Spiritual Healing for War Memories that Can’t be Forgotten

We have called it by many names over the centuries – shell shock and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) are the latest ones. When men and women have to witness sudden death and maiming of friends up close it leaves wounds that can’t be seen on the skin. Here is an interesting approach common to Native Americans and Native Canadians which is now spreading its effectiveness to non-natives – sweat lodge ceremonies. This article by Taki Telonidis written in NPR.org (National Public Radio) describes spiritual healing for war memories that can’t be forgotten. While holding sweat lodges especially for veterans is increasing, this one was held in Salt Lake City.

Spiritual Healing for War Memories that Can’t be Forgotten

Bench started coming to these sweats in 2005 to cope with anxieties related to his combat experience. He found relief in the sweat, as well as a spiritual connection that has kept him coming back.
I just never had any place to turn. I came here and I was given a blessing.
- Cal Bench, Vietnam veteran
This VA is one of just a handful in the country that offers them. A sweat is a ceremony conducted by a Native American spiritual leader in a dome-shaped structure, or lodge. Sweats are common in Indian country.
"It's healing right down to the core of that veteran," says Arnold Thomas, a medicine man from the Shoshone Paiute tribe. He has training in social work and chaplaincy, and he has conducted the veteran sweats at the VA since 2004.
"When they've been overseas in combat, there's a part of them that is left there," Thomas says. "So when we have the ceremonies, there are certain prayer songs that I offer and make that effort to bring their spirit back home."
To read more of this passage, click here.

Having taken part in a number of Native American sweat lodge ceremonies myself, I can tell you it is an intense experience that affects people differently. However, it’s somehow a safe place to “let it all hang out”. Of course with most ceremonies it is often the leader who makes the experiences so meaningful with his or her songs, chanting and prayers. Best of all, no drugs or alcohol are involved. It’s a natural high. If you would like to know more about sweat lodge ceremonies, I recommend this DVD: Native American Indian Sacred Purification Sweat Lodge Ceremony by Bill Elwell and directed by Bob Klein. It’s a good addition to traditional counseling and medication that the VA now provides spiritual healing for war memories that can’t be forgotten in the form of sweat lodges.

Sufi Prophetic Spiritual Healing: An Islamic Method of Healing

Here is the West we tend to focus on either Christian or Eastern healing methods such a faith healing or Reiki healing. Of course there are other forms of spiritual healing from Africa, Australia and yes, the Middle East. Sufism is a mystic/spiritual branch of Islam and is growing in popularity. Here is a short video and description from the University Of Spiritual Healing and Sufism website about Sufi prophetic spiritual healing: an Islamic method of healing. In these days when the followers of Mohammad are distrusted and criticized in non-Muslim countries, it’s refreshing to see this positive growth of Islamic spiritual healing.

Sufi Prophetic Spiritual Healing: An Islamic Method of Healing

If you are in emotional pain due to loss, family issues, or a life transition, or have a chronic physical complaint such as fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome that is physically exhausting and emotionally draining, Sufi spiritual healing can help you. Perhaps you simply are at a crossroads in your life, and would appreciate some guidance.
Sufi Prophetic healing is a gentle and sacred way to impart healing to illness and imbalance of all kinds—physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. We seek to identify and resolve the underlying causes of illness, often originating in the heart and soul. It is said that real healing must occur in the soul as well as in the body in order to be complete. We employ traditional, time-tested methods including spiritual invocations, prayers, and practices derived from the Sufi tradition of love, wisdom and unity.
To read more from this passage click here.

Here is the video explanation be Nura Laird, Director of the Student Healing Clinic from the University located in Petaluma, California.

The healing sessions are done by 3rd year university students one on one by phone, Skype or in person in some locations. While I have not experienced a session myself, they seem to be a combination of counseling and distant healing. If you would like to know more about the Sufi prophetic spiritual healing: an Islamic method of healing, I recommend this book by Linda O’Riordan, The Art of Sufi Healing.

Spiritual Journeys: Tourists Flock to Myanmar

This week let’s look at an interesting place for meditation and Buddhist practice, Myanmar, formerly Burma. As another one of the featured spiritual journeys: tourists travel to Myanmar. It seems safer now that the military government has relaxed the restrictions somewhat as to where tourists can go and what they can do. Here is an article by Paula Hancocks in the Cable New Network (CNN.com, “Religion” section) about these new tourists who are venturing off the usual tourist trails to experience a strongly non-western situation.

Spiritual Journeys: Tourists Flock to Myanmar

One recent visitor is a 23-year-old American Christian named Kym Cole. She said that doing up to 10 hours of meditation every day was difficult but it yielded unique rewards: “It feels like a different world but in a good way.”
Cole is among the thousands who are taking the opportunity to experience what was once one of the most isolated countries in the world as the nation institutes reforms and opens up to outsiders.
Myanmar does not keep statistics on spiritual tourists, but tourism to the country generally has doubled in the past four years. And more meditation centers here are catering to foreigners, capitalizing on their swelling numbers.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, is overwhelmingly Buddhist and much of society revolves around its hundreds of thousands of monks. Temples and pagodas define the landscape.
It is believed that well over 10,000 temples have been built in the ancient city of Bagan alone. More 2,000 survive today. Some Burmese boys learn to read and write at their local monastery, and many go for Buddhist education at some point in their childhood.
High-profile opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who assumed her new seat in Myanmar’s parliament earlier this month, had long cautioned that tourism would provide support to the regime that kept her under house arrest for much of the past two decades.
But a new civilian government was sworn in last year. Although it is still heavily influenced by the military, Suu Kyi is free has stopped discouraging tourism.
To read the original post for this passage click here.

Now please watch this short video so that you can see more clearly what Kim Cole and other tourists seeking spiritual experiences will find in Myanmar.

It’s a promising situation that so many temples still survive after years of the brutal military rule and that they are open to westerners seeking peace, mental health, increased awareness and all the other benefits to meditation and a spiritual path. I wonder if the tourist dollars are still going mainly to this repressive military government, but as more brave tourists venture into Myanmar the benefit to the common people in the form of much-needed cash will increase. This is yet another one of the spiritual journeys as tourists flock to Myanmar.

Spiritual Healing in Abu Dhabi: Chakra Realignment

For those of you who have the luxury of being able to travel to spiritual workshops and journeys or to seek out special healers, I recommend you make reservations to go to the United Arab Emirates and check into a hotel in Abu Dhabi. There you will find a well known world traveler, Shivani Adalja. In this article, written by Sawsan Kazak in the Kuwait Times, we find a description of aura realignment as well as Adalja’s past and the circuitous route that she took to end up in the Middle East. So let’s look at spiritual healing in Abu Dhabi: chakra realignment.

Spiritual Healing in Abu Dhabi: Chakra Realignment

Could your high blood pressure be caused by a misshaped heart chakra? Could that belly fat you have been holding on to be due to a problems with your naval chakra? Could your constant headache be solved by unclogging your third eye? Shivani Adalja, a wellness specialist thinks that some of our physical, emotional and psychological aliments could be due to weak or distorted chakras and confused auras. Adalja runs an alignment institute in Abu Dhabi and helps people and companies around the world realign their chakras and cleanse their auras. Adalja visits Kuwait every few months and works with the Six Senses Spa in the Missoni Hotel in Salmiya.
Technical termsFor those of you novices, here are a few terms you need to know about supernatural energy concepts: Chakras are described as round force or energy centres which exist in the surface of the body of any living being. It is believed that every person has seven chakras (root, sacral, naval, heart, throat, third eye, crown), and that any blockage or distortion in the chakras will cause physical, mental and psychological problems.
The obstruction in someone’s chakras could be caused by past or present situations and it is believed that meditation or cleansing needs to happen if the person is to move forward, unclog the chakra and eventually become more enlightened. Each chakra is represented by a colour. When a person has one chakra more dominant than the other, this will show up in their aura.
The human aura is the energy field that surrounds the physical body. It is thought that the aura is an indication of our ‘true nature’ at any given time in our lives. For instance, if we have a lot of green in our aura, it means the heart chakra is dominant.
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The use of auras and chakras to improve your health is an old concept, but visualizing the problems using the aura colors is a very specialized talent. I look forward to reading Adalja’s new book about this process of spiritual healing in Abu Dhabi: chakra realignment. If you found this article interesting, please share it with you Facebook or Twitter friends. Thanks.

Spiritual Healing Techniques from South Africa

Here are some healing techniques that have been used for thousands of years by the natives of South Africa. While it’s not necessary to say goodbye to modern medicine, this kind of mind over matter method is certainly a good addition to speed up the recovery time. Here is what Clayton Swanepoel writes about these spiritual healing techniques from South Africa in the online paper, The New Age (“Life and Style” section).

Spiritual Healing Techniques from South Africa

What I find appealing about this therapy is that, unlike many other spiritual healing modalities, there is no rush to get you back for a follow-up. When you feel that you need a spiritual top-up, you’re welcome to go back for another consultation but there’s no pressure to make another appointment.
This makes the practice about your healing and not about your money. Life activation works differently for different people and experiences, although similar, often get differing but still positive results.
Johannesburg resident Franz Cronje saw his entire world shift after his life activation session.

“I was a broken man living in a broken world,” he says. Life activation has opened me up to myself, bringing healing to a once broken soul. During the session, Gunther reconnected me with my childhood dreams and aspirations and helped me work through blockages that have been holding me back from achieving greatness. My whole life has changed for the better since the session and I would recommend this to anyone in a heartbeat.”

The key change I felt after my session was a sense of calm about my life and the path I was on. Suddenly it was as though only the important things in life began to matter again.
To read the original source of this passage click here.

It’s important to realize how powerful our minds are and how much healing can be accomplished by programming our unconscious minds. If you wish to learn more about Gunther Dippenaar’s Life Activation Technique and other spiritual healing techniques from South Africa, please leave a comment below to be sent to this author and practitioner. There is no website listed for either of them.

New Book on Spiritual Healer Pioneer, Carl Jung

While Carl Jung is known for his relationship with Sigmund Freud and his theories on dreams, the collective unconscious and personality types, did you know that he had visions as a child, both terrifying and profound? Indeed Carl Jung’s life was a psycho-spiritual journey, and he was able to write about it as well. Claire Dunne has written a new book, Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul in which she includes these lesser-know facts about his life and work. This new book on spiritual healer pioneer, Carl Jung is a great addition to current day understanding of indigo or psychic children and adults.

New Book on Spiritual Healer Pioneer, Carl Jung

The essence of Jung’s human and psycho-spiritual journey is conveyed through Jung’s own words and Dunne’s vivid and lively commentary. Coupled with illustrations and photographs of Jung, his associates, and the environments in which he lived and worked and artwork reflecting his teachings, this beautiful book, divided into three sections, provides a deeply personal look into the life and work of one of the greatest thinkers of our time:

Part 1: “Wounded” takes the reader through Jung’s childhood, medical studies, personal and family life, relationship with Sigmund Freud, and his struggles to become what he was, up to the end of the tumultuous period recorded in The Red Book (Jung’s book of his groundbreaking work in psychology).
Part 2: “Healer” follows the mid-years, a flourishing of professional life, the influence on Jung of his travels to native America, Africa and India, the nucleus of his psychology, along with reminiscences of people who knew him as patients, friends and colleagues. It closes with the dawning turmoil of World War II and an urgent inner call for him to attend to the retrieval of Western civilization.
Part 3: “Of the Soul” opens with Jung’s profound near-death experience at 69, a kind of second initiation. As his personal life began to close down, the great works emerged, including Answer to Job and the problem of evil and other works.
To read more of the original source of this passage, click here.

If you wish to learn more about this new book on spiritual healer pioneer, Carl Jung, click here. Recently I wrote an article myself about the spiritual healing of indigo or psychic children. If you wish to read it, please use this link.

Spiritual Healing from the Dark Night of the Soul

It’s often been said that people have to reach a certain point before they see the need to change and start to “come back up” from their despair and sadness. Jennifer Wardlaw writes about rising like the phoenix from the ashes of destruction to obtain spiritual healing from the dark night of the soul. She has 19 healing tips listed in her “mini-book”, 19 Tips for Healing the Dark Night of the Soul. Here is a summary of her article.

Spiritual Healing from the Dark Night of the Soul

19. SEEING THROUGH ILLUSIONS:        
I saved this tip for last. Because this tip will not help unless all the other lessons have been realized within your heart and soul. This tip comes right near the end of the Dark Night. It doesn’t help when you are deep in it because it feels so real due to your hold on fear.
When I heard this tip, deep in the Dark Night, it caused more frustration, anger, pain, and guilt because I wasn’t ready to let go. But when we let go of fear and face it, we start to see that the Dark Night was never real.
The Dark Night just like the ego only seems to happen within your mind. All of the “demons” of fear and guilt were really angels in disguise. Hell was really Heaven waiting to be embraced. You were in a nightmare, but now you are waking up.
When you are fully present in this moment, there is no Dark Night. No more fear of the future or regretting the past. You embrace everything because there is no other choice that would leave you happy and at peace. And your happiness is all that matters to you now.
When you are ready to emerge from the Dark Night, then you won’t even be trying to get out of the Dark Night. No more fighting. The adamant seeker, addict, warrior, fighter has been let go of, it has died in a way, making room for your true Self-filled with Peace and Love to shine through.
Because you see that it was an illusion. And to want to get out of something means you are making it real. The Dark Night is a defense against the Truth. Because Truth heals all illusions. It is the very last line of defense.
When you realize that this is your own doing, you have the Power to RISE.
Even though when you are in the Dark Night, it feels like you are stuck, it is actually you that is holding onto the Dark Night.
Going back to the fear of the unknown lesson, our eyes have been closed for so long that we fear the Light that we ARE. We have become used to virtual realities and games for so long. But when we are ready, all we need to do is open our eyes to reality. And SEE that we have always been Home.
The main things to know are:
1. You are not alone. 2. Nothing has gone wrong, no matter what the mind says. 3. It will naturally pass when you allow it to. 4. With a shift in perception, you can see this experience as Divinely for you and not against you. 5. You have the Power to choose Love or fear.
To read the original source of the quote, click here.

This is some good advice for everyone suffering through problems self-created or created by circumstances around you. It’s a good idea to post these last 5 “things to know” and remind yourself of them every day. If you found this article on spiritual healing from the dark night of the soul useful, please leave a comment below or share it on Facebook. Thanks.