“Your body is still holding the version of you you’re trying to leave behind: not as a memory, as a physical reality—the tension, the bracing, the way fear shows up before you’ve even had a thought. You can’t think your way out of something your body is still living.”

— Michael B. Beckwith, Spiritual Teacher

Healing is not simply letting go of the past mental neglect and physical trauma in my life, as if it never happened. Before I can let go of my biopsychosocial[1] torments, I have to find the sober strength of willingness within to face my past with nonjudgmental understanding of the source of my suffering and begin accepting the painful experiences until they finally feel resolved in my heart.

This healing process begins with awakening the courage to open my heart again: to be vulnerable, like an innocent child again; this time, learning not to identify with painful experiences as they surface, but to observe, without clinging to them, until the pain and suffering is spent and disappears, like watching a passing cloud evaporate in the never-changing blue sky of my true Self-awareness.

Courage is the gateway to reliving all the negative conscious energy in my mind—constantly shifting levels of shame, guilt, grief, fear, and anger—so I can open my heart and embrace them with the compassion of truth.[2] The courage to greet the pain again, without judgment, and accept those emotions as a temporary reminder of my past suffering. To begin healing with the true compassion of gaining a clear understanding of the reasons for my dysfunctional past, to peacefully sit with the truth, until the pain (that still lives in my body) is spent. And the mental suffering (that limits the way I perceive and interact with the world now) is dissolved by the constant stream of Love energy flowing through my heart. That healing is a continuous process, because I can’t simply remove, let go of, or cure the hardwired thought patterns embedded in my brain, but I can quiet the past whenever it arises with the embrace of true loving-kindness—now.

This healing process may sound too simple compared with the real-life scenarios many of us endure to reach true Self-awakening. Many of us had to experience an ego-shattering emotional event to hit rock bottom, leaving us with no choice but to surrender our conditioned self-ego identity. For some, it took a devastating life-changing event, such as the death of a loved one, an illness, disease, or being disabled, loss of our livelihood and self-expression, or total lack of self-control in addiction, to awaken the courage to understand the source of our suffering, to finally surrender our past and accept the healing compassion of truth.

So, healing starts with the courage to face the pain from my past every time it arises, and accept the truth with the compassionate understanding of knowing the source of my suffering now—that I didn’t understand then. Once awakened, my Higher Power of never-changing spiritual awareness can dissolve my past into a peaceful, meditative state of mind; until all that remains is selfless Love—my true Nature—in the ever-present moment.

VAB  07-09-26

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[1] Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture, Avery, Penguin House, New York, 2022, p. 53.

[2] Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture, Avery, Penguin House, New York, 2022, p. 387.