Weekly Insights: Cycles, Karma, & The Self-Healing Journey...

Once you put the glasses on to see, you can't unsee. Once you put the speaker on to hear, you can't un-hear. Once you learn the truth, you can't unlearn it. Sure, we can always give up hope, zone out, or run away, but that is too easy and too ineffective. What are we running away from? Pain, suffering, hardship, trials, change, or simply growing old are all necessary experiences in life and part of our evolution. These are all "little picture" issues that are part of a very large landscape. Eventually, we are going to have to go to the seed and find peace in order to move forward in our lives. No matter how hard we may try and avoid the darker times, the natural cycles of life will take us on a journey of the yin and yang. Wherever we are, whomever we are with, and whatever we are doing, one cycle carries us into the next, and so on. Some people argue that medicine, healers, supplements, surgeries, and other interventions are getting in the way of our karma. Are we meant to suffer or are we meant to find solutions to problems as they arise?

To answer this question, we have to first understand the seeds of dis-ease. Whether it be from our past lives, our mother's lineage, our father's lineage, our astrology, our time in the womb, our early life experiences, or the influences of those who have molded us throughout our lives, we each carry stories that are complex and layered. This is all part of the bigger picture of who we are and what both enhances and limits our life force. We can witness the effects manifesting in our health, career, relationships, and overall joy over time. We have different colored lenses that perceive life in very unique ways. The body is a map of all of our mind-body connections, and it speaks to us when we are pulled to too far in any one direction. In order to find balance, sometimes we have to experience the extremes - but we cannot live in them. At times we have to learn the hard way in order to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over again. There are unconscious behaviors that develop out of our deeper pains and traumas. So if we can work with some helpful tools along the way, why wouldn't we accept that help?

Buddhists believe that "healers" take on the karma of the people they heal. If you are going to eliminate the suffering and pain that someone is about to endure, then that energy has to go somewhere. The healer is not taking away the lesson, as this karmic energy will circle around again for the person to experience in the future. So basically, they believe that the healer is pushing the dis-ease into the future of the one they are healing. Ultimately, the lesson continues to show up until we have learned what we needed to learn. Buddhists also believe, however, that the person who is suffering from dis-ease should use tools that help them manage their suffering so they can do their spiritual work more effectively. Healing comes from the combination of medicine and other interventions along with inner healing work on the mind and heart. Ultimately, getting to the bottom of the disturbance and the mind-body connection, will help to destroy the dis-ease and heal the karmic lesson so we don't have to repeat the experience in the future.

Once we have understood the deeper lesson that the multiverse is teaching us, it is our conscious duty to make wiser choices the next time this lesson tests us. We can go through an entire cycle of growth and find ourselves right where we started if we choose not to internalize the lesson that we are learning through our karma. A stubborn soul sometimes rebels against the Truths that are revealed, and has a hard time making life adjustments along the way. That stubbornness is yet another lesson to master, and part of the continuum of the karmic cycle that guided us to this point. We are here to learn humility, to practice integrity, and to become who we incarnated to become. Even though this is not the easiest task in this dualistic material world, our experiences naturally guide us through these cycles and the universe only gives us what we can handle. One bite at a time, we can truly rise through any fire that ignites us on this crazy ride through life.

Looking through the eyes of a child with the wisdom of a grandparent, the healing process is multifaceted. Not only do we need to seek help from the resources around us, but we have to do the inner work to investigate who we are and what sets us off. The reward is becoming a higher version of who we are today, developing depth in relationships, awareness of the self, a deeper connection to this physical reality, and the attunement to the self. This is important in order to be able to empathize and understand others and the world we live in. Nothing is perfect, and our dualistic cycles don't end until we take our last breath. However, we can find small victories and evolve into a more peaceful and balanced being when we make the necessary shifts for our greatest wellbeing and overall karmic harmony.