Welcome to The Me-First School of Global Healing
A blog dedicated to exploring the experience of healing in all domains
September 17, 2020
Healing Loss of Heart
We are all very different in many ways, but at the core, there is a commonality of consciousness which Chinese medicine refers to as the Heart. The Heart is the place in all of us that consciousness streams through from beyond us, the way that light comes through the stained-glass windows in a cathedral. All the windows are different, but the same light comes through them.
Many ancient medical traditions, as well as spiritual traditions, teach about the Heart as a place that is beyond individuality, a place of connection that is transpersonal. There are many different words, in the languages of many different cultures, for this experiential reality. When we connect from this transpersonal space, “I” ...
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August 28, 2020
Alternatives to Trauma
Very often, despair and resignation may be a manifestation of unhealed trauma—specifically trauma that is no longer healthy.
What is healthy trauma?
Healthy trauma is a state of complete or incomplete dissociation from an injury that we do not have the resources to heal. This is why injuries that took place years ago—or centuries ago—can still remain unhealed. That is the nature of trauma—to remain unhealed, until we have the resources to heal.
But what if we do have the resources to heal?
When we do have the resources to heal, and our bodies recognize it, healthy trauma begins to heal, often immediately. However, there may be parts of us that are stuck in “trauma mode,” and do not recognize that ...
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August 14, 2020
Living the Elements: Earth
Late Summer
Earth, the element that embodies Late Summer, is all about the feeling of stability and satisfaction. It’s our sense of familiarity and comfort, our sense of homeyness. The stay-at-home measures of COVID-19 are definitely “bringing it all back home” for us, and that has certainly been giving us an opportunity to appreciate family and home much more—or else made us realize what’s absolutely got to change.
On a national and planetary level, there’s a whole lot coming home to us—and it’s been coming for a long time. We are living right now in the midst of so much upheaval that it is both an opportunity and a necessity for us to do the kind of pondering ...
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July 31, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWoV-kRFPSg
What is the Difference Between Healing and Walking?
I’ve been in a lot of discussions these days about what kind of healing is needed in these drastic times. Truthfully, I don’t think that healing is needed. I think that what is needed is something called walking. What's the difference between healing and walking?
“Walking” is a term borrowed from Sufism, but applicable to Chinese medicine as well as many other modalities. Walking refers not to the outward manifestations of healing, but the inward spiritual transformation associated with deeper connection to Source via the Heart. Different traditions have different names for this journey from individuality and separation to greater and greater oneness with the One. Beyond words, beyond doctrine, drastic situations like ...
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July 17, 2020
Frederick Douglass
I read the autobiography of Frederick Douglass Jr. when I was in fourth grade. The part of the story that struck me the hardest was the description of little Frederick being sold up north to Maryland, to be a happy little white family’s very own first slave.
When Frederick first arrived, he joined a warm and loving family, filled with laughter and natural flow of kindness. Within a year, however, the family became cold and bitter. There was no more singing and easy affection, and there was severity where once there was kindness. The continuous strain of having to be “superior,” and needing to suppress their natural generosity and loving impulses towards a fellow human being—a child, in fact—meant ...
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July 3, 2020
Living the Elements: Fire
Summer!
Summer is a time when it is safe to blossom, because all danger of frost is past. What a relief! We can shed our protective layers, and stand in the open, to see and be seen as who we really are. Summer is the time of extended light and warmth, and this is the basis of its capacity to invite us into the openness and exposure that allows us to create fulfilling connections.
The gift of Fire is lightness of being. Humor, playfulness and the ability to be silly are crucial to the health of Fire. Fire understands that in order to be truly sane, you have to be a little bit crazy — and not be ...
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June 19, 2020
Why a Healer Needs to Consider Race
Too often, “I don’t see color” is translated as, “I don’t want to hear about racism.” The white person who said these words might not have meant it that way at all—but it is important to be aware of how we are coming across in a context where there really are a lot of white people who just do not want to hear or know about racial pain.
Those of us who are white healers supporting BIPOC clients do need to take some extra steps to signal clearly that we are ready to listen, and ready to have our awareness stretched beyond our own lived experience, into domains of experience that we haven’t known.
We ...
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June 4, 2020 Healing Moral Injury
Love is Necessary for Healing
Have you ever said or done something that, in hindsight, might have been significantly hurtful to someone? Maybe you realized it yourself, or maybe someone pointed it out to you. That’s a difficult moment. How did you feel, and how did you support yourself through those feelings?
There are many kinds of trauma, but one of the most painful is what is called “moral injury.” Moral injury occurs when we do something that, in our heart of hearts, we know is harmful or wrong—and we just can’t face it. In many ways, it is more difficult to heal our moral injuries than to heal the harm we’ve received from others—because we are more likely to be ...
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May 21, 2020 – Living the Elements: Wood – Springtime!
Living the Elements: Wood
Springtime!
There are a number of different serious blog pieces still in the works, but right now, I really just want to have some community fun. I’ve put together a list of some of my favorite Wood-element art and music.
I’d love to hear from you: Are you listening to, looking at, or reading anything that moves and heals and awakens your Wood element this spring? Please share in the comments section below. I’m always up for more healthy Five Element nourishment through the arts. Meanwhile here are some of my favorites, just to get you started.
Song: It’s Not Easy Being Green by Kermit the Frog
At first listen this might not seem to be your average Wood song, ...
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March 30, 2020
The Power of Stopping
We have a choice about how we use this time of immobilization and quarantine, which is in many ways like a winter right in the middle of springtime. In Chinese medicine, Winter is about the evocation and transformation of fear, but it is also about deep revitalization. Over the winter, a while ago, I wrote a piece about “The Power of Stopping” which feels even more apropos now, so I will share it with you:
How does revitalization happen? What is vitality? Where and how is the power of life force gathered and maintained? How do we do that for ourselves? How do we assist others in revitalizing and living from deep, powerful vitality?
It’s not just about ...
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