This month we have Martin
Brofman, PhD, teacher,
trainer, and author.
Love
Heals
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!
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
© 2009 Martin Brofman |