The Metaphysics of Healing, Part 2

(This is the second part of the blog series, The Metaphysics of Healing.)

Part 2: What does it mean to heal?

Hundreds of therapy modalities have been developed in an effort to explain what it takes to heal psychologically. Being a metaphysician, I like to explore the truth from many perspectives, and then distil the matter to its essence. Below, then, is my attempt at defining healing. If you prefer to keep things simple, feel free to skip to the end of this post, where I describe my ‘formula for healing’. 

Healing emotional wounds can mean different things, depending on which dimension of the self we approach it from:

• From a somatic (body oriented) perspective, healing emotional wounds means rewiring your nervous system.
• From a psychological perspective, healing means creating reparative experiences in relationships (including your relationship to yourself), as well as transforming any limiting beliefs that you have about yourself, the world, other people, or God.
• From an energetic perspective, healing means developing awareness of how your energy is flowing, developing awareness of energy dynamics between you and others, learning energy management, and learning how to consciously raise your vibration.
• From a spiritual perspective, healing means bringing the fragmented aspects of the self “back home”, back into a sense of oneness with divinity, back into a conscious connection with your soul essence.

While it is helpful to approach healing in a holistic way, going to the source (the spiritual dimension) is the most essential level to focus on in the healing process, because it is the dimension that permeates and encompasses all the other dimensions. To use an analogy, healing is similar to pulling weeds: You can reach temporary, superficial change by cutting the weeds. To have a long-lasting effect, however, it is necessary to pull the weeds from the roots, so they don’t grow back. In practise this means that while it is important to take care of the body and the mind and have energy awareness during your healing process, it is absolutely essential to address any feelings of separation that you (or an aspect of you) experience in relation to your divine core.

​One way to describe this spiritual approach to healing is integration. ‘Integration’ is the natural process when the seemingly separate aspects of the self are gathered together and return to a sense of inner oneness or wholeness. Like the facets of the diamond, the aspects of the self might still maintain their individual placement and their unique way to reflect the light, yet they recognize themselves as one facet of the diamond.

'Integration' is the natural process when the seemingly separate aspects of the self are gathered together and return to a sense of inner oneness or wholeness

​Integration is the key to any long-lasting psychological transformation or healing. It could even be said that integration is the ultimate healing. In practical terms, it means that the divine and the human facets are in awareness, acceptance and allowing of each other.

​Both in the New Age and the psychotherapy field, there is much talk about shadow work, parts work, inner child work, etc. These are different approaches to integration. The concept was first popularized by the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, although similar ideas have existed for millennia in various cultures (for example, Buddhists teach the concept of inviting and accepting your inner demons).

To understand the essence of healing, it is also necessary to mention self-love. 

Self-love is both the cause and the effect of integration

Acceptance, awareness, and trust of self are both the way and the destination of healing. There can be no true, lasting psychological transformation or healing without self-love.

​The definition, or formula that I propose, thus, is:
 
Healing = integration = self-awareness + self-love + self-trust 
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​In the next blog post, I will outline how integration works in practise and what the various methods are.