How To Make Joy Part Of Your Healing Process
What if we made joy our treatment goal? Impossible? I hear you, but hear me out. If you are like most people, you have someone in your life — a friend, a family member or a close acquaintance — who is health-challenged. She tries every treatment and fad under the sun to try to heal herself, yet she never stops to analyze her thoughts about herself.
What she’s looking for in her treatment-of-the-week approach are problems that can be fixed. However, what she creates are more problems rather than solutions. When you are enduring the struggle of a health challenge, you only notice what you can’t do anymore. You don’t see the good around you and the possibilities that are still available. You are stuck in a problem-based mindset. You mourn the loss, which causes the loss to become all you give your attention to.
My heart laughs when I see smiles on the faces of my patients who get a glimpse of what’s possible. I know at that moment their focus shifted away from loss and toward abundance.
A solution-based mindset creates a completely different outcome. It is absolutely understandable to fall into the hole of not enough, not anymore, and never again. But you don’t have to stay there.
How do you turn it around?
Creativity.
What if you believe you aren’t an artist and don’t have a creative bone in your body? I challenge that limited mindset. Who defines your creativity? Who do you allow to rule your head and heart?
Just start with something simple. Something you yearn for. Something that helps you forget your loss for a moment. This moment is crucial. This moment opens you up to solutions and changes; this moment tears down your armor.
Take a few minutes for yourself, light a candle, have pen and paper ready. Maybe you listen to some soothing music. You create a secluded space only for you to enter. When you feel centered and grounded, start writing. Write about a time when all was well, preferably about your childhood or any time that felt carefree and open. Take yourself back and listen to this person. Ask her what she loves to do. While you write you’ll feel it in your body when you’ve found “your thing.” Your heart will beat a bit louder or you will get goose bumps. Something will tell you: This is it.
A side note: I know that many people have a fear of writing; think they have nothing to say. This is only for you to see. No judgement. Burn it when you are done. If your writing feels lifeless and flat repeat the exercise the next day or next week. Let your pen write without you consciously directing the words. Just write. At some point you will connect to the younger version of you.
Don’t underestimate the power of creativity in the healing process. My patients tell me again and again that they can see clearly for the first time while they were painting, taking photographs, or making scrapbooks.
Opening yourself to the flow of creativity is another step toward wholeness and healing. What are you waiting for?
Dr. Tiny Jaentsch is an unconventional physician with an extensive background in conventional and alternative medicine. Dr. Jaentsch is located in Germany where she works in a local private practice and as a health coach helping people to unlock the hidden stories that create symptoms and hold them back from living a full and happy life. www.unlocktherealyou.com.
See also:
Clay as a Remedy
6 Ways To Nurture Your Soul
