Intensive Education for Self-Healing

Intensive Education in Self-Healing

A widely agreed upon premise in indigenous healing practice is that the true impetus to healing is difficult to spark in an individual with a long-standing or overwhelming health challenge at the rate at which conventional medical help is offered (Mehl-Madrona, 1997). For example, perhaps one is given the medical diagnosis of breast cancer. The individual sees her oncologist once weekly for 15-30 minutes at a time, receives one or a number of invasive biopsies and perhaps surgery along the way. She may see her primary care provider once per month for routine support. She may seek mental health counseling and perhaps see that professional for 1 hr weekly. However, for most recipients, this diagnosis is a complete social and personal upheaval in their lives. They seek and receive the support they can from family, friends, church and community etc. but they may find that these supports are not enough to congeal and focus them on a journey toward transformative healing.

The term “healing”, in this context, indicates not necessarily the complete eradication of disease, although a possible outcome. “Healing” is used to indicate a move toward a state of coherence, wholeness and greater peace, by empowering the person in a relational sense to their own ‘social and personal resources’ to experience their health.  Experience in both biomedical and indigenous healing seems to call for the creation of an experience that allows for more intense focused work with the hope of this type of healing transformation.

This intensive educational experience in self-healing occurs can occur from two to ten days, depending upon desire availability. An agreement is made as to a common location. Appropriate accommodations are found, allowing for periods of privacy, rest and reflection between active healing sessions. Ideally this occurs in a setting in or close to nature and away from an urban environment to foster the recipient’s sense of being a part of the natural world and its tendency toward health, however this is not required.

While each experience is unique to the person for whom it was designed, a common thread is the shared need on the part of leader and participant(s) to tell, hear and thus jointly create an understanding of the larger story within which the teller is living. Aboriginal elders often say that every person is simply a manifestation of “all the stories that have ever been told about them” (Mehl-Madrona, 1997). These stories come from various sources including our selves, families, teachers, friends, communities, professions and media. The stories are crucial in how we conduct our lives and often lay beneath the surface of our conscious knowing. Thus, during this intensive self-healing course, the hope is that the stories will reveal themselves more completely over the course and deepen the client’s understanding of their illness.

Another common thread among self-healing intensive courses, borrowed from indigenous understandings of healing, is the notion that the stories exist in all dimensions of human experience (Broom, 2007). These “dimensions” can be referred to as “mind”, “body” and “spirit”, although in most indigenous cultural reference, there is no separation. All dimensions exist simultaneously and seamlessly (Mehl-Madrona, 2007) and a healing in one “dimension” translates throughout the entity. It is important to mention this notion in the context of healing intensives, to emphasize that the process is non-directive. In other words there is no extrinsic value placed on the experience of healing in one dimension vs. another. Instead, the emphasis is on accessing and attending to the client’s innate and universal healing intelligence, allowing that intelligence to guide the process on whatever level it desires, thus effecting healing on all levels. In essence, all of the tools referred to below are employed within the framework of the universal intelligence, with the practitioner simply a conduit.

Most often initially, the leader begins through dialogue to explore the life story which the participant is living. Examples of questions include why they have come, what are the events that have occurred in their life leading up to the current problem, what sort of help they have received so far, what sort of help they hope to receive. It is the most comfortable jumping off point for understanding the role of the mind in the client’s illness, providing “facts” in the client’s current conscious belief system. The format is informal and relies upon both the client and the leader’s attention to the emerging story, trusting that whatever information is revealed is pertinent to the client’s healing journey.

Another tool often utilized is that of body and energy work that in indigenous healing is referred to as “doctoring”. This can take many forms dependent upon the needs of the student and the particular gifts of the leader. The importance of engaging with the student on the physical level, with hands-on touch, cannot be overemphasized as this is often a gateway of entry to unconscious experience/memory/information that is vital in restorying the experience of illness. Some of the doctoring employs more subtle movements of energy that do not require physical touch, or use healing instruments such as crystals, stones or feathers. They all contribute the sensory experience of the client and, when indicated, enhance the healing experience.

Storytelling and guided imagery are also used. These tools are utilized in several different ways, first as simple relaxation techniques, encouraging the student’s shift from left-brain linear thinking toward more relational, imaginal right-brain activity. This fosters the quieting of the student’s sympathetic nervous and immune system – the classic “fight or flight” response, and allows the parasympathetic nervous/immune system to engage in rest and rebuilding. Storytelling can be used by the teacher/leader after having heard some of the students’s own story and employing the tool of metaphor. Perhaps there is a similar story to the student’s with a different twist in the plot or different ending that may be desirable to the client. In their relaxed state of listening, their inner healing intelligence is able to incorporate the potential for new possibilities (Mehl-Madrona, 1997). Similarly guided imagery provides open-ended sensory suggestion prompting the student toward access to the often quiet internal healing messages that he or she may not be able to access without this guidance. In guided imagery the teacher/leader team can visual inner healing worlds, visit healing places or ancestors, and create healing images pertinent to the student’s own experience.

Ceremony is another healing tool taught during these self-healing intensive courses and is borrowed from indigenous tradition, accessing the spiritual aspect of the student. Ceremony grows out of listening. Generally the early activities of the class are used to build upon and generate ideas for a healing ceremony. The ceremony is planned with the participation of both teacher and student and the student’s active participation is key. The element of the belief in the efficacy of the ceremony is important and is fostered during the trust building in the healing relationship. From an indigenous standpoint it’s not enough to just think about healing. Ceremony creates the magic that allows healing to happen (Mehl-Madrona, 1997). “Ceremonial treatment methods are the most powerful I have encountered…I have had the experience of working for weeks with a patient to change a situation, or improve a physical symptom, almost without results. Then we would do a ritual together, and an immutable problem would transform literally overnight.”(Mehl-Madrona, 1997).

Besides Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, co-teachers and leaders have included:

Dr. Robert Crocker

Dr. Margaret Williams

Dr. Anne-Marie Chaisson

Ms. Kitty Ketner

and a number of traditional healing elders depending upon location.