ART OF HEALING: AN EXPERIENTIAL SESSION
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Presenters: Bernie Siegel, M.D.
Moderator: Monique Class, MSN
Session: F6; June 11, 1999Mind and body are not separate entities. We know what is going on with our bodies, manifesting in dreams and drawings. For example, clinical diagnosis may be drawn as an outdoor scene, but looked at more carefully will actually be the coronary arteries. The only thing truer than the truth is a story. When you become a storyteller, people can’t fight with you because there is nothing to fight over. It’s an anecdote, a story. At that point you can actually start analyzing what it’s about. Find inspiration in your life and the rest will take care of itself. Otherwise, the information is a waste of time and you won’t need it. So find out why are you here and pay attention to the body as well. There are two ways to make decisions – through dreams and images and through feelings. With these elements you will end up in the right place and time. Unfortunately, if you are constantly thinking you will be blocking genuine knowledge.
Take the lid off. Do the imagery. Keep the journal. You’ll have more dreams. At one point fewer dreams will be needed because you get into a trance state. Therefore, more unconscious material will come up telling you about the past, present, and future and to be in touch with it. The more time you spend in your head thinking, on schedules, the worse life gets. So if you can, spend time with images animals and children – avoiding adults as much as possible. Or act childlike in the presence of adults, changing the level of feeling and communication.
If you are working with people, learn from your life and the people you deal with. If you keep a journal put drawings in it periodically because choices will come up such as what jobs I should take, where should I move, where should I live. If you work with people keep their drawings because they are telling you about the past, present and future. You may not know what the future is but if you keep the drawing and something happens to them a year later, you can look back and see that they were really telling you something.
Q: Why should we spend time with animals?
A: Animals have true love, it’s all out there. Animals think and reason without words. They count without using numbers. Their emotions and feelings are right there, being who they are.
When you are using drawings and imagery, you get the patient out of the diagnosis and into what they are feeling. Ask for meaning words. When you are dealing with an illness you ask: "What are you going through?" If the person says they are afraid of dying, what does that mean? What are they afraid of? Have them come up with the feelings and what they are going through and later you can come up with words that describe their fears.
You have to observe what you are telling your body for it to react and manifest through different illnesses. How does the body know how to react to your messages? When the body is told: I don’t like my life, I’m unhappy. I don’t like my job. I don’t like what is going on. What is the message? Let me get out of here! If you give the body the message that you love life, the message will be: I have meaning in my life. I’m here to experience love, to contribute, to give. Find your "chocolate ice-cream" in life either literally or like a monk said, "work in my garden." Put your life in that and you will have a body that will outlive what anybody else expects. For example, in a family that gets cancer at 50, why does one guy get it at 70? Ask these people why they didn’t get cancer, how did they stay well.
Q: How do you get over the guilt issue that "I caused my cancer?"
A: If you lose your health, go look for it. The issue becomes very specific in many religions according to the custom. Read several texts of different religions to be able to answer people from their perspective. Your sins are forgiven and not necessarily rise and walk. If you grow up with guilt, it is a part of your life and it is a burden.
The session was followed by a guided meditation. If you are having troubles with the imagery pay attention to the senses that work for you. For example, if you are tactile, a good therapist will talk about touching and feeling making a tape specifically for you compared to someone who may be more visual. Don’t consider yourself a failure, just keep at it. You get better and better. It is best to pick certain music that will work for you, soft, calm, aromas make it easier to be in a trance. Once you do this on a continual basis and maintain consistency it becomes easier to get deeper and deeper.
Next we drew images of ourselves and anything we enjoy, like an outdoor scene, our family, ourselves at work. Use colors that make sense to you. The way we draw ourselves can also predict what illnesses we will get because it’s displaying our personalities. After the drawing session was completed, Dr. Siegel showed slides of pictures presented by his patients throughout the years explaining their meaning.
Life is a series of beginnings, a series of changes. So keep beginning. Know that the message from the Creator is that you are loved just the way you are. Before you leave this earth don’t be afraid to show who you are and show your individuality. The real key is not to wait until someone tells you that you have a couple of months to live and then say I can do what I want now and not be embarrassed. We are all mortals. We can eat all the right things, exercise regularly, attend many workshops, meditate and do imagery, and we will die anyway. So lighten up!
Some information on the meaning of colors in the drawings:
Red: emotions, love, passion, pain, conflict
Black: grief, despair
White: cover up
Yellow: energy
Orange: change (accident)
Purple: spiritual (held)
Blue: natural
Green: natural
Brown: naturalSome references:
Gregg Furth, Secret World of Drawings
Susan Bach, Life Paints Its Own SpanYou can use the image of what you want to become and work toward it. But there is no perfect picture that will make you a survivor. You can’t just correct the drawing and be cured of cancer. You must become the picture at a deeper level. The future is unconsciously prepared long in advance. We are constantly making choices, which create your future, appearing in our dreams and drawings. Its what you do consciously and unconsciously that show you where you are heading. Thus these drawings helps prepare people and make decisions.
Q: How do you use these drawings on a practical level?
A: With some people you use the drawings right away. For example, if they are having an operation, you tell them to draw themselves in the operating room and you give them feedback right away. If they come to the group meetings, patients would have to answer a list of questions. So if issues come up, everyone feels like family and they share their drawings, helping each other out. The following are a few of the question patients’ answer when they join the group: Do you want to live to be 100? What stresses presented a year or two before you became ill? What does the illness mean to you? What benefits do you derive from the illness? Describe your illness experience? In the workshops Dr. Siegel has pages that he works through in the groups.
Remember to say I love you. It’s an important tool that helps people and relationships. It does amazing things. Just remember not to wait until a disaster happens to pick up the phone to say I love you. This is the advice of every kid who has had cancer.