Healing Work is like Giving Birth

"...for any movement animated by love moveth from the periphery to the centre, from space to the Day-Star of the universe...for when the motivating and guiding power is the divine force of magnetism it is possible, by its aid, to traverse time and space easily and swiftly." - 'Abdu'l-Bahá

When we are immature we often make decisions based on limited information or we only see part of the picture, because the whole picture is too big and it would mean taking in more than we can handle. I think this is true for Western society, it is immature, it was the last of the civilizations to develop and therefore its picture is not complete. This is also, to some degree, true of all of humanity - we are immature and as we move toward maturity, we will most likely go through what many adolescents go through in their own fits of growth and bursts of insight. Why do I say humanity is immature as a whole? Because we have truly just discovered that we are really one people, a global people, we didn't know yet that the rest of the world existed as we do today. Maybe there were elders and teachers that understood this, but overall humanity did not understand this reality. Today we are just beginning to see the truth of the statement, the oneness of humanity, and it is upending everything. Including our own selves, how we see ourselves and whether or not we understand our true nature. This is why I think the work of healing old wounds, clearing out false narratives, opening up truths has emerged so strongly in these last few decades. 

I too was called to what we now term healing work many years ago, at the tender age of fifteen and the healer I worked with was so much more than a therapist. She helped rearrange my inner narrative to match more closely the truth of who I am, a noble being with limitless potentialities. At that time we didn't worry about whether it was healing work or therapy or something else, it was a movement of clearing out false narratives and settling in truths and it was powerful work. 

Controlling the movement

Here's why this matters. In Western society we habitually take movements of limitless potentialities and diminish them into pocket size ideas that are controllable and easy to manage. Remember, we are still immature as a society, so it is easier for me to try something on that fits within my framework, rather than stretch my framework out. Why does this matter? Because if you don't stretch your framework you will not grow and being stifled will become another obstacle you will need to move through. It is hard for us to release this control because we are afraid of big movements, we have not been taught to trust, rather we have been taught to fear and this becomes an obstacle to our growth and gets in the way of truth. 

What's important to remember is healing work is a movement, you are learning to listen to and rewrite your inner narrative, setting new patterns of behavior centered on truth. This cannot be done from fear and control. Rather it must be done from love. 

Releasing Control

Luckily, healing work is like giving birth, it is imminent, it will happen, you, I, we will grow. Whether we want to or not, we will grow! And so the question is do we go kicking and screaming or do we let go and just move with the rhythm of what is being called from deep within us? 

This calling from within is surging within each of us and some of us have just gotten very good at numbing it out, no matter, it will win in the end and either you will listen and seek change or you will be destroyed or extremely limited at best. I know, sounds dark, but we see this all around us with increasing numbers of people taking drugs, both legal and illegal, to manage what is surging within them. These are not judgements, they're just reflections of our reality, the real question is what will you, I, we do with it?

I always encourage people to use every tool at their disposal to move through healing work. Use a pillow to cry in, use a journal to write in, ask a loved to hold space for you, use breath to get through it. Use every tool at your disposal that is there to serve you and uplift you. Much like a woman in labor who follows the rhythms of her own body to move through the act of birth, so we too move with the rhythm of our own healing work to give birth to what is coming.  

Finding the Gifts

Because like birth, on the other end of healing work are the gifts waiting to be found by you. The false narratives you hold about yourself diminish into a whisper and the truth of who you are gets stronger. Those things that once felt like obstacles - fear, anxiety, being lost - become stepping stones of strength - faith, trust and confidence in the truth of who you are.

You trust yourself more, you trust your body more. You love yourself more. Your language softens. Your heart softens. You know the truth - you are beautiful, you are loved, you have always been loved. 

These are hard won truths and for anyone that has been engaged in healing work, you know these nuggets of truth are everything and can never be taken from you.  

Giving into love

Ultimately, healing work is the work of love and that cannot be placed into a bite size nugget into your pocket. Love, the powerful force that animates the very universe, how could this possibly be diminished into a fifty minute session for six weeks! No, healing work is the very act of walking toward love and its life long, there will be pauses of great joy and deep love, moments of hard work and extreme pain, and then back again - that is why healing work is like a movement and when we give into love, we are only left with gratitude. 

Check out my podcast The Human Experience where I discuss this article in my latest episode

How to respond to a world in crisis: Inner and Outer Transformation

Oh Son of Spirit! Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then for that which thou was created.  Bahá'u'lláh

Recently, my teenage daughter and I were in the hammock and she was feeling life was not fair. That's not surprising for adolescents to ponder, and I also know this usually has a background story, so I asked her why. She said her white friends don't have to worry about racism, about their father or brother being pulled over and getting hurt, and that doesn't seem fair. She's right, it's not fair and yet, it's not that they don't have to worry about racism, they do, they may not know they do and that is dangerous. 

For me life has been about transformation, since I was eight-years-old I began to consciously think about how to transform my life. It started with a dream. 

My parents divorced when I was three and by the time I was eight, I had been shuttled back and

forth between my mother and her New England, Anglo family and my Bolivian-Quechua Indian dad and his family in California. Neither had remarried, and both had strong roots with their brothers,

sisters, aunts and uncles and so by default did we. To say it was confusing to be shuttled back and

forth between cultures is an understatement - it was traveling between worlds and worlds that in textbooks collided and crashed and in reality, often was not much different with meat and potatoes in one home and llajua con silpancho in another, saluda con un beso every time you see a family member and to hug only once when you first arrive and when you plan to leave town. Every ritual, family norm, cultural nuance, pitch in language, rhythm of movement, everything held a unique meaning to each culture and I found myself often in trouble for getting it wrong with one group or the other. And then suddenly we moved, to a very small town in southern Mexico, in the furthest tip of the state of Quintana Roo, an hour from the now famous Tulum - back then no one knew of its existence except for locals and the occasional lost European tourist. I too was completely lost and felt I would never be normal again. 

I turned on the only person I could think of, my deceased eldest brother. Seems funny to say that, but my brother David had always been a part of our life. My father talked about his passing as the first born son, we went to his gravesite, we prayed for him, he was present and he wasn't and that made me mad. At eight I was mad - how come I got left behind to deal with the madness of the world and he didn't? I cried and howled to the moon. As I lay in my hammock, I railed at my brother. I was hurting, I missed my father, I felt confused by so many languages and cultures, I didn't feel a part of any world and here I was in the middle of a jungle in a hammock with no hope of ever making sense of what had become my reality. 

I cried myself to sleep. And that night I had a dream. An elder man, very warm, gentle and kind in his demeanor was walking in a garden with me. He was holding my hand and wore what I thought was a strange garment, I know today it is called an Abá - a traditional middle Eastern garb men wore. He asked me if I wanted to know why my brother didn't make it and why I did. I said yes. Because you will make it, you will survive and grow and develop. And when I awoke, my brother had become my ally and I knew my reality would change, I would persevere and be ok. Just like that, I was healed.

Now transformation is not that easy, it happened that this has been the only experience that has healed me so immediately, however it did spur me on a journey, on a path of change and it is one I have diligently followed with increasing focus ever since. 

Maybe because I was born of two great oceans of ancestors, I refuse to take sides. How could I, my ancestry makes the whole of my earthsuit, they give my life a long storyline and they remind me of what is sacred and real: The nobility of the soul. 

My Irish ancestor, who was in the revolutionary war, was a Lord, but when he fell in love with a commoner, he chose to release his title and all the lands that were attached, for a more noble and higher goal, love. With this in his heart, he crossed over from Canada to New England and settled in Vermont. 

My grandmother Cruzesa, of Quechua Indian heritage, was only allowed to legally attend school until the sixth grade, even though she had helped her father, one of the first indigenous lawyers, to translate the law from Spanish into Quechua that their people might know their rights. This experience settled her on a strong sense of justice for the rest of her life. 

These stories are the long line of history I stand on and they remind me the choices we make matter. 

I share these stories with my children, I remind them continuously of their nobility. I knew the best antidote to injustice would be to develop strong children, who knew their inner reality was solid gold and if they ever reflected anything other than that, it was because they were in transformation. 

That is how we grow and transform, through great tests and difficulties. We grow when these tests and difficulties cause us to face the darkness and sadness in us, when we are willing to look at the false narratives we tell ourselves about who we are. Where do these narratives come from? Initially, they come from younger versions of ourselves. These younger selves when faced with difficult and

painful experiences don't understand what to make of these experiences and if there is no healthy adult to help them understand what is happening to them, they create a narrative, a reason why and usually it is them, they are the problem - we become the problem. Our false narratives generally sound like this: I'll never be good enough - No one will ever want me - I will always be alone. 

I have found in my work that all human beings have some form of false belief about who they are, it's not surprising as all of the world civilization was touched by colonialism and in colonialism these narratives were systemized. It is in colonialism that people were systematically told there is an ideal and most likely you fall just short of this ideal. No one ever reaches this ideal, even the most blue-eyed, fair-skinned person, because it is not real and is devoid of anything spiritual - it is only based on a material image, a material mirage. However, it was systemized by color and this then put people in gradations of this ideal and of course, those that were at the bottom of those physical characteristics - the darkest hues of brown - would be the furthest away from this "ideal". And so a systematic way of ensuring false narratives that would materially empower a selected few was born.

This means narratives about who we are are also systemic in nature and because they're told through a material lens, they're also faulty. Coupled with my already faulty internal narratives, the external stories of who I am reinforce my false beliefs about myself and I begin to believe the stories the world tells me. This is particularly devastating when those narratives tell you that you are criminal, prone to violence and less intelligent. Of course, they are also devastating when they tell you that you must be perfect, the ideal and at the top. Social narratives are heavily influenced by our material world and thus, once again, fail to see the whole picture nor capture the whole human being. 

So how do I then deal with a world that is the throes of a crisis that promises to dismantle civilization should we not deal with it and promptly?

I am reminded of this quote when faced with this question:

“Then what Christ meant by forgiveness and pardon is not that, when nations attack you, burn your homes, plunder your goods, assault your wives, children and relatives, and violate your honour, you should be submissive in the presence of these tyrannical foes and allow then to perform all their cruelties and oppressions. No, the words of Christ refer to the conduct of two individuals toward each other. If one person assaults another, the injured one should forgive him. But the communities must protect the rights of man.” - 'Abdu'l-Bahá

I must keep one eye on my inner reality - where and when are my inner false narratives active and how do I continuously work with them to remind these younger parts of who I am that I am loved, that I am wanted, that I am valued. If someone personally injures me, work to forgive them as I know my noble self knows the truth of who I am and no one person's injury can remove that truth.

If I am not vigilant with my inner reality these narratives will run rampant and they will manifest themselves in everything I do. It will be my husband's job to make sure I feel loved, wanted and valued. It will be my boss who must demonstrate that I am valued and important. And if left unchecked within me, the world will need to prove to me my worth and it will always fall short of this as it was not designed to reflect our true reality. The material world is just that, material and we are spiritual in nature, we can never hope for the world to capture our true reality and reflect that to us, so I must not go to the world hoping it will see and value me, rather I must always see and value myself and by doing this I will do the same for others.  

This in no way means we are not actively challenging the world and its systems of oppressions, we do, we just don't expect them to tell us the truth of who we are, because they will always fall short of recognizing the truth our true essence. So I must actively work to address institutionalized oppression when I witness it and work through every available institution to seek justice. Systematic injustice and tyranny must not be tolerated, rather they must addressed and swiftly, through institutions that have the capacity to hold them accountable. If these institutions need to be dismantled and reimagined to better reflect the nobility of the human soul than this is what we, as a society, must do. 

So what I told my daughter in the hammock was this: We are all noble souls, but failing to see the purpose of this life, to transform and develop our souls, keeps us as mere animals. As it is through tests and difficulties that we grow, this world is a form of spiritual gym. Everyone is in this gym but some, it may seem have more gym equipment and seem to be tested with more vigor and intensity and will either develop strong spiritual muscles or be destroyed by their tests. Others, don't see all the equipment, or think its not for them and stay on the sidelines and these friends are truly the ones who lose, because rather then exercising their spiritual muscles, they become atrophied and can easily get ensnared and consumed by the material and selfish aspects of this world.

We cannot continue to demand systemic change and not ask the people who are in these systems to also change - and that means all of us - this is not an either or, it is an and, period. 

Love. An energetic force that binds and tears apart.

In a world that seeks to know, understand, move forward, advance, what space is there for love? Why does it matter? And what is this magnetic force anyway that draws us near and then tears apart, sometimes it seems all at the same time?

I have been reflecting on the power of love in my life and its capacity to at once hold everything together and then tear everything apart. This sounds odd. Let me explain.

It is love, of course, that first draws me near to my loved ones: my husband, my parents, my children, my dearest friends. And this initial draw is a glorious feeling of warmth, excitement, possibility, openness, all the energies of the universe seem within our grasp when love shows up - and in some sense they are!

Once I am in love's hold I become intimately close with those who are in this embrace with me. And this is where the rub begins. This intimacy asks of us to move toward acceptance of what is and have faith that more will come, and that is not something we can do without letting go. So odd that loves asks us to let go, but it does. I need to let go of all of my ideas of how I think these loved ones should behave, respond to the world, how I think they should love me, what I think they should do - love says let go and let me take hold of your heart and bring you faith and trust.

This is where love tears apart, it tears apart any false beliefs I have about who I am, that I am some how need to be okay with how others should show up to the world, how others should respond to certain situations, how others should even love me - especially if I love them. Love also tears apart any veils that keep me from seeing the truth of others - that all my loved ones are human beings in the process of opening up to their own true capacity, like me, and in this process will make big mistakes and move in ways that may be confusing or cause me to question who they are and how they are approaching life. And then love will say, let go, just love them, that is all they need. It is hard to do this, I want to tell them what they should be doing, how they should be doing it, even where they should be doing it and with whom! Goodness! But love is strong and because it is so strong in my life, it reminds me constantly that my only job is to love. Should these loved ones approach me to share their difficulties and ask for guidance or support - than yes! I can offer what ever I have and then again, let go and stay in love.

As I've traveled this journey with love a few times, there are a some nuggets I've learned:

Sometimes, its not as important to stay in love as it is to know how to get back to love! It's the journey to love that matters most, because it builds all the capacities we'll need to stay longer and longer periods of time in love.

When we show up everyday to the moments of our lives, even the difficult ones and perhaps even most importantly those, it is here where we develop all the tools necessary to illuminate the barriers to love. Thus those things that we once thought were obstacles become stepping stones!

 So what does it look like to show up? And what are the obstacles that keep me from loving someone unconditionally? That's it! Identifying what are the conditions I place on others on how they should love me - those are my obstacles.
So if I think my husband should do certain things for me - kiss me when he gets home, tell me he loves me every day, hold me when I'm sad, be romantic, give me gifts and flowers on my birthday - or that my kids should do certain things - hug me when they see me, become doctors or engineers, tell me what is going on in their lives - then when I expect these things and they don't happen, I am placing conditions on how I think my husband and kids should show me they love me!
I'm saying, this is what love looks like so love me this way. Of course, we can do this, but by doing this we might miss the magic of how to love more openly and how to receive love from someone else through their own gifts. It's okay, you say, I want my love the way I like it! That is okay, then what I have learned from love may not be meaningful to you. For those who are interested, read on!

Whenever I see love through my own eyes and begin to expect others to love me this way, these expectations have hidden message and they become obstacles:

• Why doesn't he kiss me when he comes home from work? - message: He isn't happy to see me
• Why doesn't he hold me when I'm sad? - message: He doesn't care
• Why doesn't he give me gifts on my birthday or why doesn't he know what I want on my birthday and give me that? - message: I'm not important
• My kids pull away and don't tell me what is going on in their lives - message: I'm not trusted
• My kids don't know what profession they want - message: I failed

Obviously these can vary, however, hopefully you get the gist - expectations that we hold over others and how they express love can become oppressive and ultimately create false beliefs about our value. Love asks me to flip these obstacles over and find their gifts. One of the ways to do this is to identify the emotion that is tied to the false belief and then look for its opposite, what would happen if you flipped the obstacle over?

• If my loved one isn't happy to see me, is it me? Am I the problem? - Emotion: Fear, flip it over its faith
•  If my loved one doesn't care about me, is it me? What if I'm unlovable? - Emotion: Fear, flip it and unlovable over and it can also become certainty - how can I not be lovable, whoever created me also created the majestic mountains and endless oceans!
• If I don't get expensive gifts from my loved one, does that mean they don't value me? Emotion: Sadness, flip it and of no value over and it's joy and worthiness!
• If my kids don't share with me all of their joys and pains how can I help them? Does that mean I'm untrustworthy? Emotion: Sadness, flip untrustworthy over and it's joy trust!
• If my kids don't know their path in life then I failed and if I failed, will I ever be good enough? Emotion: Fear, flip it and not being good enough over and it's limitless faith and self-assurance.

None of these messages are intended to bring shame. In my own personal healing work and in working with others, I have found these hidden messages to be universal across gender, ethnicities, etc. 

What I have also found is that as I steadfastly walk closer and closer towards love, I am asked to release these false beliefs, about myself and others! And when I can do this, others become incredibly beautiful in all of their glory. I stop deciding how they should love me and keep focusing on how very much I love them and how to continue loving them more!