Jonas - How healing works: get well and stay well using your hidden power to heal

What we think heals often doesnt, but almost anything can heal.

Most of what we think produces health actually does not. But there is an inherent healing capacity within us all that, when properly released, can produce remarkable recovery, health, and happiness. The healing process is understood and applied in many wisdom traditions and by wise physicians today, but has been obscured by modern medicines obsession with small parts, and the technologies, techniques, and chemicals that manipulate them. While many of these technologies are extremely valuable, this hyperfocus and the economic rewards driving them has largely squeezed out the essence of what medicine is all abouthow to guide a person to healing, wholeness, and well-being.

Lets take a closer look at how we heal.

We were miles into the jungle, and my best buddy, Hien, was injured. I was scared. How would we get him out? Although we spoke hardly a word of each others languagehis, Vietnamese, and mine, Englishour communication was clear. How would he get back? Would he die out here? There was a war going on, wasnt there? Hiens ankle was markedly swollen. Large amounts of blood collected under the skin. He could barely stand, much less walk on it. Maybe I could run out of the jungle, find my dad, and see if he could call in one of those American military helicopters. I tried to say that to Hiens father, who was the scout master, but he looked unconcerned. We would camp there that night, he said in Vietnamese, and continue hiking in the morning. Then he turned to me and said in broken English, Hien be okay, Wen. No worry. But I didnt see how he would be okay.

Hien and I were both nine years old, and I was his only American friend, which was not surprising, given that I was the only nine-year-old American boy in Nha Trang, Vietnam, in early 1964. My father was a chaplain in the military, assigned to serve the spiritual needs of American service men and women in Vietnam. At the time, America was not engaged in active combat, and military advisors could bring families there. My father had asked us to come. So, with four kids, ages two to twelve, in tow, my mother packed us up and we moved to Nha Trang, a lovely coastal village in the center of the country. We lived near the beach, in a four-bedroom French villa, on a fenced-off half-acre lot complete with biting red ants, large gecko lizards often found in the house, and pigs running through the yard. The weather was hot. My mother was occupied with volunteer activities and taking care of my two younger siblings; my older brother was off at boarding school. I was largely free to roam the town. Just be back before dark, my mom would instruct. Trust and faith seemed to be part of both my parents natures. A bicycle allowed me to get around the town at will to explore. My father spent most of the week ministering to soldiers in far-off posts and would return on weekends to execute his church duties, visit people in the hospital, and hold services on the base.