The way of the healer
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Have you struggled with a difficult conversation to find out that behind it is just a lot of unresolved emotional issues?
This week, I write about a conversation I had with a friend of mine around that topic, which prompted me to reflect on a phrase I have read about before but never contemplated much on: "The way of the Healer".
I never think of myself as having anything to do with healing work. While I know healing is an important part of adulting since no child grows up undamaged, I still feel plenty of inner resistance. If you know me, you know that for the most part, I have always been a geek, infovore, interested in human development, technology and innovation etc.. In many ways, any healing occurred for me or people I work with has been more accidental than intentional.
I hope this essay can shed some light with you through my experience of stepping into that role of the healer. Few of us will become a doctor, nurse or therapist, but we can all practice noticing what has heart and meaning in the moment. We will have a lot to give and receive.
The Dance of Inner Growth
The heart is there, seeing us always — PC Wisdom Heart
Recently I had a heartfelt conversation with a newly elected leader of a young organization who was struggling with its growing pain.
After some sharing about the general situation, it became very clear that a key relationship was bothering her: between her as a responsible new CEO and the original founder who hadn’t fully let go of the day to day operation yet. This has created a lot of tension inside her and also in the team. She really wants to improve this relationship so that she can fully step into her role and contribute effectively.
At one point, she leaned in closer and shared in a quiet and frustrated voice: “I don’t feel as comfortable talking with him. I don’t think if it will help at all. He will probably stay the same. But I know I do need to have that conversation.” Even just thinking of it drains her every time.
It is often the case that most people are really smart and know what the strategic right thing to do already. The real dilemma for smart, competent, growth-oriented people like us is rather the knowing-doing gap.
The stuckness is emotional more than it is technical. What is missing is the awareness of the hidden blockage inside, which has to be let go in order to have that conversation.
Oftentimes only when people are frustrated enough about their own knowing-doing gap that they start to pay more attention internally, i.e the hidden motivation. If brute force willpower approach still works (plus it gets you approval from others as society tends to value leaders who are strong-willed), why bother trying something else?
This is where inner work comes in handy.
Healing begins with the honoring of the pain.
I remember a moment when I looked at her and felt little stirring in my heart. It was the warmth of connecting, seeing and honoring someone’s struggle.
In front of me was a bright talented person who genuinely struggled with the work she deeply cares about. What touched me was the wholeheartedness that she brought to her work. If anything, she needs first to be celebrated, not fixed.
I shared: “Regardless of the pain, there is something foundational about this relationship that is worth celebrating. I can see how much you care, because you can only be hurt by what or whom you care about.”
That moment reminds me of David Whyte’s saying about vulnerability: “It simply is the place where you’re open to the world whether you want to be or not. You know that’s what you care about, whether you were made to or learn to care that way.”
I wondered aloud with her: “Isn’t it curious that we always have some people whom at the mere thought of them can drain us? It’s like having very hole in your heart at a very specific spot. Whenever your attention goes anywhere near there, your energy leaks. You feel drained and weak.”
I asked how she has been dealing with this hole. It was great that she had been trying to rest more, go trekking and just give herself some times.
One of the most courageous acts by a modern ambitious person is to make space for what seems so unproductive at first like healing. Yet it’s essential, for without it we will get stuck in the same reactive patterns — in her case withdrawal — instead of developing new, more wholesome responses. By setting aside the time for it, we are in effect affirming ourselves “I’m choosing this work of setting myself free”. That itself is powerful commitment that begins the process.
The next step which she will have to take from that inner place of spaciousness is to begin attending to the wound itself.
The bio-psychology of healing
It surprises me that the language we often use to talk about psychological healing such as “wound” is very much borrowed from biology. The process is rather similar, for humans too are first and foremost biological.
When we have a physical wound like a cut on your skin, the healing begins with the body allocating white blood cells to go to the site of inflammation to contain the hurt. Then some clotting begins to happen from the edges at the wound. Like magical stitches, it then pulls those edges together to close the gap and disappear, often leaving behind a pale scar. The wound stops hurting.
Our physical wound begins healing from the edge. So is our psychological one. PC
Similarly, the healing of an emotional wound happens when our psyche begins noticing where it hurts. Then we gather attentional resources to “make space” for the healing work. Our attention is equivalent of that psychological clotting, which gently begins only at the edges of the wound. Here we don’t go straight to imagining the most hurtful moments even though they might be screaming at us. Rather, we are merely touching at the thought of such hurt.
It’s important during this process to remember the breaths.
An in-breath slightly sharpens the sensation of the pain, the equivalent of the clotting that pulls the edges together. An out-breath releases it temporarily so that the clotting doesn’t break. Every breath is a gentle but unflinching look into our pain and then release it.
I experienced this process most clearly the last time I was at a meditation retreat. Every time I think someone I had a troubled relationship with, my chest felt as if it was being pierced by sharp needles. It was so painful that I had to stop and could only come back to it once in a while. I don’t know how many breaths it took, but I know it helped. Each breath stitches, piece by piece, the gaping void that burnt in my chest.
I suggested her to spend just ten minutes of her day to focus on that healing work, both writing and breathing.
Healing and becoming whole
Despite our modern day’s obsession with everything to be fast, healing is one of those human processes that take place in the slow and medium tempo of nature as the late wise Angeles Ariene mentions in this talk.
I find it helpful to find different ways to talk about this process. Healing takes time because it is not simply a mechanical fix that stops the hole from leaking. Most of us build walls around ourselves after being hurt to prevent any future pain, but in doing so we also numb ourselves to the joy of life. Yet we cannot only yield, for then we risk being a doormat that got stepped on again and again.
Indeed, it is more helpful to realize that this process is more like the tender growing of an inner membrane around our heart that can both firmly stand up and flexibly yield. Such membrane knows what not to leak out like our vital nutrients and core truths as well as what can be let in such as light and love.
It’s also worth remembering that holes are not only meant to be fixed. They are also for meant for peeking through. In a way, our attention is not only the clotting that stitches the edges of the wound. They are also the light beams that go through and see what is behind it.
If healing is about stopping the pain from hurting, then becoming whole is about letting the pain teach us about who we truly are as human. They often happen together.
Nearer to the end of our conversation, my friend said in a softened voice: “You know, through this whole tricky journey, I realized how much I am loved and cared by people around me. I forgot those only until I had to ask for help.”
It warmed my heart to hear that. There is a certain mellowing of our personhood that comes with experiences. For better or worse, it often happens with life beating us up somehow. Yet it matters more how we neither resist nor run away but move through them and into them, metaphorically and sometimes literally with our breaths.
Each time we try to do that, regardless of the result, we develop this capacity for spontaneous self-recreation. It is one thing to bounce back after adversity to be back on track. It is another thing altogether to bounce around unexpectedly and become something so different that we can only trust but never know for sure to be wonderous in its unique way. While both are important, it’s the latter approach which I called “beyond ambition” that is more and more appealing to me.
Reflection: on the way of the Healer
Sometimes it amazes me the thing that could come out of us when we care. As I try to make sense of this recent shifts in my life, I have found much help from the work of the late wise Angeles Arrien.
The first is about being interested in our own story.
“It is how we pay attention to our life story that allows us to experience the human resource of love, the most powerful healing force on Mother Earth.”
What kind of attention do we give to the unfolding of our own life story? There is a subtle difference between narcissistic self-absorption and genuine attempt to make sense of one’s existence. The former nervously seeks conclusion in the form of a final, unchanging ideal “This is Me” while the latter impels even more fresh, enlivening curious possibilities “These are possibly Me too”. They usually go together, and it’s good to know which is which.
The second is about stepping into healer’s role.
I never think of myself as having anything to do with healing work. While I know healing is an important part of adulting since no child grows up undamaged, I still feel plenty of inner resistance. For the most part I have always been a geek, infovore, interested in technology and innovation etc.. In many ways, any healing occurred for me or people I work with has been more accidental than intentional.
Yet it could indeed be more intentional. What it takes is to first become aware of my own patterns of attention. Angeles Ariene continues:
“It is the healer’s way to pay attention to what has heart and meaning, to open oneself to the possibility of removing the blocks and obstacles to receiving love and giving love.”
“Effective healers from any culture are those who extend the arms of love, gratitude, acceptance, recognition, validation and acknowledgment.”
As a healthy skeptic of the cheesy phrase “follow your heart”, I am learning that the heart indeed provides a very different way of knowing that is not more nor less valuable than others. The rational mind is wonderful at categorizing the already known, and it will complement well with the heart that can extend its non-rational sensitivity into the unknown.
Indeed, now I see healing less as a daunting formal role but as a different way of being. Few of us will become a doctor, nurse or therapist, but we can all practice noticing what has heart and meaning in the moment. We will have a lot to give and receive.
Like my friend said, it is true that when we are open up, we suddenly see how much love and support there is around. The bad news is that our conversation also reminds me of how fearful I still am of facing how much I love and am loved.
The good news? At least I know what to continue working on. Rumi calls it The Task:
“Your task is not to find love
but merely to seek and find the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
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Quotes I'm contemplating this week
But your heart muscle goes on working for as long as you live. It does not get tired, because there is a phase of rest built into every single heartbeat. Our physical heart works leisurely. And when we speak of the heart in a wider sense, the idea that life-giving leisure lies at the very center is implied. Never to lose sight of that central place of leisure in our life would keep us youthful. Seen in this light, leisure is not a privilege but a virtue. Leisure is not the privilege of a few who can afford to take time,but the virtue of all who are willing to give time to what takes time—to give as much time as a task rightly takes.
Along the theme of this week's post about how healing takes time as it follows the slow tempo of nature, I found Brother David Stendl-Rast brilliant reframing of the leisure as virtue and wisdom not as privilege to be so refreshing.
Reading & Listening
(Read) Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey has been such a wonderful read for both philosophical and practical approach to productivity for anyone who has to create anything. Here is a quote from the last chapter on Finishing.
"Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. We often believe that after we complete a significant project or journey, our life will be fundamentally different, but we often find that our life pretty much looks the same. If we place too much attachment on the world being different and better, it inevitably leads to frustration and suffering. But there’s also another insight embedded in the aphorism: after we accomplish something significant, we need to return to doing what we did to get there." - Charlie Gilkey.
What a beautiful re-interpretation of the well known Buddhist aphorism. This is our life: the mundane of chop work and carry water. Return to it even if we have reached certain success or enlightenment. It can seem like a sisyphean ordeal or it can be a noble truth that we fully belong to this world and nowhere else. I am choosing the latter.
(Listen) The Polyamory Professors by Rebel Wisdom: an amazing conversation between two thoughtful, socially aware polyamorists who are situating this new relationship trend on the political landscape. Highly thought provoking for both those only hear of the topics and those dabblers like me.
Some notes: "polyamory has only been around since 1990 . . sorry, the relationship anarchy thing doesn’t work . . if the left owns polyamory . . the aspects of American polyamory culture are dominated by the far left ideologies and gender constructivist views that are absolutely handicapping to real relationships . . a distance from polyculture . . we don’t like polyamory being used as a way to virtue signal leftist ideals . . evolutionary psychology . . very well intentioned yet dysfunctional experimental subculture . . there is a small percentage of people who are actually doing poly . . love is infinite = bullshit . . hypergamy . . high status . .. . epistemic humility . . hyperrationality . . people in unique sexual subcultures tend to be happier . . jealousy can be desensitized . . life is stochastic . . polyamory works if you’re smart, emotionally intelligent . ."
Lastly..
a poem for us all as we go into the week.
The More Loving One - W.H. Auden
[...]
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
[...]
p/s: Do reach out for the Inner Critic Assessment or general conversations about life. I'd love to be helpful.