Soul Pain

There’s an old saying: “if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” It seems to many of the healing professions that for far too long we have been treating mental health, addiction, trauma and stress with a hammer in the form of a pharmaceutical that carried a promise of “banging things back into order”. However, it doesn’t take a PhD to see that a pill cannot heal soul pain ~ it can only numb it while the person continues to struggle to find meaning and purpose for their life.

Soul pain is chronic in modern society and most don’t even realize they have it. The numbing and suppression of emotions often furthers the suffering in the long-term. There is, of course, a difference between the clinical diagnoses of “melancholia” and “dis-stress”, which is conditional and can result in depression, anxiety and mental health challenges, but these symptoms being the result of an inherently toxic and traumatizing society, cannot be alleviated with a drug.

If you ask any Medicine Woman, Man or Shaman, what the number one crisis modern people come to heal, they will tell you it is stress. The stress of modern society is a chronic condition of survival and its symptoms are depression, anxiety, trauma, lack of purpose and meaning ~ soul pain, and the number of those suffering increases year over year.

For all the good that may have come out of Western Medicine, the truth is that Western doctors are not paid for “outcomes” ~ they are paid for “face-time”, which means, whether or not the prescription you were given helped you or perhaps even made things worse, your doctor still got paid. This pertains to an entirely much larger conversation than I’m not looking to get into here on this page, but I include it in the introduction because along with including valuable information on the power of natural healing, it is important to consider the context of our world in order to clearly see the content.

Natural products are not patentable; therefore, pharmaceutical companies cannot make profit from them. They can only make money when they extract and synthesize a single component of nature; however, in most cases, the healing power of an extraction is generally nowhere near as potent and transformative as the whole herb, plant or fungi. What Herbalists and Holistic Healers know is that the ‘miracle of healing’ is not in a “magic pill” which the body does not recognize or know how to integrate, but that healing is a process of returning the body to wholeness ~ a balanced state of homeostasis where all its divinely designed processes operate as intended. The wholeness of Nature harmonizes with the human body in communication and recognition of one another. We are a part of Nature, after all, and pretending we are superior and different than the natural world is what has gotten us into the current mess known as the chronically lamented, “state of the world”. When we work with whole plants, fungi, elements, minerals and energy, there is a synchronistic effect that takes place ~ our bodies and minds resonate with the energy and receive the chemistry as a “knowing” and seem to work with them in a harmonious manner.

I am not suggesting that there isn’t a time and place for some pharmaceutical remedies. Many have proven themselves to be of benefit, but our dependency and reliance upon them, with the assumption that they are superior to anything else, has not provided “the cure” to our most common dis-eases. From a Spiritual perspective, in the cycle of evolution, everything tends to come full circle as we broaden our awareness and deepen our understanding.

In many parts of the world we are currently experiencing a revolution in integrative and holistic medicine. Ancient healing modalities from around the world are being shared with one another and revealing a whole lot about what it means to heal. From Traditional Chinese Medicine in East, Ayurvedic (the science of wellness) Medicine from India, Traditional Western Herbalism and Indigenous Medicine from around the world are sharing their knowledge and their wisdom with another and many of us, especially those who have been let down by the modern medical system, are paying attention.

The dis-ease I call Soul pain, is the result of our modern, disconnected, isolated, technocratic, chronically stressful, unhealthy, polluted way of life. The 21st Century way of life is inherently traumatizing ~ from the alarms that wake us from a chemically induced slumber, to the toxic headlines, news and media systems, unreasonable work expectations, the consistently rising cost of living amidst a constant rush to be “somewhere”, always doing, doing, doing simply to pay the bills while we are pressured to avoid aging, as well as extinction, it’s a wonder to me many days that more people aren’t completely losing it.

It’s time to be honest with ourselves and really ask, what’s it all for? Whom is it serving to kill ourselves daily, live in constant misery trying to fill a void inside with “more” while ignoring the biggest, most important questions of all: who am I? what am I? why am I here? what is my purpose ~ my soul’s purpose?

Soul? Yes, soul. What you are in truth ~ that which animates your physical body and stands behind the veil of constant “thinking” patiently waiting for an opportunity to reconnect with you in awareness. The eternal part ~ the sacred. The part society has forgotten and pushed aside into the category of “wu-wu” (which means wise) in order to relegate humanity into a kind of conformity controlled by lack of self-worth, self-knowing and stress.

The truth is that in order to heal, we must remember how to feel and it is time to FEEL things deeply again. Without feeling the feelings that tell us we are sad, angry, lonely, distraught, upset, anxious and sometimes, afraid, we do not have our emotional compass working for us ~ the inherently, divine part of us that guides us throughout life and tells us what is and isn’t working for us…. somehow we’ve allowed ourselves to be convinced that a constant state of stress is “normal”, and while cancer rates sky rocket, we consistently pour more money into drugs, technology and “research” instead of exploring the conditions of our own “laboratory” ~ the lives we daily live in angst and haste, as well as, landscape within ourselves. The suppressed and repressed emotions which fester and grow within “like tumours” infested with rage, frustration and self-blame until we break down or break free.

Holistic healing is exactly as its name implies ~ whole, the big picture. As within, so without. If we are ever to truly begin to heal, and not just “treat”, ourselves and society, we have to somehow find ways to step back and see a bigger picture; we have to be okay again with asking the tough questions of ourselves: “what’s working for me and what isn’t”?

Am I staying in an unhappy marriage because I’m too afraid to be honest with myself?
Am I staying at a job I hate simply because I’m afraid of having less?
Do I believe I deserve to be happy?.. and if not, why?

Isn’t it time we all dug a little deeper? If 2020 has taught us anything at all, isn’t it the lesson of facing our fears? How many times are we going to play out the drama of facing our mortality before we realize that who we are in Truth, does not die? And if that is true, why are we here? Couldn’t it be about more than what kind of car we drive or school we graduate from? Could there be a deeper meaning to why we rise every morning to be greeted by the sun and the rain? What is this cosmic dance and how do we become active, conscious co-creators in it? How do we elevate humanity to step into our true power as co-creators, as alchemists and healers?

The invitation exists for all of us to go within and connect with the deeper aspects of ourself. There are many paths of healing, of which the ancient Vedic healing arts and sciences are often considered the source. There are many reasons why we are experiencing a renaissance of the wisdom of the ancients and for those who are gaining in wisdom, peeling away the layers of illusion and choosing go within, the journey is deeply transformative and healing. For pain is a challenge, but it always brings great lessons and insight along the way.

I wish you peace and deep healing along your path. I wish you santosha. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti, Hari Om Tat Sat