Notes on healing

• Healing comes from the word whole. Wholeness is a state of integration. Therefore, we can think of healing as becoming whole and as re-integration.

  • Example: a cut in the skin is a dis-integration of the layers of the skin. Healing, in this case, is

    • the re-integration of the divided layers

    • the parts (the 2 divided sides of the skin) becoming whole (healing of the division)

  • Example: congestive heart failure is a lack of integration of the functioning of the heart. Sometimes the contraction phase is not functioning properly and sometimes the relaxation phase is not functioning properly. In this case, healing is

    • re-integration of the roles of contraction and relaxation for the heart to pump blood optimally

    • restoration of whole heart function as opposed to partial (one of the phases, or one of the physical anatomical structures) heart function
      

• Healing can occur

  • within a part, as discussed above in the case of a cut or of congestive heart failure.

  • across many of the 5 bodies.

  • as the "whole of wholes".
    

• The "whole of wholes" is our essential, original identity. In Second Mind Medicine, consciousness, represented by the first body, is taken as the ontological primitive, and therefore is essential nature of what we are. Healing in its subtlest sense is recognizing this because it goes beyond the particular bodies and the frame of a lifetime.
  

• Healing is not necessarily the same as treatment. The focus in treatment is in changing the presentation (symptoms, signs) of a condition. The focus in healing is to discover an unknown–what integration and wholeness might be–and allow that discovery to unfold.
  

• Healing is not necessarily the same as cure. A cure is a way to make something go away. Healing is about discovering what is presently unknown and seeing where it leads.
  

• Healing doesn't prevent us from taking treatments and pursuing cures. Healing is a wide path.
  

• Treatment and cure–depending on how we define and understand them–may or may not come along with healing.