by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys
Healing a scraped knee is fairly straight forward. You wash it off, clean out any foreign matter that has gotten into it, then you do things that transform the damaged flesh back into wholeness and health. On the physical level it is generally clear what is part of you and what is not. You remove one; transform and reintegrate the other.
Emotionally and energetically this distinction may be harder, as the intermingling of your energy and someone else’s may be harder to resolve. However, the principle is the same. When something comes up for healing we need to check whose it is, because we must work differently with our energies and those that come originally from someone else.
This is due to the simple truth that we can never heal someone else’s energetic injuries. We can support them while they do so, provide a container, tools or information, moral support or other assistance, but in the end they must do their own work. I have met healers who have learned the hard way the consequences of healing others at the cost of taking things on themselves. I have done this myself.
It seems that this is a natural human tendency, especially in relation to those we love. We take on their pain, hurt, emotions and other energies, but then we are stuck with them. We cannot heal or transform these received energies, because they are not ours. We can on the other hand release them, through Source, or the Earth, so they go home in a neutral form.
If we took something on as children from our parents, it has been in our space most of our lives, and we naturally think if it as ours. But even these things we cannot heal, only release. To do so we may have to let go of beliefs that we are failing or in some way harming that loved one we took it on for/from. The karmic truth is that even though we took something on, they still have to work it themselves, in some form, at some time. So while it is natural to take things on, it is not really effective.
Sometimes the foreign energies are not even in our space, they are in someone close to us, but we try to work those anyway, healing another’s pain rather than ourselves. If you’ve tried this, or had it happen to you, you know it doesn’t really work either, though they might feel better for a while.
On the other hand the stuck things that are ours, including our own emotions around things we’ve taken on from others, we can’t just toss aside when we find them. This would be like tossing your knee away when you scrapped it. Not that we don’t try to do this; to bury things, deny them or throw them away. However on the energetic levels it will always come back home, like Marley’s chain clanking after him. It is a part of our energy, of who we are, so we can’t just lose it. We try to anyway mostly because transforming our own energy is hard work. If it was easy we would have done it long ago.
The idea that you may want your old anger or grief is a little strange at first, remember that this is part of your life force, your energy. While the flavor might not suite you, once it is transmuted you can use it any way you like, as strength, joy, love. In the end it is this alchemical work of transforming and transmuting our own stuck energies that is our human homework. It gives us back our power and selves, integrated and whole. It makes space for you to bring in more of your soul and while challenging and arduous, the rewards are great.
Because of instinctual tendencies we spend our time trying to heal other people’s stuff, which we can’t, while ignoring or denying our own, which is what we can do something about. If there wasn’t so much pain in this, it would be funny. But, like your skinned knee, it’s important to explore any energies that arise in your space and ask for discernment as to what is really yours, which must be transformed and transmuted; and what is not, which can be returned cleanly.
It is in owning our own healing and in supporting each other to do this work for ourselves, that we become true healers. Thank you for doing your work, and may you be blessed with all the courage, discrimination, and grace that you can use.
(© 1/2011)
