Uma Sanghvi helps people release fear & anxiety, connect with their Higher Self wisdom and live a radiant life of rest and joy.
I’ve noticed a troubling pattern of behavior lately. I’ve noticed it in clients, friends, and even myself.
It’s a pattern of “doing tons of healing work”. Getting lots of energy healing and clearings. Spending hours on techniques and practices to change thoughts and heal chronic symptoms. Going to many different practitioners.
Lots of “doing” energy. Lots of trying hard to make the discomfort go away.
In some cases (not all), the results have been painful.
After days or weeks of “doing tons of healing work” I’ve seen friends and clients go through emotional flooding. Overwhelm and suffering.
Which leads me to this: instead of doing MORE to heal your (physical or emotional) pain, what if you actually need to do LESS?
Less striving.
Less self-pressure.
Less perfectionism.
Less resistance.
Less rigidity.
More rest.
More gentleness.
More play.
More allowing.
More flexibility.
With myself, what I’ve noticed is tons of self-pressure and the idea “I need to be doing more”. I need to spend more time on my morning practice. I need to read more books about healing! Ahhh! So many books and so little time!
And yet, this pressure-filled approach hasn’t worked for me all that well. Stressing about doing more has led to nothing except feeling bad about myself.
The underlying belief of this “more is better” approach is: “there’s something wrong with me. I need to fix it.”
What if that isn’t true?
What if you’re not broken and you don’t need to be fixed.
Here’s what I believe: your essential self is whole, eternal, divine, timeless and made of unconditional love. It’s like a diamond – a clear, brilliant channel of light. You shine light a million watt light-bulb.
As you go through life, trauma acts to distort your light. It’s like layers of dirt on the diamond that is you. The dirt dulls the outward reflection of light.
This manifests as anxiety or chronic pain. Depression, insomnia, tension, worry.
This dirt has ZERO effect on your essential self. The diamond is unharmed. True, the light that’s reflected out into the world is diminished because of the dirt. But the diamond itself is not diminished.
In fact, it never changes. No matter how much trauma gets layered on it, it’s clear. Perfect.
If you measure your worth by the amount of light reflected into the world, you’ll convince yourself that you’re “less-than”.
Not good enough. Lesser. Defective.
It would be like the sun measuring it’s worth based on how much light reflects off the moon. Imagine the sun, a brilliant ball of fire, feeling deeply unworthy during a lunar eclipse. Hanging it’s head in shame: Why am I so awful? I am nothing. I don’t even exist.
After all, zero light reflects off the moon during a lunar eclipse.
But the magnificent, glorious, powerful sun is UNCHANGED. It’s radiance is undeniable. Nothing needs fixing. It’s just that something got in the way of it’s light shining.
This is exactly what happens when decide that you need fixing. It’s because your attention and presence is on the wrong thing. This is what happens when you lose sight of Who You Are.
Sight being the key word…
You focus on the dirt. You focus on the light being blocked. You focus on everything except for YOU.
So of course you go to every healer or doctor around. Frantically doing more and more and more to fix your “problem”.
What if the real (and only) problem is how you pay attention. And what you’re paying attention to.
If there is any work to do at all – it’s in healing your sight.
Your attention.
When your bring your attention home, healing happens.
As Stephen and Ondrea Levine write in the book “Who Dies?”
“Healing is the title we give to the phenomenon of the mind and heart coming back into balance. When this harmony is restored we say that someone is healed. But often we have a preconception about what healing is. Our attachment to ideas of healthiness obstruct a deeper perspective on what illness and healing may be all about. The deepest healing seems to take us beyond identification with that which causes and experiences sickness.”
This is one of my favorite passages from one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s our attachment to ideas of healthiness that get in the way of true Healing.
Just to be crystal clear, I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to doctors and healers. Please do so, as your body and your soul requires.
What I’m saying is this: don’t go with the idea in mind that “there’s something wrong with me, and someone else can fix it”. Instead, when you go, remember Who You Are.
Those layers of dirt come off far easier when you are paying attention to Who You Are.
When your thoughts are in alignment with the truth of Who You Are, you’re helping your healers and doctors to do their sacred work.
Luckily, there are tools for learning how to pay attention in this way.
Attention is a funny thing. It’s transformative. It’s healing.
When you learn how to use your attention for good (instead of for evil – as a weapon against your self) – you switch out of the frantic “doingness” mode and into Healing mode.
You stop running in circles. You start getting clear messages about what your body and soul needs. What IS actually needed to get that layer of dirt off? Your soul guides you to the right path.
The right guide. The right tools. At the right time.
There’s a relaxation. A letting go of “trying to figure it out.” An allowing of healing energy to come to you. It’s receptive instead of striving.
It’s not about doing more work, or meditating for longer, or reading more books or seeing more practitioners. It’s about being-ness and then taking aligned action.
When thoughts and actions are flowing in the same direction, magic happens.
Remember that you are the diamond, not the dirt. You’re not the moon or the eclipse.
You are the sun.
Nothing was ever diminished.
Pay attention.
You are brilliant!
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