may the force be with you

Last week I tuned into the on-line Science of Healing Summit where I learned about bioenergetic fields, epigenetics, the flow of consciousness, resonance, coherence, entrainment, intuition, and the power of music/sound/vibration to heal. All taught by brilliant and forward thinking researchers and practitioners. 

I may have posted a few tongue-in-cheek comments on facebook because, frankly, I'm miffed. This constellation of concepts and insights first emerged in the seventies, which is when I started medical school...and it was all dismissed by "real" doctors as so much hocus-pocus. Snake oil. Those of us who were curious about it were belittled for our naivete, and shamed for our gullibility.

But I knew better. When I was a medical student, I worked with a resident who had gained a reputation as something of a maverick when he underwent an inguinal hernia repair under self-hypnosis. No anesthesia, thank-you-very-much. When I worked with him in the Emergency Room, he reduced a patient's dislocated elbow after a brief hypnotic induction, and I was sold. I studied self-hypnosis myself. I squandered my vacations on meditation and yoga retreats. I connected with energy healers. I learned to chant, to visualize auras, to breathe. I understood energy. It all made sense to me.

"There is more wisdom in your body

than in your deepest philosophy."

~Friedrich Nietzsche~

So...this is the question:

If you are a hands-on healthcare provider, how do you "see" your patients? As an orchestrated system of organs, muscles, bones, nerves, and flesh that can be distinguished by their structure and function? What is that structure? And how do they function? When something goes wrong, do you immediately think of a pill or a procedure?

Are you willing to see things differently? 

Imagine seeing your own body on a microscopic scale. Imagine the little blood cells coursing through your arteries and veins. Watch the fibers in your muscle contract and relax. Now get smaller. See it on a molecular scale. A subatomic scale. It might surprise you, from this perspective, that there's not much to you but space. On this scale, the distance between the molecules that make up your body is as vast as the distance we are familiar with...the distance between the stars in our own galaxy. Bone feels hard to us because the electromagnetic force between those distanced molecules is so strong. Flesh feels soft because the force that attracts its molecules to one another is weaker.

So...we are pretty much pure space and energy. 

Now look in a mirror. What do you see? That annoying mole on your forehead? Those sagging wrinkles on your neck? Teeth you wish were whiter? All the things that make you less perfect than what you were hoping for? 

Now get smaller. Go inside. That heart in your chest? It's like a perpetual motion machine. It just keeps beating without any attention or awareness on your part...as it has been since before the day you were born. Amazing!

That scar on your belly? The skin healed, the muscle closed, the fascia mended, and the wall of the uterus healed completely after they pulled the baby out...squirming, squealing, and breathing all by itself. Unbelievable!

Do you remember the song that made you cry at your grandmother's funeral? The solo you sang at the spring concert in sixth grade? The first time you heard a Kirtan chant? You have sound waves to thank for that...your whole complicated auditory system, your memory, and whatever made you sad, or happy, or amazed when it all came back to you. All connected across time and space...all vibrating in sync, all resonating, all coherent. In you!

"May the force be with you."

~Obi Wan Kenobi~

The next time you glance at yourself in a mirror, or lay hands on a patient, or make a wish, or shed a tear, remember:

"You are braver than you believe,

stronger than you seem,

and smarter than you think."

~a.a. milne~

You are pure potential.

jan