What Even Is Healing?

I’ve talked a lot about healing and the ways that we can heal, but I’ve never told you what healing is. The truth is, I’m still figuring out what healing is. Healing is a completely natural process. Google will tell you that healing, as a noun, is the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again. 

Healing is about a lot more than going from physically unhealthy to physically healthy, though. Healing is also more than symptom removal, but sometimes our path of healing still leaves us with symptoms. I’ve turned to blogs and “healers” via the web in an attempt to get some answers about what healing is.

A widespread consensus seems to be that healing is an ongoing process and transformation. One blogger, Lauren, even went as far as saying that “healing is not a destination.”

If healing isn’t a destination and it a continuous process and transformation, what is being healed?

The dance of true healing, states Lauren, means negotiating self-compassion and self-endurance. Healing means gathering up the conviction to face uncertainty. She continues on by saying that healing is a journey that unconditional love nurtures, and you face the accusatory chatter inside your mind with compassion.

These are goals that we can work towards, and now we have one person’s idea of what healing is. One person's idea, however, is not the only material available.

When it comes to healing blogs, I’m sure you’ve noticed that comments can be just as beneficial, if not more so, than the blog post. Knowing this, I took to the comment section of the blog.

One lady named Lauren G said that being grateful for all the healing she has achieved makes a huge difference. She said that she used to focus on what still needs improvement, but it ruined her happiness and peace. With that in mind, try to applaud yourself for the little victories. After all, healing is a journey, not a destination.

Another lady who commented on the blog named Lisa went as far as printing out Lauren’s blog and putting it in her daily binder so she can always read it to remind herself that she is allowed time and permission to rest, to heal, and to treat herself kindly. Not everyone needs a binder to help them heal, but Lisa, who underwent a routine shoulder surgery to be left bald in a long recovery with drastic weight loss, finds the binder helpful.

Lauren didn’t comment back on many of the comments, but she commented back to Lisa. In that comment, Lauren said something that I think is pivotal when you are on a journey of healing: your healing journey is leading you to your incredible inner strength.

That is profound in such a simple way. We all like to think that we have the strength to continue on with no problems, but the truth is, at least for me, inner strength seems to falter fairly often. The journey of healing can perhaps let us nurture our inner strength and provide us with the material we need to believe in our inner strength.

If you aren’t feeling like Lauren gets it, perhaps you will like the idea that there is a oneness of body, mind, and spirit. There is also an idea that you must take responsibility for all that you have been, all that you are, and all that you will be. Take responsibility for your life.

Taking responsibility for your life can perhaps tie into what Lauren was saying about how you face the voices inside your head.

Healing is a tricky thing. Remember to celebrate the small victories since the small victories may make all the difference. I’ve put the link to Lauren’s blog below in case you wanted to read it for yourself. It’s a short little blurb, but you might find it helpful. 

https://empoweredsustenance.com/what-is-healing/

Sigil Magic

“Working magic is about getting to know what makes you tick and turning your life into an adventure with limitless possibilities” – MookyChick Hivemind

You read that right. We are talking about using magic for health. I’m not talking about street magic, and I’m not talking about magic with playing cards. I’m talking about sigil magic.

Don’t dismiss magic right away. If you are struggling to believe in magic, try thinking about it as an unexplained science. Believing in magic is as simple as believing that there are forces in the world that can be manipulated and used, but not everyone is aware of them. We often don’t understand these forces, but when we work magic, we are trying to understand these forces and channel them into our lives.

Now we need to talk about sigils.  A sigil is a symbol with mystical significance. Using sigils tricks our minds into creating a specific effect in our lives by shaping a design that our intent is not recognizable in. “Sigils are,” according to mystical artist Austin Osman Spare “a means of symbolizing desire and giving it a form that prevents thought on that particular desire… and allows it free passage to the sub-conscious." This is why our sigils are not recognizable as our intent.

To understand this idea, think of the placebo effect. If you are in a medical trial for a new drug, there will be a group that receives the actual drug and a group that receives a placebo pill, a pill that has no medicine in it. Occasionally, members of the group that received the placebo pill will report that they experienced benefits from the drug. The thing is, though, that they didn’t receive a drug. They noticed benefits because they believed that they would, not always consciously but subconsciously. The mind is a magical thing, which is why sigils are used to tap into that magic.  Now that we know what magic is and what a magical sigil is, let’s learn how to make a sigil.

Create a Statement of Intent

This is the most important step. Without a statement of intent, a sigil won’t be able to be created. Once you create your statement of intent, you cross out all the repeating letters in the sentence. By doing this, your conscious desire is now unrecognizable.

Make sure you only express your intent in a positive voice. Our subconscious only understands things in the positive, so if you say “I will not fail this test,” our subconscious minds will hear “I will fail this test.” It’s a little annoying, but just make sure your intent is in a positive voice.

Turn Your Statement of Intent into a Magical Sigil

Now that we have our statement of intent, we can make a sigil. You need a writing utensil and a piece of paper. You want to make a rough outline linking all the letters used in your intent to make a sigil. Feel free to combine some letters. After all, letters tend to contain other letters within them.

Once you do this, you can fancy it up and embellish it. Remember that no one can tell you that your sigil is wrong. Your sigil is you, and the only person it needs to please is you. Although, it might be advisable to have a sigil that is easily recognizable because you will visualize it later.

Charging the Sigil

Charging your sigil simply means that we infuse our sigils with our energy. There are a couple ways to do this. 

Meditation

Masturbation

Wild Dancing

You might think that the only good way to charge your sigil is through meditation, but if your personality lends itself more to masturbation or wild dancing, that is what you should do. As long as you are visualizing your sigil, it doesn't matter what you do to charge it. Your sigil is you. Never forget that.

Ground Yourself

After you charge your sigil, you can destroy the sigil, but you don’t have to. No matter what, though, make sure you do something completely different. You don’t care about the sigil anymore, at least not consciously.

Forget About It

The last step is to completely separate yourself from the magical ritual you performed. Don’t talk about it. Don’t meditate on it. Don’t do any other magic. This is extremely important the first time you make a sigil because finding out what works for you can’t be discovered if you are talking about it to everyone. Get on with your life. It may seem counter-productive, but you have given the universe a task, and you have to allow the universe to do its job. 

https://www.mookychick.co.uk/health/spirituality/magical_sigils.php

Coming Into My Soul With Yoga

Last week, I talked about the power of gemstones, stones, and crystals. This week, I will be talking about my experience with yoga, particularly one class of yoga.

Finding a good place to practice yoga is extremely important as yoga is supposed to not only strengthen your body but also strengthen and bring peace to your soul. If you feel uncomfortable or judged in any way when you are practicing yoga, then yoga will most likely not have all the benefits that it should.

I started practicing yoga when I was an athlete because my coaches wanted me and my teammates to be flexible. I hated yoga then. The classes were exactly the same thing every time and meditation/relaxation at the end didn’t speak to my soul. We laid on the ground and existed for the last five minutes of class. This teacher and this place was not the kind of place that you should practice yoga in if you are looking for the healing properties of yoga.

Last December, however, I went to a “house of yoga.” Generally, houses of yoga are a little more focused on mind and body than places like YMCAs. Houses of yoga normally have paying customers that come only for yoga, and their instructors are true yogis (yoga lovers). I went because my friend was going, and she wanted us to experience the place where she realized she needed to start eating again.

When I started practicing yoga, the vocabulary I used to speak about myself was made up primarily of negative words. They were words that helped me destroy myself and keep myself destroyed. Yoga helped me change that, and it wasn’t yoga that you can get anywhere.

My instructor’s name was Jessie. She was extremely strong, and the class was extremely fast-paced. I had to take breaks, which at first, I felt guilty about. Then I realized no one was judging me. In fact, nobody really noticed I was just sitting on my mat. I sweated my butt off in that class. I put everything I have into that class, and because of that, I finally felt yoga was beneficial. Fast-paced yoga isn’t the only beneficial yoga, though, and that is important to remember when you are trying to find a place to practice.

Yoga always ends with relaxation. Almost a year has gone by from the first time I laid on the floor listening to Jessie’s voice, but I can remember it like it happened last week. All that I was in that moment was tuned into Jessie’s voice. Her message that day was that there is a voice inside of our heads that tells us that we can’t do something, that we are not strong enough or worthy enough for something. Everybody has this voice. At first, I was wary of where she was going with this. She then brought the negative things we were talking about and relating them to our soul. This negative voice inside of my head is the voice that stifles my soul. This negative voice is not the voice of my soul; my soul is not that negative towards itself. Jessie talked about standing up for ourselves and not getting walked all over because being docile when we are getting used means that we stifle out soul. We should listen to our souls’ creativity, and let it show. We should be unapologetic about our souls. I cried. I laid on that mat in a 95-degree room sweating my butt off and cried.

I cried because I realized that I was hurting my own soul. Her class was a revelation to me. I took her class to heart that December, and I still think about it from time to time when I start self-deprecating.

So, if you are like me and you self-deprecate, maybe try to find a house of yoga. This house of yoga changed my thinking about myself. I practice only when I am home from college and in my hometown, but every time I get on a mat in that room, I feel myself coming back into my soul a little bit more.

Yoga might not be for you, but in the fight against mental illness, anything is worth a shot.