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The Excitement of the Search -
Looking for the Self Behind the Symptom
By
Judith Hendin, Ph.D., N.M.T.
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Partnership with All Treatment Modalities
I completely agree with working in tandem with traditional treatment,
especially with major diseases. In every case where I have seen
healing, deep inner work in conjunction with traditional medicine
created a tremendous partnership.
Healing factors can synchronistically coalesce. I have seen cases
where a person did a dramatic session that uncovered a self behind
a symptom, and not long after told me that their herbal remedy clicked
in and started to work. Or all of a sudden they found a new doctor
who gave them solutions to their problems. In these cases where
healing factors coalesced, the system had been primed, and all the
factors leading to healing had lined up.
Stories of Healing Through the Self Behind the
Symptom
Responsible ~ Playful (a headache)
Walt, a manager at the Crayola Crayon factory in the town where
I live, slunk into my office with his head pounding.
“It’s been a long day, lots of pressure and decisions,”
he explained. “My head throbs at the end of a day like this.”
I responded, “Your body can lead us to inner medicine. Something
inside you is trying to get your attention, as if it’s tugging
at your shirt sleeve, saying, ‘Please come find me.’
I guarantee you that whatever it is will enrich your life and may
even heal your body. Would you like to explore?”
He screwed his eyebrows skeptically. “Shouldn’t I just
take my usual pill?” he asked.
“That’s up to you,” I answered. “But wouldn’t
you rather handle the headache without putting a chemical into your
body, just using natural means?”
“You mean like herbs?”
“Herbs are wonderful, I use them a lot myself. But I’m
talking about something even closer to home. I’m suggesting
moving energy within yourself to heal yourself.”
“What’s involved?” Walt asked.
“We’re going to make an assumption, Walt. We’re
going to assume that energy in you needs to shift so you feel like
a different ‘you,’ and that shift in energy may affect
your body so much that your headache may lessen or even disappear.”
“I’m game. Let’s try.”
I instructed Walt to lie down and relax. Then I said, “Walt,
tune into the headache, into its energy. How does it seem to you?”
“This sounds a bit weird, but I’m actually getting a
sense of something gray, like pressure. It feels thick and heavy.
It feels serious and penned in.”
“Good. That’s how you’ve felt in this long work
day. Now let’s imagine a different ‘you’ that
would be the opposite of that heavy, gray, serious pressure. How
would the opposite energy look?”
“Hmmm. It would be light, yellow, no pressure.”
“If this light, yellow, no-pressure energy could speak, what
would it say, Walt?”
“’Play’ That’s weird, but it says ‘play,
be lighthearted and playful.’”
“Why don’t you stand up and let yourself be playful
for a moment, then?” I encouraged him.
“You’re kidding, Judith.”
“It wasn’t my idea, Walt. The notion of playing came
from your headache. Why don’t you trust your body and try
it?”
“All right.” Walt rose, put his arms in the air and
took a few dancey steps side to side.
“You look a little playful,” I said.
“Yes, I feel like playing,” he smiled. So we did. For
a moment we just acted silly, grinning and laughing together.
Then I asked, “How’s the headache?”
“Good grief, it’s gone,” he said. And it stayed
gone for the rest of the hour.
That whole process lasted five minutes, but it’s taken me
a decade to be able to work with a symptom so succinctly.
Inner Child (pain in wrist) – You Know
You’ve Found the Self When the Symptom Disappears
Joe and I were dealing with the pain in his wrist. His Inner Child
began to come up, and as his Child spoke, the wrist felt better.
Then it hurt wildly when we switched to another subject. That was
the Child saying, Stay with me!
One Part Wants ~ Another Part Does Not (fertility)
There are times when we want one thing yet something in the body
seems to defy us. In fact, there is one part of us that wants this
thing, and another part of us that may not. Marla, a therapist,
wanted to get pregnant. After a long time of trying, she and her
husband entered an embryo implantation program. She supplemented
the medical procedures with creative visualization to envision the
uterus accepting the fertilized egg and the embryo taking root and
growing healthy and strong. She was concerned about the possibility
of multiple births, as often happens because three or four embryos
are implanted, so she added to her visualization that she would
have one child.
Then I suggested we speak with her body. I asked her to see the
uterus with the embryo taking root, and to just pay attention to
whatever came next. We were both dazed at what happened. She “saw”
two hands pushing the embryo out of the womb and then brushing their
hands as if “wiping their hands clean of it.” Clearly,
there was a part of Marla that wanted a baby and a part of her that
did not.
Caretaker ~ Freedom/Sensuality/Carefree (arthritis)
This case of arthritis cleared up in couple of weeks. Here’s
who spoke:
CARETAKER: A lot of people say, “Help me, help me, help
me.” I’m like a ship with so many people on board,
they’re falling over the sides. I’m so laden that
I can’t float on the water anymore. But I don’t know
how to stop. I’m exhausted. I might have to die. I don’t
know what else to do.
FREEDOM: I know what to do. I want freedom to dance. I haven’t
danced in a long time. I would be light, less responsible. I would
float in the water. There is a way.
Another Frightened Child (shaking like a leaf)
At the annual Penn State Women’s Conference, Shakti Gawain
was the keynote speaker, and I was to introduce her. I am normally
relaxed speaking in front of people, but as I picked up the microphone
this day, my body started to tremble. I tried to hide it as I gave
a rousing overture to Shakti’s talk. Immediately after her
keynote address, Shakti and I co-led a workshop on Voice Dialogue
and the Psychology of Selves. With fifteen minutes left at the end
of the workshop, I decided to demonstrate my own selves that were
present right then and there, though, as always, I wasn’t
sure who would come out. First came a Power side who said she loved
the booming voice created by the big microphone I was holding, loved
the pink silk suit and matching heels I was wearing, and loved teaching
with the great visionary Shakti Gawain.
Then the opposite self appeared. A total surprise to me, out came
my inner child, shaking like a leaf. So that’s who was in
me shaking during the introduction! She bent over, frail and shy.
“I’m tired and I’m scared, and I hate these high
heels,” she cried as she slipped them off in front of the
500 onlookers. “I just want to go home.” Several people
said to me afterwards that, after two hours of talking about subpersonalities,
that demonstration brought home to them the reality of selves. And
it brought home to me who had been shaking.
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