Creating a Healing Environment

In this blog, I want to discuss what a healing environment is and how to create one. A healing environment has two components. One of them is physical and refers to having good nutrition and engaging in an active rehabilitation program which directly involves the injured or painful body part. Good nutrition means having an adequate intake of nutrients which provide the body with the raw materials it needs to heal. It also means minimizing the intake of calorie rich, nutrient poor foods which provide no benefit while burdening the body and taking some of it's energy away from the healing process.

The second component of a healing environment involves regular engagement in exercises that restore flexibility, range of motion, strength and balance. The key to this is a willingness to bear some discomfort and push the envelope so that progress continues to be made toward a resolution of pain and/or injury.

I am more concerned, however, with a largely overlooked aspect of healing which involves what is going on inside the body not on the physical level but on the energetic level. This is where thoughts and emotions exert their effects. Negative thoughts about the pain create negative emotions. These negative emotions have a strong and usually unrecognized effect on the pain that a person experiences. If unrecognized, they can exert a strong negative effect on the healing process.

There are four steps to addressing negative thoughts and emotions so that they do not get in the way of healing:

Step 1. Sit quietly with your eyes closed. Make a conscious decision to closely observe your pain with your awareness. Instead of trying to distract yourself from the pain which is our instinct, look directly at it as scary as that may seem.

Step 2. As you watch your pain, become aware of what the pain feels like without judging it.

Step 3. As you observe more closely, try to identify the details of the pain such as it's quality (ie sharp, aching, tightness, throbbing, etc.), it's specific location (eg left low back just above the buttocks) and it's intensity (ie how strong it is).

Step 4. Look for other associated sensations which seem to go along with the pain such as those associated with depressed mood, anger, frustration, anxiety, hopelessness, etc.. If old traumatic events pop into your head during this process, it is not a coincidence. These have somehow become associated with your pain. See if you can recognize how.

The level of awareness brought about by this process is rare unless a conscious decision is made to bring it about. The obvious question that might arise for anyone reading this is "what do I do next?" The answer is nothing. Just by becoming aware in this manner, you have created a healing environment and have initiated a very powerful healing process. Repeat this exercise as often as possible and the body will take care of the rest. You will also notice that any other therapies that are done on the physical level will be much more effective than they were before.