The Healing Centre

A Psychotherapist's Perspective

"A fresh breeze comes through my open window. I breathe it in and feel its health move through my body. I breathe more deeply and it fills my lungs, lightens my limbs. My spirit turns for a moment to thankfulness, knowing itself to be a part of the universe.

I am a psychotherapist. I meet with people who are troubled, whose minds and emotions leave them no rest. I sit with them and hear their pain as clearly and freshly as I can, sometimes it enters my own body. Then I must breathe deeply and find my own stillness. I want to help them, but I know that I am not the healer. I do not believe that in the end their healing will come from anyone outside themselves. I can only turn them towards their own healing.

I believe that healing comes from within. It is my deep faith, both as a therapist and as a Quaker, that within each of us is a source of life and health, a divine centre, 'that of God.' Through tangled remembrances, bitter fears, self-confusion, this stillness can emerge. We can learn to turn to that source, and return to it again and again. We breathe it in, the freshness engages us. We are more whole.

It is also my conviction that if we turn to this centre deeply enough and stay with it truly enough, we will find an even wider healing. We will find compassion growing, a gentle awareness that others share our same struggles, our imperfections, our yearnings. We will begin to understand that we are all one. The divine centre is love.

But the fullness of health cannot be hurried. Scabbing over a wound too quickly without the slow steady growth of new healthy tissue only leads to festering and breakdown.

Unstillness comes from an ungathered soul. The tight breathing, tense smile, restless hands, vigilant posture give evidence of a poor stressed body trying to hold together impossible contradictions. Too often the knowledge of who we are, what brings us joy, our part in a greater community, eludes us.

The visitor to my office almost always blames the tension on outside forces: a demanding job, a thoughtless boss, too little money, a poor partner, an impossible schedule.

The body breaks down, but the fatigue, stomach trouble, headache, back pain, repeated infection is seen more as a betrayal than as a communication that needs to be listened to. We all yearn to be whole, yet we do not take time to learn what that could mean.

As long as the tension persists, the problems can only tighten. No person controls the universe, or even the smallest part of it, and efforts to do so only bring pain and disharmony. Without the balance of a centred spirit, the mind whirls uselessly around, repeating over and over unhappy events or dreaded outcomes; even relatively minor offenses bring reminiscence of early childhood hurts. Emotions, without the perspective of a wider spirit, bounce erratically and fruitlessly, sometimes to anger, sometimes to fear. Our feelings may be deadened finally into what has come to be called depression. The body falters without care, without leisure, exercise, nutrition in harmony with the spirit.

The therapist searches for ways to bring the person back to centredness. If for a moment, quietness, perspective, can be gained; if, even for a moment, of beauty, one item of nature, the simplicity of a leaf, can be recognized, the seeker may begin to find the way back, the way to healing.

Steps which need to be taken can be envisioned. Clarity may form as to whether the freedom of the soul can be found within the familiar situation, or whether, instead, strength must be summoned to change the situation altogether. The important step is that the person find a way to return to the centre. With encouragement and practice, the way of healing can become familiar.

Couples come to my office. Pain and anger, disappointment and need, expectations of a nurturance missed in childhood, economic and social pressures mix together in tears and frustration. The illusion and hubris of the first intimacies are over and the hard work of mutuality has hardly begun. Old patterns of dominance and subordination once accepted as familiar or surreptitiously subverted, are not now tolerable in an age that is learning equality. Yet we've only begun to learn another way.

Together a quiet breath must be taken and the puzzle slowly sorted out. Each person must be listened to, each person cared for; with patience, each learns to hear both the pain and the tenderness of the other, their yearning. Though selves will still clash and needs still differ, gradually a new comprehension of relationship can be developed, a configuration of 'we' made up, now, of a cared for 'me' and a cared for 'thee'.

This is the lesson of love, the saving spirit of compassion. It will be learned through generosity and warm-heartedness, through an imagination which knows how another's suffering feels to them. In the deepest sense it will be an awareness of that of God in those next to us and in every other person on the earth. We will come to know this more easily as we turn ourselves more and more towards the center.

All of us have the task of acknowledging the diverse needs and wants within ourselves, respecting the purposes they serve, or have served, sifting them through in the light, to let go what we are ready to let go, integrating what we can, and enjoying those unexpected parts which seem true to ourselves and to our care for others and which amaze us with their expression.

The human race is blessed with expression which cannot be contained within rational expectations. Humour, art, theatre, dance, music, simple play, are evidence of this rich diversity. Great humanitarian effort may grow from unmeasurable source. Mystery and beauty are a part of God.

The Bhagavad Gita 12-4 turns us to the healing center:

Krishna:
Who have all the powers of the soul in harmony,
and the same loving mind for all;
who find joy in the good of all beings--
they reach in truth
my very Self."

-Eleanor Foster
"The Healing Centre"

For another perspective click here:
Native American View Page

Kai-Igaku
(Comfortable Medicine)

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Be Still and Know - Jody Holly