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Horizons Magazine

More about Andrea

JULY 2000
Walking the talk, group work, change your thoughts to change your experience

Hello and welcome to the July 2000 issue of Horizons Magazine. I am delighted
 to include in this issue a Personal Perspective As A Healer from Barbara Ann
Brennan, author of Hands of Light and Light Emerging. As an educator, this topic
is close to my heart. Since I am involved in a number of local discussion groups,
as well as meditation, prayer and healing groups, I get to spend time with many
of the people who are involved in facilitating the teaching and healing of our local
community. Recently, I've heard from so many of you on a particular topic, that I want to address it here.

As in any area of life, there are those that talk and those that walk, and those that do both, and the arena of healing and teaching is no different. A lot of ego based promotion and commercialization of basic personal growth techniques can give quite a carnival type atmosphere to those who are first daring to venture into the world of alternative healing and learning about nonphysical energy. To get past this and onto the "serious work" merely takes a little patience, serious intention and discernment. Just as any other area of life. Barbara writes: All healers and teachers must walk their talk. It takes a lot of self-development and self-transformation and a lot of training in the healing arts to be an effective healer. Humility and meticulous honesty with self are of utmost importance. The hard part about healing training is not the techniques but the personal growth one must go through to become ready to learn the techniques. She goes on to say, When I first began healing, I accomplished less in a one-and-a-half-hour healing than I can now accomplish in a few minutes, because I can now enter into much deeper and more powerful spiritual states of being that transmit thousands of times more noninvasive healing energy.

As I sit to write this, I've just returned from a particularly enjoyable meditation class. There are a few meditation classes and prayer groups I meet with each week, as well as two weekly discussion groups and it's interesting how the groups differ. In one class, we are taken on a guided visualization designed to relax the body and allow the mind to slow down, and very soft music is played in the background. I enjoy this class most after a long day of left brain (logical, analytical or mathematical) thinking. In another meditation class, we focus on our breath and sit in silence for an hour, merely keeping our attention at the center of our forehead, the third eye center. When thoughts come, and they will, you simply take your attention off the thought and put it back on your breathing, and focus again on the center of your forehead. At first it seems every other second is spent releasing a thought, but after a few weeks practice you'll notice progress and benefit by it.

In one prayer group, we begin by pulling out a list of anyone we're going to pray for, and read aloud the names and describe their ailment. A healing prayer is said next, then we say the Lord's Prayer together, then sit and pray silently to ourselves for 45 minutes. In all the groups we sit in a circle. My favorite class is often quite small and 6-10 of us meet and have a few minutes of social interaction before sitting in the circle and briefly reviewing the last week's events. Without formality, we then sit in silence for an hour, each of us in our own way doing whatever prayers or healing work we are guided to engage in. Then for another half hour, we hold hands, touch feet, or otherwise connect physically with the ones next to us, and sit in silence with the idea of our combined intent to be of service to others through expanded thought, harmonious attitude and bioenergy radiation. Afterward, we may share insights with each other, but mostly we sit and smile and hug silently and bask in the glow we all inevitably feel for days afterward. We don't know what actually goes on while we're doing it, but we know that we come away feeling energized, nurtured and at peace, and it is from that calm center that we go forth into our individual spheres of influence.

In another group, the facilitator always begins by talking about how he's not doing the healing, the healing is done by God, or Spirit, through him. He usually goes on to mention his most recent "successes," always with the reminder that it's not him doing the healing. Then he relates stories from his past where he was led to miraculous events under extraordinary circumstances where he was led to serve and, by the way, don't forget - it wasn't him doing the healing. He doesn't realize every story is about him; what good he does and what a good teacher and healer and leader he is. He has a kind heart and good intention, but he doesn't realize how invested he is in drawing attention to himself, at every opportunity.

Then there's another, equally self absorbed and ego directed, and he'll mention "esoteric teachings" he's been given through the years and will answer no questions about who he's studied with and what techniques and practices he uses. He gives everyone a special "family" alias and no one uses their real name. He encourages each member to emotionally bond with him personally and encourages us to surrender to his guidance. He is also heavily invested in drawing attention to himself and almost every statement he makes is in self promotion, but he can be witty and engaging, so he draws us in. Eventually we settle down to group work for a very short while. There's a lot of turnover in this group. I go because I enjoy the exchange and I just ignore the parts I find inappropriate for me. Plus I like to know what's going on with my friends : )

As you can see, there's a difference between these groups. In the first ones, everyone's pretty involved in the work and stays on purpose and uses their time to the benefit of the greatest number. In the last examples, while there's a lot of talk about "healing" and "teaching," little is actually being done. Invariably these groups have a lot of politics going on. That happens a lot when a strong personality with a personal agenda involves themselves in community activity. Every area has their share of these and here is no different.

My point here is to pick the best of every group you get involved with, and just don't consider as relevant to you whatever is going on that you feel is inappropriate for you. Someone else may need exactly that. If you're unable to ignore it, you may as well leave the group because how you feel about it is likely to negate whatever good you're trying to do. Staying in the group and helping it stay on purpose, and contributing in a positive way, is another route to choose. Groups are evolving and changing all the time. Together we're all learning. Not just those that want to learn. Not just those that think they're learning. We're all learning and each one of us contributes to the process. Each one of us contributes to the illumination of us all. If you stay with a group long enough, in good times and bad, you'll begin to see changes and growth in the members. Too often we bail out of a situation because we've taken score too soon, and we don't stay long enough to see the fruits of our labor because we don't see it happening fast enough. There is something to be said for staying in a group that is working through all sorts of personality conflicts. You learn a lot about people that way, and personal growth is invariably the result. Nothing surprises me anymore. Anything is possible and anyone can do it.

A few years ago, after a friend had a few articles not accepted for publication in Horizons, wisely began his own newsletter. I applaud anyone who has the courage to make their voice heard, even if I choose to not endorse their message. I suggested that he ask the stores that carried Horizons if they'd like to carry his publication as well. Some did, some did not. After a few months, he took that personally and, amidst trust and ethical issues, shortly thereafter our association ceased. He then began to consider himself my nemesis and arch rival and would on a regular basis poke fun at what I'd written in the prior issue of Horizons. He thought my beliefs and ideas were airy-fairy, he thought I was Pollyanna-ish, he would pull my words out of context and give long commentaries on what (he thought) I meant and why that was not only wrong but ridiculous.

Believe it or not, it didn't bother me when he did that, since I knew the truth of my own being. I knew that despite his belief, the truth of who I was did not change. He found the concept of creating your own reality particularly implausible. He found the concept of serving humanity through meditation and uplifted thought (helping bring about critical mass in consciousness) particularly laughable. He dismissed practices like affirmations because he wouldn't take the time to learn and understand how to use them. He claimed no one could go around "being positive" all the time and if they did, they were in denial and not being honest. He'd throw barbs at me and, encountering no resistance, he eventually moved on. I read once, "No one can weave with you a bond of hatred if you contribute no strands to the weaving" and that is a profound truth. He slowly turned his attention elsewhere and began doing his own inner work.

Well, in the past few years, my friend has mellowed a bit and I notice his vocabulary has changed dramatically. It thrills me now to hear him saying the same things in public that he lambasted me for 5-6 years ago. Friends ask if that bothers me and I answer, "How can that bother me?" I know when one among us awakens, it rubs a lil more sleep from our own eyes. I am never surprised by who "finally" gets it. We all awaken in our own time and it matters not who wakes up who. "They" don't need to be where you are. As Louise Hay says, Don't waste your time on others who are not interested. You have more than enough work to do on yourself. When you have made dramatic changes in your own life, others will come to you and ask, "What have you done? Your life is so different." Then they may be ready to listen. When we awaken and begin to change our lives for the better, we often lose old friends who do not wish to move forward in the same way that we do. Everybody goes through this. It is a normal, natural part of growing and changing. Be open, and Life will bring you new and more advanced friends to fill the vacuum.

So, next time you go to your group meeting, if there are those that rub you the wrong way for reasons I may have touched on above, take a fresh look and see what you can do to balance out the collective thought for the group. If you're there for the purpose of doing healing work, stay focused on healing and make sure you do inner work to facilitate your own connection.

W. Allan says, Always select the high road for your thoughts about anything. Any thing, any person, any event can be perceived as bad or good. You must take the initiative to consciously decide to perceive the positive side. That is the essence of healing. That is conscious co-creation. That is the secret of having a good life. He goes on to remind us, If your life is a constant struggle for just the basics, then your beliefs, your thoughts and your desires are not working for your better good.

By now we all know that to change our experience, all we have to do is change our thought. When we change our thought, our behavior follows. We can also change our behavior first which, in turn, can change our thoughts. And when we change our thought, our experience changes. Nice to be in control of all that, huh? Enjoy our offering this month. Hari Om.