Back in the 1980’s, I never understood how I could possibly be paving the way for self-healing in others as I began transforming my own wounds and self-esteem issues. “How could what I was doing to heal my life, possibly benefit others? I wondered.”

Healing mentor guides my first steps to paving the way for self-healing

While working with my healing mentor, we basically addressed energetically whatever was coming up in my life. We explored my anger issues, my grief, my allergies, etc., to name a few. Each time we had a session, my practitioner would begin by sending Divine light into my body. The Divine light would literally illuminate my current issues and what was behind them. As a result, some understanding or realization about my life would be revealed. Seeing how my issues connected to the underlying history behind them also allowed me to understand the emotions that were connected. This in turn helped me recognize the mental states that needed to be transformed and released.

We all need to learn how to find answers within

As I write this, I see that it implies that I was able to do this work, in this way, from the very first session that I had with my healing mentor.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Gratefully, my practitioner listened to her intuition and guided me accordingly down the path of self-healing. I recall at the beginning, that she would ask me if I could sense what this pain or issue I was experiencing was related to in my history. In most cases, my answer was, “I have no idea and I don’t know how to get that information.” Which was true for me, at that moment.

What my practitioner was brilliantly able to do, was to educate me to the reality that all answers are inside of us. Let me repeat that, all answers are inside of us. This is a Universal truth, which means, it’s literally true.

In the early days of my self-healing, I needed to learn how to access my own answers inside of me. When my practitioner would feel an emotion or see a vision connected to my issues, she would ask me what I felt. I knew she already knew the answer and I felt frustrated that she wouldn’t just tell me. The reality was, she was mentoring me on how to listen within and how to get my own answers. As she empowered me on this path, I began paving the way for self-healing.

Asking questions brings the answers, paving the way for self-healing

Typically, I would answer her with, “I have no idea what this pain was connected to or how old it was.” She would patiently smile and suggest, “Try breathing into it and listen.” She would also nudge me, suggesting I get out of my head, breathe into the area, and ask, “What is this about?” “How old was I when this started?” “What event or trauma from my childhood is this connected to?”

Unbeknownst to me, I was stepping onto a well-trodden path that I didn’t know existed. This happens to be the most rewarding path I have ever stepped on. The paths of self-discovery, self-healing, self-awareness, and self-realization are paved with gold. These golden nuggets are within us, waiting to be revealed and healed. Finding these treasures becomes your own personal scavenger hunt. It always felt incredibly rewarding and satisfying after I healed another layer of my pile. After a session, I’d feel more hopeful, more peaceful, more willing to keep moving forward in my life.

“It is a process, to learn how to quiet yourself,

to ask for Divine help,

ask for insight about your issues and your history

and then to trust the answers that come.”

Until I gained perceivable confidence in these abilities, I resisted believing that my answers were inside of me. It is a process, to learn how to quiet yourself, to ask for Divine help and insight about your issues and history and then to trust the answers that come. The key is getting used to listening to your gut and how it feels when truth lands into your awareness.

There are a few things that made this easier over time. First, realizing that a true, unexpected memory always felt a certain way in my body, helped me to trust the process. Also, recognizing my initial ‘guesses’ of how old I was when a past event happened were actually accurate. Initially, I would guess at an age due to my lack of confidence in my inner knowing, even though I ‘heard’ or ‘knew’ the age internally. I started picking up clues from my body, which confirmed to me with peace, relaxation and calmness that this truth was indeed true.

New realizations typically helped me make sense out of some of my other mysteries. And each realization was paving the way for self-healing and for more realizations to come.

Strengthen your intuitive muscles by using them

I was repeatedly given the opportunity to quiet myself in the middle of a healing session and listen. I might receive a knowing, or see visions, or hear what needed to be heard. The more I exercised this muscle of intuition, the stronger it got. Before long, I was able to sense most of the answers I desired to find.

Connect the dots; acknowledge, heal and transform

Discovering who else was involved may begin to elicit details surrounding the event. In the healing session, we are literally priming the pump to gather details and to connect them. I’ve learned to trust that whatever is needed to be understood, will be revealed. This is very different from reliving a traumatic event. It’s dipping into the past, gathering the emotions and mental states that resulted so that they can be acknowledged, healed, and transformed. Paving the way for your self-healing.

Hidden gems revealed bring resolution

When unexpected pieces of information float up to the surface, I know in my gut they are true. My body relaxes in the presence of truth and there are feelings of peace and calm. This technique of gentle asking has given me deeper access to childhood events and memories. It was particularly useful in helping me understand my childhood experience of witnessing my father cut his hand with a power saw. Remembering how angry he got at himself was as traumatizing as seeing him bleeding. This memory helped me heal the need to berate myself whenever I hurt myself. This was a major step in paving the way for self-healing on my self-love journey.

Modern issues have past connections waiting to be healed

Discovering the unexpected memory about falling down the basement stairs with a box of kittens brought a lot of healing to my family. Up until that point, I had been disappointed, as a young mother, in how uncaring I felt each time my children fell on the stairs. Aware that this was an unhealthy response, I felt powerless to change it. In the context of a healing session, I asked, “What childhood event caused me to lose compassion with my children when they fell on the stairs?” I immediately saw a vision, almost like a video of the event, of me falling down the stairs with a box of kittens, landing onto the basement floor. The next image was of my mother yelling at me for trying to bring the kittens up the stairs.

Once I examined that event, I realized a couple of things. 1) At that point in my mother’s life, she was pregnant with her sixth child, had a high needs baby and must have been pretty stressed out. 2) my mother was unable to offer any words of compassion to me in that moment.

Having compassion and forgiveness for your past paves the way for self-healing in your present

As an adult, I totally understand how stressed my mother must have been. However, it doesn’t negate the impact for five-year-old me of falling down the stairs– my fears, and my physical injuries. Clearly, the five-year-old me made a mistake, but needed compassion and understanding and concern for my well-being. Unfortunately, this event cemented a very negative pattern into my life until I chose to explore it and heal it. Fortunately, for myself and my children, I did choose to explore and heal it. As the memory came up, my tailbone hurt like the dickens, which helped me realize that I had probably cracked it on the fall down the stairs. After bringing healing to that childhood trauma, my tailbone calmed down, my issues with my children falling on stairs shifted dramatically. And, if memory serves, I think my children didn’t fall on the stairs much after that. Thank goodness.

The student surpasses the master

A goal of every mentor, teacher, guru, is the wish that their students learn as much as they can from the mentor and then to surpass their abilities and knowledge. The mentor gives or supplies the foundational information that they have embodied which the student absorbs and then adds to of their own accord. Eventually, this student becomes a mentor to others with the additional knowledge that she adds to the foundation she had learned. It’s a continually evolving process. We are always learning and growing and expanding. I am grateful to every mentor in my life.

Positive results motivate continued commitment to paving the way for self-healing

After every self-healing session, I would feel uplifted, and the feeling lasted  anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. The next issue would enter my awareness soon after and require my focus to heal and transform it. It seemed like once I stepped onto the path of self-healing and self-realization, that it took on a life of its own. Once I got the self-healing ball rolling, it didn’t want to stop. I noticed the benefits in my life immediately and I knew I was on the right path. I was very motivated to continue my self-healing work.

Embracing the continuous nature of self-healing work

I came to understand that there are layers to everything. We are literally paving the way in our own self-healing by addressing each layer of an issue as it arises. When we bump into an issue that we thought we had healed before, we need to realize we have just accessed a deeper layer that’s ready to be healed. And that’s very good news. Some people get frustrated that they haven’t healed all their issues yet. For myself, being the ‘poster child of self-healing,’ I have traveled from one extreme to the other: from the land of imbalance into the land of balance. I must reiterate, that if I can do this continuous work of self-transformation, anyone can.

People began exploring how to heal themselves in the 1980’s

In the 1980’s, there weren’t a lot of self-healing books available yet. As a result, we needed to pave our own way through our self-healing. To build a road, where a road hasn’t been before, takes incredible effort. It must be dug out from the landscape. In essence, a new way must be carved. Creating the most efficient path through the landscape, will bring ease to future travelers along that path. Once the path has been laid, others will be drawn to walk upon it. We are all paving the way for each other’s self-healing.

Now, in the 2020’s there are zillions of books and links on paving your way for self-healing in life. Google the italicized statement in the previous sentence to find that flow. For instance, the McGurk family has made a lasting difference in the lives of thousands of veterans, helping them to pave their way for self-healing; PAVING THE PATH TO HEALING: WHY COUNTLESS VETERANS KNOW THE NAME MCGURK

Steps for paving the way for self-healing

Similarly, by describing the steps I’ve taken on my own self-healing journey, I hope to help others to find their own way. While we must determine our own healing path through our history, the foundation for this work is basically the same.

1. notice an issue in our life
2. desire to bring healing to that issue
3. shine light onto the issue to illuminate it
4. ask for divine help to guide the process
5. connect your intuition with the divine help
6. trust the insights, visions, knowings, feelings that arise during the process
7. call in even more light to transform the emotions, mental states and beliefs that resulted from the past event.
8. breathe light into the emotion and breathe it out
9. breathe light into the mental state and breathe it out
10. breathe light into the belief and breathe it out

Before we know it, we have transformed our connection to that past event and released it. It no longer weighs heavily onto our present moment.

We free our present moment by acknowledging, transforming, and healing the past.

We lighten our load.

We enlighten ourselves.

What I didn’t realize years ago, is that I was literally paving the way for self-healing for others. Perhaps your self-healing journey will be a little easier after reading this. Perhaps you will pick up where I left off.

My embarking onto this path of self-healing is the gift that keeps on giving in my life and I wish the same for you.

How is your self-healing journey going? Are you using similar techniques in accessing your answers within? I’d love to hear in the comments below.