Bertram Daniel

When I decided to heal myself of terminal cancer in 1976, I heard the idea that "love heals." Everyone seemed to know this, and since healing myself was now a matter of life and death for me, I decided it would be a really good idea to add this to my self-healing arsenal.

I had been diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor at the level of the neck, and it had been declared inoperable and untreatable. I had been given one or two months to the year before, and by some miracle, I was still alive — perhaps because something in my consciousness had changed in terms of my attitude toward life.

I still had to find a way to get rid of the cancer, and the idea of using love for that sounded like something I could use. The only problem was that I was not really sure what love is, and I felt like I needed to be sure in order to use it for my healing.

I looked around at what people were calling love, and much of it didn’t make sense to me as a healing force. It looked more like domination ("I love you, therefore now I tell you what to do" ) or slavery ("If I ever found him with another woman I would do this or that to him…"). Certainly, there were a lot of different ways of expressing love, but these were not the emotion itself that I needed to use.

I went to hear a conference entitled, "What is love?". The person talked for two hours, and the conclusion of the talk was, "Love is." Perhaps that made sense to the person speaking, but I knew no more than I did before.

One evening I was alone at home in a meditative space, considering the question of love, and a symbol appeared on the wall, which I understood as a message from my Spirit. It was heart with light shining from the center, and the number "1" visible through the center and extending to the outside of the heart, with the word, "Acceptance," written below.

For me, this was the key to the opening of my heart chakra, understanding the true nature of love, and knowing when I was feeling that force that heals.

I used the symbol as a visual meditation, seeing different messages in it each time I looked, and understanding that this was because of the nature of my perceptual filter each time I looked at it, according to what I was feeling or going through that day.

One day it said to me, "Acceptance is Number 1." Another day the message was, "Open your heart. Look inside. See the light." Another time it was "Accept your individuality, and the individuality of others."

I could relate to Acceptance as something I could use to raise my vibration from a solar plexus place to a heart space. Accepting "what is" allowed me to emotionally accept the situation that existed, to remove the emotions about what was happening in order to be in a clear space from which I could change the situation. Accepting people as they are, rather than deciding how they should be, allowed me to let go of control, which I understood to represent tension in the solar plexus chakra, and see them from a clearer sense of freedom in the solar plexus, and in fact, to see things about them that I could appreciate, at the level of the heart chakra.

I found that if I thought of someone I judged, and the quality about them I thought was "wrong," I could ask myself if I could remember a situation in which someone else could have used those words to describe me — and I always could. Of course, I could easily tell myself that when I was in that situation I had a good reason for doing what I was doing — and then I could understand that perhaps, that other person might have the same good reasons — and then I could see the other person with compassion, and perhaps not so different from myself.

I recognized when I was feeling the love, by the sensations in my heart, and I felt I had something to work with, something I could add to the other tools I was using to heal myself.

I decided that in a meditation I would surround myself with people who I know loved me, and to feel the love, the connection I felt with them. I could then take the feeling, the physical sensation that I recognized that went along with the emotion, and direct it to the part of the body that needed it, feeling that part opening to the love, accepting it, and feel something happening there, a little more each time I did it, until I felt no more symptoms. Eventually, when I went back to the doctors for a new examination, they decided they must have made a mistake.

There is a way to read the body as a map of the consciousness within, in order to determine the inner cause to a physical symptom. The key to this map is the chakras, the energy centers found in Hindu philosophy. Each chakra represents certain parts of the consciousness and certain parts of the body. When there is a symptom in a particular part of the body, we can see that it represents tension in the person’s consciousness about something specific happening in their life at that time.

There is a personality profile associated with each symptom, a way of being that is not really who the person is, but rather what they have been doing. There is another personality profile associated with having no symptoms, a way of being that is always accessible in the person’s consciousness, and that is who the person really is. Healing is about releasing the stressed way of being and returning to our natural state of balance. We can say that anyone with a symptom has not been themselves.

Why would someone choose to not be himself or herself? Either as an expression of love, to change in some way in order to be loved, or as a reaction to the perception that they are not loved, or would not be loved for who they really are.

When we don’t feel the love, we look for evidence that it is there or not. "He did that, therefore he loves me," or, "…therefore he does not love me."

We are surrounded by people we love. An interesting question to ask ourselves is, "How much time do I spend during my day feeling the love that I have in my heart?"

Do we focus on the love, or on other issues that we have allowed to get in the way of the perceptions of love? If we have been filling our consciousness with the fears, anger, insecurity, and issues that are not really that important, we can choose instead to hold our attention on the love, and feeling the contact, reminding ourselves if we need to that this is really the most important thing in our lives, and what we need to do to remain healthy.

The more time we spend feeling the love that is always there, the more we strengthen our immune system, making it easier to release any symptoms and maintain our natural state of health and balance.

Love really DOES heal!

© 2009 Martin Brofman

About the Author:

Martin Brofman, PhD, author of Anything Can Be Healed, and Improve Your Vision, (Findhorn Press) developed the Body Mirror System of Healing and A Vision Workshop after having healed himself of terminal cancer in 1976. Brofman Foundation — http://www.healer.ch

I thought that this was worth reproducing. I hope that you liked it

Namaste

Bertram

We work with, play with, service‚ or are related to difficult people. Difficult people yell, explode, and try to intimidate you. If your life is free from these hostile and manipulative people, read no further. However, the probability of encountering these people is extremely likely. Although the difficult people make up 3-5% of the population, they create over 50% of the everyday problems!

Certainly, we all can be miserable, hostile and basically pretty unpleasant at times. But difficult people are this way all the time. A brief encounter with a difficult person leaves one angry, frustrated, and demoralized. These people go right for the jugular vein. The negative behavioural patterns they learned are used strategically to wear you down. Their only objective is to win regardless of who stands in their way.

Difficult people have learned to be this way because it is effective for them. Their hostile and negative behaviour serves them well. Their arsenal of aggressive behaviour catches their prey off guard and then renders them helpless. Consequently, after a confrontation with these people, it’s not unusual to feel mentally abused and frustrated.

The first step in coping with a difficult person is to understand why they behave this way. Generally, these people are unhappy, insecure, and have low self-esteem. Early in life they learned to get their needs met in maladaptive ways, such as, being the bully. Although there are different types of difficult people – some are overly aggressive, while others may be passive-aggressive – their dynamics are similar. Like all human beings, all they want is to be loved and accepted. Unfortunately, they have learned inappropriate ways to achieve this.

These behavioural patterns are deeply ingrained in the personality of the difficult person. The overly-aggressive difficult person (one who bullies, explodes, screams, etc.) uses their aggressive posture as a defence mechanism. Because of their weak and fragile ego, they need to protect themselves. Their best defence is a strong offense-aggression. Therefore, they feel in control of themselves only in a situation that allows them to feel powerful. But it doesn’t stop there. Like all weak people, their insatiable need to feel secure makes it necessary for them to win – and to win at any cost.

The second step in trying to cope with difficult people is to distinguish between a person who is having a bad day and one who is a difficult person. Keep in mind that difficult people make up a small percentage of the population. However, having an encounter with one makes that percentage appear larger.

The first way to help distinguish between the two is to reflect on the history of the person. In other words, "Is the behavioural pattern normal or unusual for this person?" The difficult person is this way all of the time. A non-difficult person who is having a bad day is just reacting to a particular situation.

Another approach in distinguishing between the difficult person and a person having a bad day is found in the way you communicate with them. Although hostile at first, the non-difficult person will eventually respond to your effective communication and rational reasoning. The difficult person will be relentless in their pursuit to beat you and win.

To help you maintain composure when confronted by difficult people, it is important to keep three things in mind. First, you can never change the difficult person. The old saying that a leopard never loses its spots holds true with the difficult person. These people need to be this way and for them to change is to expose their vulnerability.

When confronted by difficult people, remain focused and be firm. Like spiders spinning their webs, they are trying to trap you. By bombarding your ego with insults and intimidation, they want you to lose control and fight with them. When this happens, they "got-ya." Listen to them, maintain direct eye contact and when appropriate speak in a clear firm voice. It is easy to become wrapped up in the heated situation, so remain detached and distant from these people. Doing so helps keep you from becoming entangled in their web of misery and hostility.

The final step that will help you cope with the difficult person is to not personalize the problem. Certainly, this is easier said than done. Between wishing they would be different, thinking you can really help them, and trying to survive their emotional assault, it’s difficult not to internalize the problem. Yet, in order to cope effectively with these people, it is crucial to maintain your self-esteem.

Some of the following thoughts might be helpful in your attempt to depersonalize the situation:

"This is their problem, I will not make it mine."

"I’m not going to allow anyone to dictate my behaviour."

"They want me to fight with them, I won’t allow it."

"Their need to be difficult is a cover-up for their own inadequacies."

"I have the choice to play or not this game."

The bottom line is that trying to cope with difficult people is never easy and is quite frustrating. Trust the fact that all people have trouble dealing with difficult people. Although it may not seem possible to deal with difficult people effectively, remain confident in your abilities and coping skills. And keep in mind that engaging in an argument with these people is a no-win proposition. In fact, the only way for you to win is to elect not to play.

About the Author:

Keith Levick, Ph.D., is a health psychologist who has been in practice for 20 years and is an Adjunct Professor at Central Michigan University. He is the founder and director of the Centre for Childhood Weight Management, a unique treatment program designed for overweight children, located in Farmington Hills, MI, and in YMCA’s throughout Michigan. Dr. Levick is also the President of Goren and Associates, a training and development company. Some of their clients include GM, DaimlerChrysler, Detroit Diesel, AT&T and other Fortune 500 companies. Dr. Levick serves on the Executive Board for the American Heart Association and is well published in the area of health and wellness.