healing treatment around. I paused trying to hold back what instinctively surged up through me in reaction, afraid that what I know to be the most powerful remedy would sound like something from the movie Frozen or that maybe I'd belt out some Broadway song. I was afraid to be laughed at in ridicule by this super smart, all about science man before me, who has clearly done his research. We searched each other's eyes for what was about to happen next in the conversation and there was no other way for me to say, "the most powerful thing is love." So I said it, just like that. He didn't laugh.

I've spent 12 years working with people and their aches, pains, and sorrows. And, I've also witnessed their sense of relief, their joys, and openings. I've spent 39 years working with my own. I wish I could say I knew some external technique I could package or apply that would heal us of the things that cause us suffering. I have learned many tools and continue to keep learning, and they help, and of course, there are many medical treatments out there people need in order to survive. But, without a doubt, the greatest healing I ever received came in the form of love. It came from teachers, people in healing professions, friends, animals. The love came from them and filled me and it taught me how to love myself. "To love myself," those words sound so cliche, so over-used, so simplified. It is a basic truth, that this is what healing does, yet I know there is nothing simple about learning how to love one's self (and therefore to learn how to love others).

When I think back over the experiences that had the most profound impact on my overall health, there are people associated with them, not things or techniques. The first experience was with my 7th grade English teacher. He saw the beauty in me that I could not see and he was not afraid to say it, and to fight for me to see it. From then on, there were a series of people like this who gradually showed me, layer after layer, what I couldn't see. And each time, it was something slightly different. I didn't know, at the time, that what I was receiving was love and that I was learning how to love. Now, I recognize it when it comes, but I had to grow to that point of receiving. At first, we just need to be loved and feel what that actually is without knowing it.

The greatest thing and what makes me smile with excitement just at the thought is that we can all do this for each other. We can, on a daily basis, point out the goodness in another. We can genuinely seek and share the beauty we see and feel. I write this and am absolutely delighted. I want to do more of it. What better thing is there to do with our time? And what better thing to do than to continue to learn how to recognize when someone is giving to us? These days, when I feel a connection with someone, I don't let it slip away. Whether it is a teacher, a friend, a colleague, a therapist of some sort, a client, an animal, a flower or tree, I try my best not to take it for granted. Sometimes I do miss, but my eyes are open and eventually I hope I will see it.

Healing comes in the form of many techniques and some come in a packaged form, but lasting healing must come from love. That I do believe. My chronically tight back took years of healing, but the real change came when the person who worked with me didn't see my back, but saw me. Whether he knew it or not, that was love at work. 

It might seem far fetched to link love to healing extreme physical pain, but if we were to look at it closely, we can see how entwined love and healing are. So many physical ailments begin with some missing, neglected, overlooked, overused, parts of ourselves. They are never our fault. They begin and morph into a series of reactions over time so that their origin gets lost. We learn how to walk, move, hold, and how to care for ourselves a certain way based on so many variables. Some of it is cultural, hereditary, and learned. Much of it has to do with how we feel about ourselves and how we were/are cared for. So much of that comes down to love, being gentle with ourselves, and of others being gentle with us. And then, there are ailments that befall us that no matter how much care we took and others took, we had no control over their arrival. With those, the importance is in the love we take and know now. Not that we didn't before, but it is an opportunity to know love in an even greater way. All suffering has that as its gift if we choose to see it.

How do we learn to love ourselves? We gradually find those lives that see ours under all the outer layers, costumes, and shields we wear and we begin to learn. We start to see what they see. We start to see what is naked and true. It takes time. I am still, and always will be, finding those people who show me the bare truth of who I am.

If there is anything I can say I truly aspire to do in my life, it is to know and share love without reservation. I am grateful for this client of mine, as I am for all of my clients. He may be in pain, of which I wish nothing more than for it to subside. In his suffering, he reminds me of the necessity of love. Without it, we cannot heal. I wish him, and all beings, love and the relief it brings.