Getting On The Healing Path

How does one get on the healing path? Do you need to go to a special place? Do you need to meet a spiritual guru?

Maybe.

The path is simple, you create it yourself, in your own way, in your own time.  You find it. One more thing… it is infinite.  It a journey.

How to know you’re ready to heal

You are ready to heal when you are:

1. Tired of living a life of poor physical or mental health
2. Ready to feel better
3. Taking steps to feel better, however small they may be

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu

Also it is important to note that you need an open mind to learning a new way of life and actually consider the idea of constant renewal.  Some people say they are ready, but then never make the plan to change their ways.  It does not matter how often you say it, without action, you are still at the train station waiting for the train.

I suppose one could say that I have been on the healing path for years.  Its true, one path leads to another path, then another, then another and so on.  However, I would say that I have made a sincere conscious effort since 2012 to truly direct myself in a way that serves me and others as part of my spiritual awakening process.

How did that path start?

Making lifestyle changes

I realized that I needed to do something different with my lifestyle.  Although I have been interested and practicing alternative health for many years including practicing homeopathy, I really began to question a lot of things at this point.

A near death experience?

It should be noted that I had a very intense experience one night in the summer of 2012 that changed my view of everything.  It actually started with a dream.  I woke up in the middle of night, all charged up and said to myself – “I am here now”.  Crazy, yes.  However, it is also profound.  What had happened to me that night was a miracle and I believe a big part of my spiritual awakening.  I am still not certain as to what happened or how, but I had what you could call the equivalent of an NDE (near death experience).  I literally had a full life review from the time I was a little baby to the current time.

What I saw, was like a movie from a birds eye perspective.  I saw myself as a loving spiritual being making my way through life, only that I was far too hard on myself. As the bird, I could not understand why I spent so much of life with such uncertainty and so much disdain towards myself.  Yes, I say that, because it is true.

I guess in this birds eye view, I was looking at my life from my “higher self” so to speak.  My higher self has a much different view and opinion of me than my ego.  My higher self sees everything as a learning experience and doesn’t judge people or situations the way my ego does.

A spiritual awakening about my choices

I started to make a change in my lifestyle.  Thus, the healing path was renewed with making green juices. I had seen her a few times on the internet, Cherie Calbom “the juice lady” and she looks amazing for her age.  Everything she was saying was making sense.

“Let juice be your medicine and your medicine be your juice. May you be healed body, soul, and spirit.” – Cherie Calbom, M.S., C.N.

I started having juices 2 times a day, 5 days a week.  I gave myself the weekends to eat good size meals as I was detoxing originally.  In two weeks, I started to see the whites of my eyes a lot brighter and in one month, I noticed a visible change in my hair, skin and nails, especially my skin.

Eventually, juicing this often was a bit too much for me, so I changed it to once a day 3-4 days a week.  I didn’t want to overdo it and then feel like I didn’t want to do it anymore.  Choosing to juice at night instead of the morning also works well for me.  Since then, I have switched it up a few times.  However, the major shift from just eating your typical meat, veggies and starch had now shifted.

I started this way of eating at age 42 and it really made a difference in how I viewed the world.  Most people have no idea what my age is and that’s a good thing.  🙂  I like to keep ’em guessing.

Keeping an open mind to learning

Along the way, I learned different things that really worked for me on the healing path

• Travelling helps me see the world through different eyes as well as keeping an open mind to learning new things. It also helps me feel excited about the future, aligns me with my goals of seeing the world, and helps me feel more compassion for others
• Exercise doesn’t have to be a 4 letter word. If you don’t like going to the gym, that doesn’t mean you can’t exercise.  I exercise almost every day and it starts with walking.  Walking in the park gets me closer to nature.  Stretching and yoga helps my body stay limber.
• Joy is a choice. So is pain.  How we react to things is a choice.
• We are not responsible for other peoples reactions or feelings about us.
• Helping others will always help you out of a depressed state

via GIPHY

• Although making money is important for our well being, it is not where I get the greatest joy
• Don’t eat big meals after 6pm (No, we’re not going to change into ugly gremlins if we eat past this time, only we are going to feel a lot better 😉). Your body is already shutting down at that time and metabolic processes are slowing down.
• Wait 5 minutes after eating a meal to see if you want seconds (9 times out of 10, I stop eating)
• We do not NEED to eat meat. It truly is a false perception that we need to eat it.  (Have you seen any meat eating Gorillas? Read this article for more on them.   Despite that I have eaten meat for most of my life.  However, I have not always enjoyed it.  I never really liked it that much – I was trained to eat it. I prefer a vegetarian lifestyle.  Also, this video on facebook is very profound and worth watching if you are even on the fence about it.
• One day at a time. One moment at a time.
• Kindness matters. No matter whom you come across that is having a bad day and chooses to be cross with you, do not let them bring you down or succumb to their level. You are in control of how you feel, remember.

Now that its almost 2018 as I write this, I have learned a few more things that have made my life genuinely better and stay on the healing path.

One of my best friends that I met at the tender age of 5 finally came back into my life after almost 10 years! She is a great inspiration to me that people can change and get out of bad habits.  With her it was drinking alcohol.  In 2016, after some bad exchanges with another friend, I realized that I needed to stop drinking alcohol.  (Read my blog “Is Alcohol Really Safe To Drink? Do The Wellness Math”)

Although I would never have considered myself to be a serious drinker, I knew that it wasn’t improving my life or making me a better person.  I could see that it was a habit that was not building my character.  Also, I was beginning to realize that it was in fact a poison and it was causing my body to have inflammation and puffiness.

Over the years, I had a lot of experiences with people close to me who had drinking problems.  I really began to question how alcohol became a substance that people thought was cool and exciting.  I will say that I enjoy a martini or margarita, but to drink it regularly is not a good thing for my body or my mind.  There’s really nothing cool about the behavior that comes from regular drinking.  Thus, this ended.

Instant Results From Making A Conscious Choice To Feel Better

What happened after that was amazing.  My body started to re-shape itself.  Yes, although I have always been what you may call slender, I got thinner and more refined, more in the shape that I wanted to see.  Suddenly I lost a lot of “padding”.  I started to see the shape of the muscles in my arms and legs.  I could see abs!!  This was all from not drinking!  Not to mention that I was also feeling a lot better.  No more feeling foggy in the morning from having had drinks the night before.  My hair was less frizzy, my mind a lot clearer and my body was feeling great!  No more inflammation!

via GIPHY

One of the biggest choices I made for my mind body and spirit was to take plant medicine for healing.  This included taking an Ayahuasca journey and learning mindful meditation techniques in Peru.  That trip alone requires another blog post!  However, within 1 month after the plant medicine retreat, I created TaoWander.  It spawned my journey as a wellness travel writer and influencer.

As I write this on the healing path, my goals for wellness are growing…

• Continue on my path to wellness with new and different exercise patterns. I learned acroyoga on a cruise I went on this year with Nomadcruise.  This actually requires another blog. However, acroyoga is an absolute blast and I’ve seen people of all ages doing it.  All that is required is your sincere desire to learn!  I also found tai chi while walking in the park and absolutely LOVE how meditative it can be