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Healing by Being
One of my heart’s desires has been to heal. As much as I
derive personal pleasure from singing and performing, behind that
was the hope that my song would touch a forgotten place in the listener
and transport them to a different world. Even if the experience
only lasted for a short time, my desire was that they would be awakened
to something greater than themselves, to become more sensitive to
their world. I hoped that the protections and fears in each heart
that caused separation, division and thus pain, would be breached
somehow and in that breach they would move closer to their truth
and essence and forward in their process of healing.
While this may sound a bit grandiose and perhaps altruistic, I
really just wanted to help relieve suffering. I had experienced
healing through art and felt that music was a way that I could contribute.
I wanted to bring healing through song, to share my experiences
and thoughts in teaching, to give encouragement and support to others
on their journey. This was my contribution to humanity: to address
the heart (no pun intended) of the matter and help heal pain.
Yet what better way to be an instrument of healing than to really
experience it. What is so ironic to me is that I thought I was pretty
well adjusted and not in need of serious repair work. I was fairly
in touch with my emotions; I really tried to deal with problems
when I became aware of them rather than hiding from them. I thought
I was basically happy. I felt I knew love and wanted to offer that
to those in need. I wanted to extend the gift of healing while never
thinking I was in fundamental need of mending myself. HA!! Little
did I know.
While it has been an amazing experience becoming aware of things
that were holding me back and then going through the process of
dealing with and healing them, the one thing that has surprised
me most of all is the revelation that the most fundamental and powerful
healing occurs when I am really being: not doing this thing for
myself because I should or trying to take care of every calamity
or running around trying to do what I think is the right thing for
this person, but rather stopping, listening and being.
Now let me stress that I am not at all saying we shouldn’t
act and help relieve any source of suffering or need around us.
In fact, the opposite is true. As we heal ourselves and become aware
of more perfect states of being, we cannot help but act. It is through
being -- completely still, totally present and without judgment
-- that we are faced with truth. When we face what is in this moment
-- whether it is fear or pain or judgment, guilt or desire or loneliness
or whatever -- we can see what really is; and in the wisdom of that
truth, we can then act with clarity and love to bring healing. We
face each moment, accept it, go into it and then act.
Much of our pain is a result of our perceptions of separation or
duality which cause us to attach to possessions, relationships,
images or other transitory things in an attempt to find acceptance
and completeness. Yet these things eventually fail us because of
their impermanence and imperfection and thus cause us grief. As
a result, we shut off part of ourselves to stop the pain; we turn
to different things to fill that emptiness. We unconsciously create
bigger divisions that drive us further from where we actually desire
to be: connected to wholeness and completeness which can only be
found by going beneath the forms of duality and connecting to that
which is in all of us, in everything. This can only be found by
being.
In being, we get below the illusions of life, what Hinduism calls
maya or “not this.” We realize that what we see is not
really what is truth. For example, we see that we are not our physical
bodies that will deteriorate and pass away, but rather energy and
spirit that animate these tissues known as “body.” Once
we begin to see truth and experience it, we begin to act with the
clarity that truth brings. We no longer act on the level of illusion
and confusion which create suffering and harm despite our best intentions;
instead we live and act with peace and power, and in the presence
of that truth we are healed as are all those we come in contact
with.
Of course, living from this place of presentness is a life long
journey, but each step in this direction leads us to completeness
and wholeness. Total healing. And each moment is an opportunity
to practice healing: to exist from the place of unconditional love
and truth instead of from separateness, fear, hope, delusion. With
each breath, we practice being in this moment. In each pose, we
experience acceptance and awareness. Every step is taken with surrender
and honesty. We experience healing; others are healed as they encounter
truth. All this is through being.
Heather Antonissen, September 2002
You can write to Heather at heather@yogaisyouth.com
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