Someone recently left a comment on a post about health and healing from an energetic perspective, and I thought her questions and my response was helpful for a larger audience so decided to publish it here.
Hi Kelli,
Thank you for the interesting article. I also believe that our inner state is inseparable from our health.
Still, how do you know when to go to a doctor and when to try healing yourself (through thoughts, by shifting your inner state)?
I know we’re supposed to rely on our inner guidance (spiritual intuition), but often it doesn’t give me any clarity (or I simply don’t see it), and then I feel “stuck.” Doctors can do irreversible things — for example, they can pull a tooth, and it won’t grow back. But healing teeth on your own (vibrationally) also seems unlikely, since I haven’t seen examples of anyone actually doing that.
So logically it seems best to go to a doctor, but then it feels like our spiritual path leads us “downward,” because we end up worsening our state by losing a tooth — which seems to contradict the teachings of the Law of Attraction, since everything is supposed to be improving if we follow spiritual path.
Of course, teeth are just an easy example, but the same situation can happen with something like cancer treatment, where doctors may suggest removing major organs — and life becomes much harder without them. In such situations it feels as if the spiritual path itself leads us toward things we don’t want, or doesn’t give us any right direction at all — any direction that would lead us “upward’.
Thank you for your comment and great questions. Lots of stuff to say here, and there can be some nuance to this topic, so won’t be able to address it all in a comment response, but I’ll try for the broad strokes!
As far as knowing when to pursue healing on just a spiritual/’energetic’ level vs. seeking traditional care, I don’t think there is any objective analysis that applies to all people. I largely think it is an intuitive thing.
It also depends on the amount of fear someone may have about the condition. For some people, abandoning any traditional treatment and strictly trying to ‘heal’ through the power of the mind and such would seem like a real stretch.
Also it is really important to remember that employing spiritual methods to healing doesn’t mean you can’t also do traditional treatment as well. It doesn’t have to be a ‘either/or’ type situation.
If totally going the ‘self-healing-route’ would create a lot of fear and resistance, it would be counterproductive.
Like I mentioned in my post discussing the health issues I had, I largely focused internally,but I also did some external things that a part of my mind believed would help. If I refused all of that because I thought I should just focus internally, it would have just added to my negative emotional state, and any fears I had I may not improve, because a part of me would have believed I was neglecting things that could potentially help me.
Also, lots of issues in the world of ‘form’ appear to have solutions on the level of ‘form’ as well so if an issue can easily be addressed by ‘traditional’ means, it would seem to make sense to just do that instead. Following a spiritual path should not make our lives more difficult, nor should it lead us to do things that would increase our suffering, strictly in the name of ‘purity.’
For example, when I have a headache I know if I pop a couple of Advil, it will go away. So I just do that. Now if I were getting headaches or some other problem really frequently, I would definitely stop to think about whether there may be some energetic/emotional component to the issue that may be valuable to explore.
There really is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to go about healing. For many people, it may involve both spiritual/internal work and traditional medications, therapies,etc…and that is fine. But regardless, tending to our emotional health should always be part of the journey as how we feel inside overall can have a huge impact on our perception of pain and other forms of physical discomfort. It gives us a stronger foundation from which to do the healing work in whatever form it may take.