Healing to Heal

I should begin by mentioning that I haven't even been to Bikram yoga in over a week! I don't do Bikram while on a cleanse - it's just too much. Mind you, my cleanse has been over for a few days now! I have been moving a lot of boxes, though, that's for sure. I just helped two friends move, and changed rooms within the same house myself. And I am involved in another school of yoga which has a physical aspect. I can't even remember the last time I did Pilates! I had been riding my bike daily up until a few days ago, but recently the weather has taken a sharp turn for the bone cold damp; very wet, and riding a bike through that kind of thickness can be a buzz kill. Anyway, I'm eager to get back to Bikram's and explore other types of exercise now that I have a nice big room again.

A friend and I were having a conversation this afternoon about the concept of needing to heal oneself before being in a position to heal and/or help another. This seems to be the basic philosophy of certain spiritual schools of thought. We see in social work and medicine, however, that often the person in a position of authority is often in just as bad shape as those he or she is trying to help, which can be troublesome when one contemplates what one might term 'the ideal'. However, that's not to say an overweight doctor with heart issues can't care for his patients satisfactorily. Indeed, he can.

My friend expressed concern that it is often being on something of a troubled state that gets people interested in other people and THEIR problems, and in this way a person that doesn't have their shit completely together might make for a better helper. Balanced, stable, fully realized human beings, on the other hand, potentially lose that drive to really get their hands dirty in the quest to make a difference in peoples' lives.

This got me thinking about a small section I read recently in Shakti Gawain's "Creative Visualization." In it, she writes, "...human nature is basically loving, and so most of us will not allow ourselves to have what we want as long as we believe that we might be depriving others in order to do so."

First of all, what a breath of fresh air it is to think about our species in such a positive light. I honestly feel that it has been beaten into us that the lot of us are intrinsically selfish, self-serving, thoughtless, entitled, greedy, etc and on and on about how awful we are to ourselves, each other, the planet, and even the universe if you get to the level of vibes!

But that's not the point. The point is, the idea that sometimes we feel that if we got the life we truly wanted, the one we almost don't even dare dream about it's so sacred, that would somehow have a detrimental effect on everyone else.

I must admit that on a deep, subconscious level, this belief or something like it exists in me, even though in my waking conscious state I would deny that a person need limit themselves in any way.