Healing Yourself FIRST

‘’Heal yourself first and leave everyone else alone until you do’’. Let’s leave the concept of healing aside for a moment and introduce some grounded reality which often goes missing when we deal with ‘’spiritual stuff’’. A basic principle of creation and personal and spiritual development is free will, your power and ability to choose. Free will is sacrosanct; and neither you nor I can negate, override or change this fact in any way. Free will is the cornerstone upon which personal spiritual development stands.

In practical terms you can’t heal anyone against their will, or in ignorance of the part they play in their own health, illness or disease. To be effective healing must encompass the mind, body and spirit. The mind in relation to the thoughts, beliefs and actions of the person. The body in the physical symptoms manifesting as a result of the established mindset, and the spirit in the form of raised awareness of personal responsibility in the healing process. If you focus on the physical symptoms and ignore the other two you are doing no more than putting a plaster on an open wound. The underlying cause goes undetected; the root cause that goes unhealed will simply resurface again and again until the cause and the obvious effect are addressed and dealt with.

The only person we can heal is ourselves, this we must do through the acquisition and application of knowledge and understanding. Knowledge of who we truly are, and understanding the relationship we have with the stranger who lives our life. You learn to heal yourself through this process; you are then able to educate others to take personal responsibility for their own healing by making the necessary changes in their thoughts, beliefs and actions.

A large number of people in the world operate in a victim mentality mode; nothing is ever their fault, they believe they are powerless to change and sit around waiting for someone to come and save, rescue or heal them. Illness and disease is a prime example; in their mind their illness is just bad luck or genetic inheritance, when in reality it has more to do with their sedentary lifestyle. The lack of exercise, unhealthy diet, the use of recreational drugs and their dependence on cigarettes and alcohol. The only way these problems can be addressed is through education. First educate yourself, then help them to heal themselves through the identification of the underlying causes seeking expression in behaviour and physical conditions.

Our psychology becomes our biology; this is established medical science that what begins in the mind must find expression in the physical body. Negativity in all its many forms is toxic and as such a poison which damages whatever it comes in contact with. The duration will depend on the circumstances and the people involved. For many it’s a result of conditioning at a very early age but things like anger, hatred and guilt and the belief in the power of the word ‘’can’t’’ didn’t exist in their awareness until someone places it there and they accept them as their own. If ignorance is the cause this must be addressed before we allow ourselves to be distracted by an obvious symptom and the belief in our ability to heal.

To be a healer is a wonderful thing if it were true, but think for a moment. Thousands of people world wide claim to be healers, religious healers and those associated with all manner of complementary practices, yet the hospitals and hospices are full to overflowing and disease on the increase and the healers are nowhere to be seen. Miracle cures and miraculous healing don’t exist, if they did the hospitals would have only one ward the ‘’Miracle Cure Ward’’ and hospices would be empty and out of business. Playing healer in a safe closed environment is one thing but stepping into a potentially hostile environment demanding measurable proof is a totally different thing. When we talk about healing we need to be sure we understand fully what’s required to be able to provide truth demonstrated by our actions and results.

I have taught Reiki and Reiki personal development for twenty years and I can say without contradiction I have never healed anyone of anything, but what I have done is educated hundreds of students sufficiently for them to heal themselves. First they carried out a reality check and took a long hard look at the issues in their lives needing to be dealt with. Then they changed their way of thinking, their thought processes and the beliefs they held to be true about life and themselves. This changed the nature and quality of the decisions they made on a daily basis and the quality of their life began to reflect the internal changes taking place.

The teacher Jesus is attributed with saying to a doctor ‘’Physician first heal thyself’’ and it really doesn’t get any clearer than that. If you want to help people and make a difference in the world, educate people and empower them to take personal responsibility, then stand back and watch them heal themselves, but only if they choose to do so. Education and with it knowledge and understanding is the only thing with the power to bring about sustainable change in the individual and the world as a whole. Healing is nothing more than this truth demonstrated.

* This article is part of our Ask RMT project where experienced Reiki Masters answer questions from members of our Reiki Rays community. You can find our Ask RMT series of articles here.

Article by Phillip Hawkins

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A Reiki practitioner since 1999, Phillip started teaching Reiki in 2000 and using those skills and abilities he has spent the majority of the last seventeen years working with a wide range of social and educational needs including Autism and ADHD. Working with addicts dependent on alcohol and drugs, people whose lives were extremely violent and abusive, and others who had to deal with severe mental health issues. This has enabled him to work extensively in the private sector, schools, colleges, education and care in the community, the prison service and psychiatric units.

In 2016, Phillip decided to semi-retire from full-time employment to concentrate on developing his career as a published author and the setting up of his Reiki personal development programme at the Chilton Community College.