This
past Saturday morning I went to a Peace River Center for Writers at Edison
State College. I met another writer there, Irwin Schinkel. We had a phone conversation
this morning and he asked me to answer what I want my book/s to lead to. Did I
want consulting jobs, to be hired as a speaker, or….
Irwin
is United Methodist, so he was curious how I went from my United Methodist
roots to Unity. I was sharing how much passion I have around serving God by
helping us integrate physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We
spoke of the chaos in the field of medicine, and how social institutions are being
challenged at this time in human history. Some of you know that my personal mission
statement is Living, encouraging, and enjoying a conscious spiritual
journey.
Over
a decade ago, when my Joel and I formed a partnership and started developing
materials and leading workshops together, my goals were more in the realm of
wanting consulting jobs to train professionals in what we call "Subtle
Communication Systems." We got our program approved by Association of
Massage & Bodywork Professionals (ABMP), and we saw ourselves creating a
legacy by training trainers and having them help to spread this integration. We
also produced the audios and expected sales of our CDs and books.
At
this point, I do not want to travel extensively to teach and train, and both of
our homes have closets stuffed with about 800 copies of Healing with
Language: Your Key to Effective Mind-Body Communication. We have talked of putting out boxes (like
they do for puppies or kittens): FREE TO A GOOD HOME.
Having
not been successful in building a sustainable audience for our trainings, but
still desiring to make a positive difference in the world, my goals shifted to
creating a more passive revenue stream from books and audio files. This led to
the creation of http://ImagineHealing.info (for patients), and
http://SurgicalSupport.info (for professionals).
I
admit that it can be very challenging to provide a service or product to those
who do not know they need it!
Below
I have copied an article from the November 2010 edition of our monthly Beyond
Mastery newsletter. I shared it with Irwin, as an example of what is important
to me.
Inner
asking led to some significant answers to Irwin’s question of me: I realized if
something (book sales would be great) could generate enough money, I would
build a space where people could come to heal. Some would come to learn
meditation, some would come to teach it. Some would come to receive integrative
medicine therapies, some would come to provide those services.
Many
of those who have the desire to serve holistically and have learned the skills
to do so have too few people access their services to make a living.
Integrative doctors, such as those in the AHMA (American Holistic Medical
Association), or ICIM (International College of Integrative Medicine), represent
about 2 percent of the field, but everyone deserves to have truly integrative
care, and our planet will benefit, too.
The
insurance industry and big pharmaceutical firms have created a culture of
illness and we have called it “health” care. Dee Edington, (his book is Zero
Trends) says medicine is now the largest employer in the US, and illness
the most lucrative industry. Because illness is the money-maker for the
industry, no one within that industry is really invested in helping people
avoid illness.
But
it is not just about medicine, and I am not just militant about all of this. I
am called to empower individuals to wake up. Patch Adams said we could stop the
insurance industry immediately if groups of 100 would pool resources and share
risks as cooperatives. That was the idea behind the original Mutual of Omaha.
There was no self-serving industry getting rich off the people.
I
am all for people developing wealth. Richard Bandler says the best way to help
a poor person is not to be one. I am for living our lives from soulful
principles that alleviate suffering where we can, provide support where we can,
empowering ourselves and inspiring ourselves to live with peace of mind, as well as peace in the world.
I
told Irwin that I am honored he has taken care to make contact with me. I
consider that an answer to prayer and I trust that there is some divine
movement happening that we will watch with deep joy. You can access all the
archived issues of the newsletter, but here is the November 2010 issue I sent to Irwin:
Culture
Shock
People keep asking me
if I have recovered from my trip to Thailand. Some may be asking about jet lag.
Some may be checking to see if I have readjusted to being back to work. I think
I have some sense of what they mean, but I usually tell them that in some ways
I hope that I never do.
Dealing with reverse culture shock was the subject of a CNN Internet news
article by Tas Anjarwalla, “ Dealing with Reverse Culture Shock" (August
24, 2010). I have begun to put notes together for a book about the trip, so
looking back at my Facebook entries and reviewing the video log are helping me
make sense of things. In some ways, what I am experiencing now is helping me
make more sense of the way I was affected by my first trip to Brazil to see
John of God back in 2000.
As
the article says, people expect to experience culture shock when they go to
a foreign country, but coming home can actually be harder than going abroad.
I miss the food. I went for Thai food the night I got back to US. I had my
leftovers the next day, then I went for Korean food. I asked my friend at the
Thai restaurant if he could make sweet buns. He said they are too
labor-intensive, but I can get them in Chicago.
I
miss the sounds. I don’t wake up to cuckoo bird, and I don’t go to sleep to
gecko here. I miss my new friends from Thailand. They feel like my new family,
and I don’t know if or when I will ever see them again.
There is something deeper that I miss, however, and that is the part I hope I
never “get over.” I miss the kindness and the respect I experienced in the Thai
people. It still brings tears to my eyes when I feel the way I was cared for.
That feeling produces longings of its own….
They say if you want to know about water, don’t ask a fish. And if you want to
know about air, don’t ask a bird. In a way, having grown up in this culture, I
never really saw it. I know it has some benefits, too, otherwise people would
not come here. My friend, Jimmy, who owns the Thai restaurant here in my home
town of Saint Joseph, Michigan, grew up in Bangkok. He graduated from law
school, and took a job with Volkswagen, and traveled to and lived in 22
different countries. He determined the U.S. was the best place in the world to
live. I am glad he is here…. He is helping me recover from the reverse culture
shock.
I
am sure part of the longing is to be with people who value something I value—meditation.
Once, in a far, far away time, as the hunger for this inner experience began to
drive me, I ended up leaving my home church because an adult Sunday School
class called “Listening for God” that I wanted to teach was such a radical
offering it threatened the director of Christian education.
“You feel so rushed in this culture and bombarded with things,” said returned Peace
Corps volunteer coordinator Jodi Hammer. Even though scientific research has
been proving for years now, few Americans have any idea that their lifestyle is
killing them. Interestingly, I even think of it as killing them, not as killing
“us.”
The chronic disorders: heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure; as well as
cancer, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, etc., have all been shown to be
preventable with lifestyle changes. Dean Ornish, M.D., included one hour per
day of yoga, meditation, or guided imagery (along with just a healthy diet
and 30 minutes of exercise 6 days a week), and over 500 genes were positively
influenced—cancer-causing genes were turned off along with cancer-prevention
genes being turned on. This was after just three months! A bit more of the
reverse culture shock article reads:
Anyone
who’s been abroad, even for a short period of time, knows how hard it can be to
keep quiet about your adventures, but you want to be careful not to sound
pretentious or affected about your stay abroad.
Every
time the word “recycle” is mentioned, no one really wants to hear about the
Indian village you taught environmental basics in, but that doesn’t mean what
you learned overseas isn’t important or interesting. In most situations,
preventing that glazed-over look comes from knowing when and where your worldly
knowledge is wanted.
People keep saying to
me, “Debra, you are so quiet. What is going on?” I resist the urge to say that
my heart is breaking just being back home, but in some ways it is. My heart is
breaking that I have been teaching this stuff for a long, long time and yet,
too few of the people I love have an understanding of the importance it has for
their lives. My heart is breaking that we are offering a $2,500 NLP course for
just $500 and people think they are too busy to take the time to attend. My
heart is breaking that people die too soon, too scared, and too ignorant and
yet the culture I live in is, for the most part, too arrogant to notice what
they are missing.
Maybe 40 years after he clinically discovered that humans have the capacity to
elicit the relaxation response rather than live in fight-or-flight, the new
book by Herbert Bensen (author of The Relaxation Response) will tip the scales
and wake up the medical community. The new book is called Relaxation
Revolution: Enhancing Your Personal Health Through the Science and Genetics of
Mind Body Healing. In it, Dr. Benson and William Proctor present the latest
scientific findings, “revealing that we have the ability to self-heal diseases,
prevent life-threatening conditions, and supplement established drug and
surgical procedures with mind body techniques.”
The online information about the book says that in a special “treatment”
section, Benson and Proctor describe how these mind body techniques can be
applied—and are being applied—to treat a wide variety of conditions.
I
heard once that the heart only breaks in one direction—open.
I
hope that is true … and I hope that someday those of US who think
we have all the answers because we have all the stuff will be able to look at
ancient cultures and notice that things like chanting, and meditating, and
laying on of hands, and enjoying dreamtime, and revering nature have a place in
relieving us from this modern madness.
