Infinite Healing, Infinite Love

You are not who you think you are.....

The greatest potential for authentic healing comes from the deep experience of ourselves as Love itself. This experience has been transmitted through the ages by numerous mystics and masters. For most of us in the post-modern era, the actuality and experience of this is a mere intellectual exercise. For many of us in the post-modern era where so much of experience is culturally conditioned and dependent on context, we have literally cut ourselves off from the deep and joyous encounter with ourselves as Spirit. As we transcend limiting developmental states of consciousness while including the most useful parts of them, it IS possible to encounter, commune with, and be transformed by this deep and abiding presence.

I work with many people every day who are seeking “healing.” Most folks simply want to “feel better” so that they can get to where they were just before they started to hurt or feel uncomfortable symptoms. This is our cultural story around health care and medicine: It is there to get the uncomfortable stuff out of the way so we can get on with the business of living our lives just as we were before we felt uncomfortable. Yet, what if this very very lifestyle and all the choices we made was the reason we got to where we are? If that is the case, I would submit that our very symptoms are our wake up calls. They are the calls from deep within, from a place of profound wisdom that is calling us back to wholeness (NOTE: I am no way discouraging proper medical care when needed. Thank goodness for the life-saving technology of interventional allopathic medicine). Yet, most of the time the very self that is seeking healing is the very self that created the problem to begin with. This very self is rooted in a lifetime of programs of behavior, thought, and relationship that do NOT reflect our deepest, ever-present nature as Love and Spirit. Thus, does it make sense to attempt to solve a problem at the very level of mind that created the problem to begin with. As Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Let us, then,  differentiate healing and curing. Healing entails a new, evolved, and vertically integrated manner of living, thinking, and being that reflects a higher state of moral, spiritual, emotional, and physical development. It means our relationships are healing, our relationship to Spirit is healing, our behaviors are congruent with our deepest reality of Love, and we begin to move towards a concern for “all of us” – not just ourselves or the selected few of our families, tribe, clan, or culture. Healing is integral and encompasses every aspect of our lives – nothing is excluded. In healing, we so not always arrive at the outcome we initially desired. Sometimes the pain doesn’t go away, sometimes we don’t go into remission, sometimes the questions do not get answered. In healing, however, a radical evolution of every part of our lives is always available. Joy is always available. And the healing of our fragmented and broken selves is always available. In fact, this re-integration is our birthright and part of our very curriculum on this planet. As we become free and experience ourselves as Love, we invisibly give everyone in our web of existence permission to do the same.The freedom, joy, and peace of this experience is beyond words.

To heal you have to have guts. You have to be willing to walk through the fire so that everything that does not reflect your innate wisdom and goodness can fall away like snake skin. For most of us, there is a lot to shed, so I suggest you hang on for the ride. Nestle your head in the breast of a community of support and find yourself in Spirit. Ask for help from the elders who have walked before you. Find the Master and sit at her feet. Trust God, forgive everything, and awaken to infinite Love. I assure, no matter how far down the scale you have gone, this is possible. It is WHO you ARE.

This experience is one of the  most powerful remedies for health and healing. As someone who spent years studying herbal medicine, nutrition, acupuncture, chiropractic, and manual medicine, NOTHING transcends this authentic experience in the path to total wholeness and radical wellness.

Cures can occur in this environment. There are numerous reports of spontaneous healing that occur in the presence of masters or at holy sites. As I look at my bookshelf now, I have an entire annotated bibliography of spontaneous healings that have occurred with all types of fatal illnesses. Miracles happen….all the time. However, they are simply part of the journey, not the goal. Healing and integral living is the goal. Love is the goal. If you are, by definition, Love, then You are the goal.

I have always had a deep connection to St. Teresa of Avila. If her writings she stated, “Remember, if you want to make progress on the path and ascend to the places you have longed for, the important thing is not to think much, but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love.” Awakening to love is health.

St. Augustine stated, “Love made me what I am, that I may be what I was not before.” Amen. May we never be the same again.

Finally, in one of the greatest Christian mystical texts ever written, the Anonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing writes, “Be moderate in everything but Love.”

As my spiritual teacher, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has always said, “Love is not an emotion, it is your very existence.”

Infinite healing and infinite love are available now. They are core foundations for the experience of health and radical wellness.

The Evolution of Wellness

The (R)Evolution of Wellness

In her book Spirituality and Social Action, social activist and spiritual teacher Vimala Thakar passionately calls spiritual seekers and activists alike to take responsibility for the totality of what it means to be human. This passage also points towards where the practice and art of WELLNESS MUST GO:

“A new challenge awaits us at the beginning of the twenty-first century: to go beyond fragmentation…and be open to total living and total revolution. In this era, to become a spiritual inquirer without social consciousness is a luxury that we can ill afford, and to be a social activist without a scientific understanding of the inner workings of the mind is the worst folly. Neither approach in isolation has had any significant success…. As we deepen in understanding, the arbitrary divisions between inner and outer disappear…. Life is not fragmented; it is not divided. It cannot be divided into spiritual and material, individual and collective…. And each passionate being who dares to explore beyond the fragmentary and superficial into the mystery of totality helps all humanity perceive what it is to be fully human. Revolution, total revolution, implies experimenting with the impossible. And when an individual takes a step in the direction of the new, the impossible, the whole human race travels through that individual.”

Wellness for the sake of preservation of the narcissistic self is dead. It no longer serves the world and it most certainly no longer serves the individual. Wellness that only creates comfort does not serve the individual. Wellness that only brings us to who we were just before we experienced symptoms is not wellness. If it is indeed our very life choices, attitudes, beliefs, and relationships that define our overall health, then it is only by radically awakening to new strategies for wellness and then implementing them in our lives that true wellness can occur.

Radical wellness in this sense is an evolution from our previous notions of health and wellness. Wellness is not separate from the rest of our life. In fact, the very experience and practice of wellness is completely integrated with every facet of our life experience – mond, body, spirit, culture, planet, and Kosmos.

My work with Network Spinal Analysis and Somato Respiratory integration is revolutionary in that it allows for the experience of radical wellness. Through this work, we are able to let go of our anchors to defense and habitual responses to life. The stress, tension, and holding patterns of a lifetime slowly melt away. As this occurs, the very choices and behaviors that we made in an attempt to run from our pain become more awakened and evolved. We thus experience conscious embodied awakening.  Naturally, we experience less pain, more energy, and a greater sense of well being. From this state of true wellness, we can contribute more to life and be more authentic in our being.

My practice as a doctor completely changed when I experienced Radical Wellness through Network and Somato Respiratory Integration.

Lynn and I are very excited to begin the process of opening a cutting edge,  integrative healing center in Charlotte, NC where we will integrate NSA, SRI, the Satir Method of body oriented psychotherapy, and Somatic Experiencing. It is our mission to facilitate a profound experience of Radical Wellness and create a new culture of embodied awakening in Charlotte.  We want to provide the community and platform in which anyone and everyone may experience themselves and their lives as completely new. We seek to inspire miracles and to facilitate growth. From this space, the impossible becomes possible. In this magical process, anyone we have every touched also becomes transformed.

“And when an individual takes a step in the direction of the new, the impossible, the whole human race travels through that individual.”

Dr. Matthew Lyon and Lynn Lyon will be opening the Integral Life Center of Charlotte in the Summer of 2009.

The Earth Element of Chinese Medicine
By Dr. Matthew Lyon, DC, L.Ac

The earth element is often depicted as the center fulcrum of the 5 elements, around which all of the other elements exist. The earth is the central grounding energy of life for the rest of the manifest experience of life. In general, this was a common idea for early agrarian Chinese cultures as well as early Native American cultures. The earth element is ultimately responsible for utilizing and processing all sources of sustenance and nutriment. In this way, our very potential to realize our destiny in life is made possible. From quantum physics we know that most of what we call the universe is actually empty space of pure potential. The earth element is the matter created by that space.

The organs associated with the earth element are the stomach and spleen. In Chinese Medicine, both of these organs allow us to take the food we eat, air we breathe, and the inherited energy we are born with and efficiently distribute to all aspects of our body, mind, and spirit. Imbalances in the earth element typically show up as a breakdown in this functional process. Psychologically, the earth element deals with our capacity to experience true empathy and caring for all life forms. Spiritually, the energy associated with the earth element, called yi, is the intention that directs all movement.

The highest virtue of the earth element is the selfless renunciation our self-centered need for comfort towards a more inclusive and integral life focused on others. Within the earth element, our raison d’etre transforms from wanting freedom and comfort for selves to wanting freedom, health, happiness, and evolution for all beings. When the earth is out of balance, we prefer comfort more than it wants radical wellness.  When the earth element is balanced, our capacity to create a healthy and wholesome future is unlimited.

I have often seen earth element imbalances present as problems with food, eating, and nourishment. Bulimia, anorexia, and obsessive-compulsive activities around eating reflect an imbalance in the earth element. When we sense a lack of nourishment within, we often look outside ourselves for something “to fill us up.” Most diets will, statistically speaking, fail. When the earth element is balanced, many diets can become much more effective. Many digestive problems can be alleviated when the earth element is balanced.

An imbalanced earth element can be very insecure and display excessive worry, over concern, and a neurotic tendency to try to take care of and fix those around them. Although well intentioned, this kind of behavior often drives people away. When the insecurity of the earth element combines with excess amounts of sympathy, we see the manifestation of obsessions, excessive thinking, and nightmares. Co-dependency, a very real addictive process, has its roots in an earth imbalance.

For the earth element to be balanced, we must have a daily practice of centering. In general, we should begin each day with a period of no less than 20 minutes of centering to help establish a centered and grounded course throughout the day. Only when we are deeply rooted in our center can our activities be grounded and resolute.

5 element Acupuncture is an unparalleled and powerful tool in which to create more balance and authentic wellness in our lives.

Dr. Matthew Lyon is a practitioner of 5 element acupuncture and Network Spinal Analysis. Dr. Lyon’s book and other articles can be found on his website at www.drmattlyon.com. He is in the process of opening an integral healing center in Charlotte, NC