Echo Bodine - My Big Book of Healing Restore Your Body, Renew Your Mind, and Heal Your Soul

I would like to dedicate this book to all the people
who have chosen this lifetime to heal.
Your journey is not easy but so worth it.

Remember, it's not about getting to Oz;

it's about the journey on the Yellow Brick Road.

ALSO BY ECHO BODINE

_______________

Echoes of the Soul

A Still Small Voice

The Gift

The Key

Hands That Heal

Look for the Good and You'll Find God

The Truth about Ghosts

Copyright 2008

by Echo Bodine

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

Cover design by Adrian Morgan

Cover image by iStockphoto

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

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fax: 434-296-5096

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If you are unable to order this book from your local bookseller, you may order directly from the publisher.

Call 1-800-766-8009, toll-free.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bodine, Echo L.

My big book of healing : restore your body, renew your mind, and heal your soul / Echo Bodine.

p. cm.

Rev. ed. of: Passion to heal / Echo L. Bodine.

Summary: A revised version of Passion to Heal, this is a guide and workbook to help people overcome physical and mental ailments and addictions--Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-57174-588-0 (7 x 9 tp : alk. paper)

1. Mental healing. 2. Mind and body. I. Bodine, Echo L. Passion to heal. II. Title.

RZ400.B63 2008

615.8'51--dc22

2008040731

ISBN 978-1-57174-588-0

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed on acid-free paper in the United States

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I would like to thank the following people for helping me on my journey:

To my dear family, the Bodines. We've been through a lot together, and I'm grateful for all you've given me. I love you.

To my chiropractor and longtime friend, Dr. Marcie New. How can I ever thank you for all of the help you've given to my body, my mind, my emotions, and my soul, as I've moved through my healing process this lifetime?

To Dick Fowler, Mary Teberg, Marilyn Meade-Moore, Rev. Don Clark, Rev. Phil LaPorte, Rev. Ken Williamson, and Lifeworks clinics, for playing a major role in my healing journey.

To my insanely funny (Emperor of the Universe) publisher Greg Brandenburgh for believing in this book and for all your support. You make writing a book a fun adventure.

To Wendy Lazear, an amazing editor with integrity who had the same vision for this book as I've had. Thank you for your beautiful insights and for keeping my voice in the book.

To every one of you very special people, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I f attempts to find expression fail or are blocked, the repressed feelings will eventually make your body sick. It is my belief that most illnesses are caused by repressed or disowned energies within us.

Shakti Gawain

The first edition of this book was published in 1993. For quite a while the Universe had been nudging me to write a book about the healing process. I kept pretending not to feel those nudges, remembering how much was involved with writing my first book, Hands That Heal(New World Library). Writing a book is a lot of work, and I wasn't sure how I was going to say the things that needed to be said.

I have learned over the years that I always get the higher guidance I need when I ask for it, and this time was no exception. As the nudges to write this book continued, my course of action was revealed through a dream that returned for three nights in a row. The dream was simple: I was standing in front of an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting, telling my life story to everyone in the group.

Anyone who has ever attended an AA meeting knows that members stand up in front of the group and give testimonials about their lives, telling about how it used to be before AA and how it is now. These stories provide support for everyone who, like the speaker, is in the process of recovering.

After having this dream for the third time, I realized that I was being told that I should share parts of my own healing journey with my readers. I should tell them about growing up in an alcoholic family, being addicted to alcohol and pills, being sexually abused as a child, being an unwed mother, suffering from depression, having poor health during much of my life, and, finally, experiencing my own healing.

In short, I should write a book about my healing journey, as well as the healing journeys of many of my clients.

And so, I begin.

Let me start by answering two questions that nearly every new client asks me. First, is Echo my real name? Yes, it is. And second, how did I become a healer? The second question is less easy to answer.

When I was seventeen years old and a junior in high school, I went to my first medium for a psychic reading. At the time, I was a typical teenager. I wanted to ask about my future husband and how many children I would have. Would I go to college? If so, which one?

Instead of answering any of these questions, the medium told me that I was born with psychic abilities and the gift of healing. She told me that one day I would be a well-known healer and psychic. I would teach others about their psychic abilities, would write books, and would become known throughout the world. I was stunned.

The medium could see other things, too, like the fact that my father was at home that night with a migraine headache. She told me to go home, lay my hands on his head, and ask God to use my hands to heal his headache.

When I got home, I told my dad everything the medium had said and asked him if I could put my hands on his head. He was as nervous and doubtful about this whole thing as I was. The only two healers I'd ever heard about were Jesus and Oral Roberts. You can imagine how tough it was for a shy, seventeen-year-old girl to think of herself as having abilities like theirs!

Nevertheless, my dad agreed to let me place my hands on his head and try to heal him. After twenty seconds my hands started to heat up like little heating pads and trembled a bit. I was scared to death! After about ten minutes, I felt my hands start to cool off. I removed them, and my dad announced that his headache was gone. Gone! No more pain!

That night, I couldn't sleep a wink. I kept wondering, Why me? What does this mean? Why did God give me this ability? I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility. I wondered if news about my healing powers would spread and all the sick people in the world would depend on me to heal them.

As I lay in bed that night I asked God if He would please help me understand. I had always believed in Him, although I didn't know Him very well. Still, I felt confident that the help I was asking Him for would come.

A few weeks later, my psychic abilities began to develop. Every now and then I heard voicesvoices that called my name or whispered something only I could hear. I never knew when I was going to hear these voices. They would just come out of nowhere.

One night as I was returning from a friend's home at about 1:30 in the morning, I was about to turn onto Highway 5, the fastest way home. I heard a voice say, Take Highway 7. The voice seemed so real that I looked in the back seat to see who was there, but nobody was to be seen. As I approached the Highway 5 turnoff, I decided to ignore the voice and take the shorter route, but as I began making the turn I could feel something holding the steering wheel, preventing me from doing so.