So what are the principles of self-healing?
If we take a moment and consider the plethora of spiritual techniques,
Psychological interventions and approaches to therapy,
It can easily be overwhelming.
There are so many different techniques,
Models for the mind and other things.
But when we step back and find the principles of all of those approaches,
We discover three interconnected things.
A wince?
Acceptance Action.
Let's briefly break it down.
The first thing we need to do is to become aware of what is happening.
Before we can heal,
Before we can grow,
Before we can do anything,
We must become aware.
Awareness of what is arising within.
That awareness of our situation.
Base awareness.
Mindfulness is a good technique to give that.
Our mind wanders,
We bring it back to the point of focus.
We become aware of what is arising within the mind.
After that,
We must accept.
This is reality as it is for what it is right now.
Now,
Acceptance doesn't mean we need to like it or approve of it.
But unless we accept the reality,
How can we possibly hope to change it,
With our actions or external actions?
We can't.
We become aware of what is arising.
We accept what's arising.
And then we take action.
Action that is value aligned.
Once we're aware,
Once we've accepted,
We know the place we're starting from.
And we also know roughly where we want to go.
Either we don't want what's happened,
Or we want something over there.
Improved functionality,
Calm,
Focus,
Whatever it is.
You take value-aligned actions.
Actions that you might get from a collection of spiritual traditions,
Counseling,
Psychology techniques,
Wherever.
But we know that it's going to get us closer to what we want to be doing.
Awareness.
Acceptance.
Action.
Once we've taken some action,
This cycle repeats.
We go back to awareness because we've made a change.
So if you use the meditation example,
Mindfulness is actually all three.
Our mind wanders,
We bring it back to focus.
That is giving us awareness and an acceptance of what's arising.
Our mind wanders.
Okay,
It's wandered.
We accept it.
Where has it wandered to?
Good,
Bad,
Ugly,
Unknown,
Whatever.
That's okay.
We take the action to bring it back to focus.
Training our awareness,
Training our ability to focus,
Grounding us in the moment and giving us insight.
So I encourage you,
When you're practicing any spiritual tradition or technique,
Or applying any psychological concepts or counselling,
Or you're in a space of self-healing,
Look for these three principles and you'll see that what you're doing hits one of them.
Awareness,
Acceptance Action.
And remember,
It's a cycle.
It just keeps cycling.
And if you find that the actions you're taking are not getting you close to where you want to go,
That's okay.
We become aware of it,
We accept that fact,
And we take a different action.
If you're looking for more self-healing content,
There are a bunch of video and audio content available that I've created here on Inside Tarma.
I'll see you there.
