Healing is a very threatening process because it requires that we make significant, often dramatic changes in our lives, and change is always threatening. On the most fundamental level, safe equals familiar. When our most basic, physiological needs are being met, we’re often able to overcome minor concerns about the unknown and embrace change without feeling threatened. When we’re in pain because of dis-ease, however, our most basic needs are not being met.
When our Physiological Need account is overdrawn, all of our need accounts are put on red alert. When we’re in pain, we’re most definitely not feeling safe, and any change will be a threat. To make matters worse, the behaviors that we will have to change—often eating, drinking, and/or smoking—seem to be the few reliable ways that we can make deposits in our Safety Accounts.
On an intellectual level, we may understand that the only way to truly heal and be free of the pain of our dis-ease is to alter our behavior. However, when our safety needs aren’t being met, we act on instinct. The very thought that we have to give up the few things that give us pleasure makes us feel even less safe.
What happens next is that we often retreat into victim consciousness. We long for the magic wand that will miraculously make the pain go away and let us continue with our lives exactly as they are, because that’s the only option we can imagine that lets us feel reasonably safe. When we escape into fantasy, of course, we avoid any personal responsibility. We also give up all personal power, and lose the ability to heal.
In order to truly heal, we must accept each healing crisis as a call to awareness. When we’re in pain, all we can do is find some way to alleviate the pain. This is an essential first step. Healing requires that we address our safety needs, and we can’t do this until our physiological needs are being met. Healing isn’t about stopping the pain; healing is about what we choose to do once the pain has stopped.
Healing is not about pain management; it’s about safety management. In order to change our behaviors and allow our bodies to heal, we must learn how to manage our Safety Accounts.
For example, we might have an emotional attachment to sugar. Anytime we feel stressed, unhappy, or otherwise unsafe, we can always rely on a candy bar or some ice cream to make us feel a little better. If we are at risk for diabetes, however, eating sugar poses serious health risks. Of course, the thought of having to give up sugar makes us feel unsafe, and in order to replenish the balance in our Safety Account, we dive into a pound of Godiva chocolates.
The only way to break this pattern is to learn to manage our Safety Account. We must discover other behaviors that help us to feel safe that do not involve eating sugar. We can use the “Present Moment Awareness Safety Exercise” (see The Relationship Handbook: How to Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your Life, page 48) to manage our general stress levels so that we’re less likely to give in to our cravings. We experience the truth that we can meet our needs in many different ways, and so we do not feel threatened and unsafe by the thought of limiting or excluding sugar from our diet. And, of course, we apply AWARENESS, OWNERSHIP and CHOICE to create new behaviors that support our health.
Now, anyone who has struggled with attachments or addictions will tell you that while the theory is very simple, simple isn’t the same thing as easy! Throughout the process, we also have to be careful not to trigger our egos (as we covered in Part 1). We must take small steps, validating and rewarding ourselves for each elegant choice, no matter how small, and avoid punishing ourselves for not being able to change our behavior patterns instantly.
We did not create our dis-eases overnight, and we won’t be able to heal them overnight, either. We must accept that healing is a gradual process, and in this acceptance is one of the keys to healing. We generally do not need to make drastic, immediate changes in order to heal. We can make gradual changes in our behavior and our beliefs, and the more gentle we are with ourselves during the process, the more successful it will be.
Healing does not have to be difficult. It’s just that for most of us, as soon as we stop hurting, we lose interest in actually healing.
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