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Using Shamanic and Jungian Techniques for Healing
- Dr. Carl Greer
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Welcome to “Healing From Within. I am your host Sheryl Glick author of Life Is No Coincidence and The Living Spirit: Answers for Healing and Infinite Love which shares a tale of awakenings, spiritual communication, healing, miracles and ways to go within to an intuitive sense of soul life. Today I once again welcome Dr. Carl Greer author of his newest book Change the Story of Your Health. Dr Greer a former guest of the show may be heard discussing his book Change Your Story Change Your Life on my website www.sherylglick.com on the radio page.
Listeners of “Healing From Within” are well aware that my guests and I share intimate realizations about the nature of life from both an energetic and physical reality so we might begin to conclude that we are truly the masters of our own fate as we deal with karmic social and environmental influences. In today’s episode Dr. Greer will offer suggestions for dealing with a chronic condition or figure out how to cope with a sudden health issue like an accident or illness. Dr. Greer is an author, clinical psychologist, shamanic practitioner and Jungian analyst, and uses a mind body spirit approach to indentifying our health story showing how to use journaling dialoging and expanded awareness practices to lead us to better health wellness and greater self awareness of personal and collective behavior and perceptions.
Greer focuses on four key areas of personal health that often bring challenges including eating, drinking movement, flexibility balance, stamina and strength; sexuality, body image and acceptance of life transitions such as menopause and andropause; and the management of acute ailments and symptoms of health conditions such as autoimmune disorders and cancer. Readers who begin using the practices on a regular basis will find it easier to let go of what is no longer serves them and bring in whatever can help them live according to a more satisfying health story.
Dr. Greer suggests using expanded awareness practices such as journaling exercises which may begin by including questions such as, “If there’s a saying, song, book, or movie title that expresses your story about this aspect of your health what would it be. A couple of examples are “Keep on keeping on, no matter the cost,” and I deserve it, I earned it, I’m eating it.” This sounds like fun but we can also see that by doing this you illuminate what is important to you and what may be missing from your life, even what your attitude and experience of health is. Sheryl remembers when she was seventeen and saw the show, “Man of La Mancha, the story of Don Quijote and his search for truth, justice, fairness and love. The song “The Impossible Dream” moved her greatly and thinking about these very same words now seem to be reflective of the values and journey of her soul. So finding or remembering your soul needs will greatly enhance your understanding of self and encourage choices that will bring health prosperity and compassion into your life.
Sheryl following Dr Greer’s suggestion goes on to think of the title for her next book which is New Life Awaits…Creating Your Best Afterlife by Living Consciously Now. Sheryl is inclined to remember that it is each part choice or experience of our life that can be seen as new reinvented or remembered on a daily basis, both now in life and later on in energetic life. So Sheryl often tells people to wake up each morning and say “I am in a fit and healthy body and face the day with hope and awe for meeting new people and having new experiences.” By surrounding ourselves with the energy of hope, positivity and good thoughts, we create much of that in our everyday experiences. The Law of Attraction describes that which we focus our attention on eventually manifests including both our fears and our desires, so we must begin to take responsibility for our thoughts and actions.
Dr. Greer goes on to talk about dancing your health story through learning more about what you’ve experienced, gaining insights about for example, your feelings about aging, or losing some of your strength and stamina after an injury. He poses the question, ”What would dancing your health story involve? Carl Greer wrote,” The question is, “What is healing,” and “What is health.” We like to define healing as a return to our previous state of wellness after becoming injured or developing a disease. However a return to the past may feel impossible…so Healing may mean adjusting to a new health story that you seem to be living, or a commitment to wellness that results in you becoming a healthier you. What if despite aging injuries health conditions and illness, you could not only return to the state of health you enjoyed previously, but improve on it. If your goal is to live well then you might see health challenges as opportunities for attaining greater vitality strength and stamina and greater appreciation for your body and the pleasure it gives you, and to have a better relationship with it.”
Dancing your health story would include expanded awareness of….. what works/good habits, connections, being informed, partnering, genetics and family history, stress, goals, payoffs to resisting change vs. payoffs to change Identifying themes and patterns, origins of challenges, concerns about mortality He gives stories of people who have used his practices to gain greater self awareness and in turn improved the quality of their health and in general gain new perspectives on how to move past restrictions and ideas that no longer work for them. An example of a client helped by expanded awareness practices is Olivia. Oliver shows how her journey to learn more about how to overcome gastrointestinal problems she was having helped her discovered she needed to let go or change her attitude or relationship with competitive rowing, an activity she had enjoyed for many years. By experiencing symbols and figures in her trans- meditative journeying state, she discovered she was taking competitive rowing too seriously and the stress created by her need to win was contributing to her digestive issues…furthermore, as a result of this new awareness she ended up feeling less concerned about whether she won or lost, and in doing so won a state of peace and wellness for herself. Sheryl discovered in the next paragraph a key to her own health story…many people spend too much time sitting and this contributes to a risk for developing dozens of chronic conditions: from cancer and diabetes to cardiovascular disease and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease…..repetitive stress injuries and deterioration of neck and spine due to sitting all day are two examples you might want to address this topic in your new health story. This is an issue that many of us have to recognize and work with to improve the quality of our health.
Expanded Awareness practices involve reaching higher trans states through meditation In Carl’s book shamanic journeying and dialoguing are two important expanded awareness practices for gaining insight. Dialoging can be done with symbols inner figures emotions health symptoms your inner healer, the earth the sky your resistance to changing a habit that is affecting your health and so on. Many aspects of your personal story including your relationships, your emotions and moods, your job or vocation and your connection to God, Spirit Source or a higher power can affect the story of your health which in turn can affect these other areas of your life. We all know that being ill, feeling run down or having to manage the symptoms of a disease can make it very hard to be giving and attentive in our relationships, feel positive and optimistic and find the energy and focus to address challenges at work. Conversely health improvements lead to a better story fewer acute ailments less physical discomfort or pain and make it easier to remain active and focus on other aspects of your life. ANOTHER IMPORTANT PAYOFF YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE CONSIDERED: It can help you to contribute to the wholeness and health of society by affecting the energy field we all share. Whenever Sheryl does Reiki healing sessions or mediation she remembers to feel blessed and honored to be part of a mystery that is bigger than herself or her clients…
Sheryl agrees and has discovered that same gratitude for life: both our physical and spiritual and wrote in her book, The Living Spirit, “The assistance received from spiritual influences will be in proportion to our wish for help and to the effort we expend in our self-growth process in this life. I also learned that everything in the universe including our physical bodies is made up of pure energy and that working with this energy can affect a healing that repairs our bodies and allows our souls to move towards greater levels of awareness and expansion. I became more and more fascinated by the different modalities of energy healing and was eventually guided to begin my Reiki studies at the Association for Research and Enlightenment in New York City….I have learned through meditation and traveling to other realms and levels of consciousness that each moment is an opportunity to remember I must be grateful to be alive, conscious and comfortable with my own energy physical body and spirit
Throughout the world the idea of a universal interconnected grid comprised of energy where we can access insights and energies that affect the physical body as well as the psyche is a part of many healing traditions. The existence of an unseen world and and what lies within it may be important not only to our physical health but for healing mentally emotionally and spiritually. Carl and Sheryl share a moment of synchronicity when Carl tells of a tree in nature that lit up from the bottom to the top with a radiating pulsating light when he was a young boy and Sheryl is reminded of an event that happened in Maine where she miraculously saw the same sight and truly understood the book she had just read The Celestine Prophecy where the mysteries of the Unseen world of energy were first shown to her in theory, and then proof of it in that moment in Maine by seeing the illuminated tree showing her the interconnectedness and beauty of all life.
Dr. Greer talks about an inner healer that we all have. The inner healer or our eternal soul essence connected to invisible realms of life can be engaged when we incorporate techniques from Jungianism as well as from shamanism which is practiced by healers in various culture all across the globe. Shamans recognize a unified energy field and work with the energies of nature and with transpersonal realms—places we can all experience that exist in another reality and are accessible only by shifting one’s consciousness into a trancelike state. Information brought back into ordinary reality in the present can help us work with the past, so that it lives within us differently and we are no longer caught in old habits thereby allowing us to align with a future that is more desirable for us and Spirit. You can learn to be your own shaman through discipline, focus and practice as well as a willingness to recognize the value of shamanism beyond merely fixing problems in the physical realm. Shamanic work awakens a person to greater awareness of the interconnectedness of all that is seen and unseen. This often leads to a greater sense of healing than merely addressing health issues using allopathic (Western) medicine. Healing from the same root word as whole may involve reintegrating into your life what was lost or forgotten, and what your soul cries out for, whether it is a renewal sense of worthiness, mystery, joy or purpose. A guide can also be an inner healer who will help you achieve the insights you seek and assist you in releasing energy you no longer need and in bringing in energy you will find beneficial.
We can all learn to work with our inner healer to learn something about our health that we might not discover otherwise. Through visualizations and meditation we can access the inner healer and activate the ability to help ourselves by becoming a master of our thoughts and using clearing techniques to alleviate the condition and improve or eliminate the tumor or health issue.
Carl wrote, “The way to access the invisible world, collective unconscious or transpersonal realms is through expanded-awareness practices that alter consciousness. Altered states are often associated with feelings of profound wellbeing and rejuvenation, harmony within oneself or with nature, experiences of timelessness and reduction of physical pain. Jungians and shamans would say that achieving these states has benefits beyond helping you to feel good. Altered states of consciousness can allow you to access insights and energies you can use to change your health story and achieve healing”
Many of Dr. Greer’s expanded awareness exercises involve posing the question, “What do I need to release or let go of? And, “What do I need to bring in? to achieve better health?” What’s behind asking these two questions? It follows that Expanded Awareness lets you see the positive possibilities for any condition that you are passing through. For example, If you identify yourself as a diabetic or asthma suffer you might derive certain payoffs depending on the health story you write and tell yourself that these payoffs which might include feeling sympathy from others: getting out of social situations: or being part of a group that share a common experiences of diabetes. These payoffs might also offer you excuses for why you haven’t been as productive as you want or achieved certain goals for yourself. You might or might not be conscious of these payoffs or you might decide there are better ways to achieve your goals and begin to feel a sense of control over your choices and decisions. Expanded-awareness practices can bring to light unconscious obstacles to achieving better health. The truth is you are not your condition; or your pain and you might have more power to manage them than it appears on the surface. When you identify with your health challenge you lose your ability to work with them and they begin to control you and dictate what your health story is. Uncertainty about your physical health and mortality can lead you to think about time and how you wish to use it. Although these topics can be painful to explore they can lead to transformation
Sheryl tells Carl of a story that just happened, ”You know Carl the other day I had a client feeling so sad and she had such serious back pain that life almost seemed not worth living. What she was lacking as so many people are, was self love and self care, and respect for her own needs and soul direction. She was busy blaming others for her life problems and was unable to let go of her control instincts so she would be able to learn how to allow and accept people to be as they were, even if she didn’t like their behaviors. Since we can only change ourselves, we must protect our loving energy and our joy in life and not allow others who think and behave unconsciously, not yet be aware of their spiritual divinity. We can only wish them well and pray that someone upstairs looks after them until they awaken to new possibilities for self improvement and change. We can’t allow pieces of our soul to be given away or taken away by those who do not love themselves, much less love another or life.
Most people often don’t think about their health until there is a crisis, such as getting a cancer diagnosis. Dr Greer offers ways to help when someone might suddenly have to deal with bad news about their health. As you explore your health story it will soon become clear that energy feelings and thoughts, both conscious and unconscious, are intertwined and can influence your physical health. For example, anxiety can cause heart arrhythmia and hyperventilation, while heart arrhythmia from atrial fibrillation can cause anxiety. At the core of energy medicine including shamanic approaches for healing is the idea that there are energy fields surrounding and pervading the physical body and by working with these fields you can improve your health. You might think of the physical body as encased by a mental/emotional body which in turn is encased by a soul body and beyond that a luminous energy body.
Understanding that beliefs and emotions affect the luminous energy body around us and the body can develop imbalances and areas of disturbed stale heavy or dark energy that will in turn affect the mental/emotional and even the physical body. A shaman would say that if you were to heal an illness, but not deal with the thoughts, causes and emotions of the illness, it would probably return. Monitoring your thoughts and emotions may prevent an ailment reduce its intensity promote physical healing or improve your immunity…..
So incorporate energy healing modalities into any treatment plan for any continuing physical condition.
Sheryl feels that after reading Change The Story of Your Health it will become abundantly clear that healing usually involves a new mind body spirit assimilation of thought and action…the shedding of long held ideas that may no longer work for you, and a reevaluation of relationships and what is important to you in life. Learning you are not in control of what events may happen but you are in control of your response and greater realization of a larger plan at work that is actually helping you explore your inner world or eternal soul sense of life is the only way to truly know yourself and others, and some of the deeper purposes for our physical reality. Reflection and asking for help are beginning ways to love yourself and life, and to create healing on many levels
In summarizing today’s episode of Healing From Within we have not only addressed changing the story of your health but also discussed enlarging the greater view of who we are as spiritual beings having a physical life in an effort to develop greater self-awareness and self mastery of our emotions, This view ultimately leads us to have gratitude and faith in viewing all the challenges and events of a life as opportunities that brim with possibilities for finally knowing the true nature of our human and divine nature. Using expanded awareness practices are the key to gaining insights along with mindful breathing and silent time in nature, which help to find the inner map that helps overcome fear and allows you to create joy and positivity. Dr Carl Greer in bringing together Jungian and Shamanic healing approaches helps readers to know the value of mindful change within attitudes and our lifestyle and also the need for greater acceptance and patience in dealing with everyday life challenges. Furthermore, he shares a greater awareness of the beauty and worthiness of all passages through time in a life cycle that affect our sense of Self and shows us how to honor all events with hope and trust in the larger view of our eternal soul nature. By simply knowing this we can improve our physical health story immensely.
Dr Greer writes “ Going forward I hope you will continue to use this book’s techniques not just for yourself but with others to help them in their quest for greater wellness. Many people need healing and working with others can help them and you to feel a sense of community support as you step into a new way of relating to your health… through the power of story and the power of claiming your role as the storyteller.
Carl and Sheryl would have you remember that while events may sometimes happen unexpectedly and surprise us, that is the way life unfolds, and we hope you can learn to relate to a larger view of the world of energy and your inner life through using the many tools of energy medicine, meditation and community involvement. When you help yourself to grow…. the world around you grows impressively more wonderful.
