Healer To Healer™

My healing journey with dyslexia (2)

What an interesting dose of reality to actually write for only the second time in public about my "reading issue," which I've spent my whole life ignoring, coping with, and making excuses for. It's been extremely humbling. Extremely.

So Wednesday I drove with my teenage son for 2 hours up to Wausau, WI, to chat with Anne Mataczynski, a practitioner of the Davis Learning Program. She assessed us and explained how she can train me to read easily and train both of us to still our ADHD-type minds so we can focus for extended periods (like more than 30 seconds) when we need to. She was fabulous, and it was a great day overall. 

But starting Tuesday night, I felt very subdued and quiet inside, avoiding doing anything, having a hard time mustering my natural enthusiasm. The feeling continued through Friday, even after the day with Anne. The subdued feeling felt like a small child cowering within, feeling like she was going to get in trouble for something she'd been hiding a long time, and also feeling sad and afraid at the ending of something. 

So I had a chat with her on the way up.  I explained that I loved her and that she wasn't "in trouble". I said her mind is simply wired to think in pictures and that it's actually a gift.  She can think very fast, be extremely creative and put together things in new ways.  (Einstiein thought this way for pete's sake: he saw the theory of relativity in a daydream, in just a minute or two, and it's taken zillions of books and conversations since then to parse it out.) 

No More Excuses... Will Life Change?

So I told this inner sliver of me that she's perfectly loveable but has simply had a hard time focusing on squiggles that represent sounds that represent meaning. No biggie, we've coped fine. But she knew that now I will lose my excuses for not reading books, mail, and other things... Another part of her didn't want to change, was resisting, thinks of reading as a waste of time, which I think is just leftover frustrations and sour grapes. She was also afraid that life would be very different being able to read well, that we'd lose something. I assured her that with training, we could only gain the ability to read well and wouldn't lose anything. Training wouldn't change us. (Of course, she is me, and I was talking to myself.) 

It's funny, though. I find many folks who are aggresively uninterested in alternative healing are actually at their core (and not always consciously) afraid that the healing would CHANGE them, change who they are, make them into a different person, and that the change would be strange. And here, within me, was a fragment of myself afraid that I would be changed by being able to read well -- how ironic. And how human.

But deeper than that was my core fear, which it took me another day or two after meeting Anne to identify...  If I can read, then I can finish editing my books, and I'll have to "get out there". I've been playing small for a long time, hiding out, and dyslexia may be one of the tools I've used to keep myself small... what will happen when I reveal my gifts? Part of me is terrified.  

Have you ever been afraid of stepping into your potential?

Dyslexia Is a Gift

Dyslexia is a gift, a way of staying in "right-brain", outside-the-box thinking, without being bogged down by linear thinking. For dyslexics, however, the important question is: how can you use this fast and powerful way of thinking to improve life on our planet, instead of simply spending all your energy coping, or avoiding reality?

One of the biggest gifts I've received is that I haven't read many other people's books and ideas about how the world works. Instead of reading their inspired thoughts and "downloads" from the Universe, I was driven to tune into the same station they are listening to, and get my own downloads. I LOVE this connection. And I LOVE sharing the amazing understandings I get for the individuals I work with, as well as insights about the healer's spiritual journey in general. 

This connection will not end with dyslexia training.  Perhaps it's simply time to be able to also glean information from humans via the written word, or to get my own ideas out. Though this fall is densely scheduled and it's hard to take time away from our four kids, I'd like to do this week-long program... I'll keep you posted.

Resources
~ Click on this link to order Ron Davis's amazing book "The Gift of Dyslexia" from amazon.com. I also highly recommend "The Gift of Learning", where he describes clearly and simply what's happening in the mind with ADD / ADHD and other learning issues, and how to help.

~ Visit  dyslexia.com for details, a practitioner listing, and learning materials.  Anne's website is: GemLearningCenter.com. 

My healing journey with dyslexia (1)

I'm writing this post to share my journey as a wounded healer, and to increase awareness of dyslexia and what to do about it.  No healer or healing teacher is perfect, but the good ones are transparent about their issues. Here's one of mine... 

I've always wanted to be a writer, a poet.

When I was little, my mom helped me make beautiful little blank books with wallpaper covers, and I coveted them.  I skipped kindergarten because I could read and write, but in 1st grade I complained to my mom that the teacher was making me read stuff that was too easy.  I was bored.  Like a good mom, she indignantly called the teacher, but after a long conversation full of "I see"s, I was told I could go to the next book only when I could read the one I was in flawlessly. I never let a reading class get me in trouble again, whatever it took (which involved some lying later on...).

I have always loved poetry, however, the shape and taste of the words, the rollercoaster of movement and colors, the pictures and rhythms, the profound and delightful insights, the game of hidden meanings,  and always, always a touch of God within each stack of lines.  I spent many an hour in high school typing up my favorite poems to keep in a folder, reading them over and over, so delicious.

Except for poetry (which you are allowed to read slowly and repeatedly), most of the time reading has been a chore. It just takes a LOT of energy and focus. To read a book today, I have to be really, really motivated, and I rarely get past the first three chapters. I spent a lot of time reading in my childhood to escape, but I wasn't exactly speed reading, and often had drifted into a reverie with the book still propped up in front of me. In my 20s, I gave up on reading fiction because I'd get the characters mixed up, particularly useless in the mysteries I liked... (Though since I don't remember what I read, I could read the same mystery again 6 months later and not remember at all who did it, an infinite source of entertainment!)  

In college, my grades 100% correlated with my attendance at lectures, since I barely did any reading (or homework for that matter).  I remember one night before an econ exam when I actually cracked open the book in desperation, and just... could... not... get my eyes to make the squiggly rows into meaningful information to save my grades. Couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, must be really tired.

Life as an Editor

I actually worked as an editor in corporate marketing, producing 1- or 2-page financial reports and newsletters full of very short articles -- dry text with a limited vocab.  I actually used to joke that if *I* could read it, it was good:  easy to read, organized, clear and with great transitions.  But I also found out pretty quickly as a freelancer that I could only bill for 1 hour when I worked 2 (so I doubled my prices -- oddly, I'm a very good editor, perhaps because I edit until the words "feel" right, like poetry). Once, however, I took on a 24-page white paper and was simply unable to edit it.  I kept reorganizing it, like a 2x3 matrix that I kept flipping on the diagonal, first one way and then back again, rewriting all the segues. Eventually I had to hand it back undone, humiliated and wondering what was wrong with me that month.

I'm not stupid.  I managed to graduate from an Ivy League university without reading much. The only thing hard about college was making myself show up at classes I didn't care about, which was most of 'em after the first three chapters.  

What kept me confused was that once in a blue moon I could pick up a book and read FAST and EASILY.  Usually I read out loud in my head, but sometimes I could zip along and understand as I went, without having to reread. Those rare moments of clarity and my tremendous practice of self-doubt made me question the slew of other times where reading took Herculean effort and I couldn't retain it anyway. 

Still, for 42 years, I thought I was normal, just usually "too tired" to read, or "out of practice" from not reading enough as an adult. I had lots of excuses, and lots of ways to cope.  Anything that came in the mail longer than one page went into my husband's mail pile.  As an energy healer for a decade, I did work on my "reading issue", and definitely took the edge of it.  I can 99% of the time find the correct next line now.  I can spend much longer reading, and do get more comprehension than I used to.

The Turning Point

But in June of this year, I attended a spiritual event before which I promised myself and the Universe that I would finally step up and truly do what I'm REALLY here on the planet to do, for real. With that intention, I had an epiphany just before I left that I am indeed here to create and lead the Int'l Institute for Practitioners of Genuine Healing. 

One of the things I'm here to do in that role, ironically, is to write a book for healers about our unusual spiritual journey. I started writing last January, and it's been tedious, painful, massively time-consuming, and exhausting. Don't get me wrong: it's also been the best thing I've ever done, ever.  I poured out 120,000 words in three months last summer, but it's the organizing, breaking everything down into small-step logical sequences that's killing me. My original book is now a series of seven. 

Two days after I came back in June, as I sat praying and feeling how I want nothing more than to share the amazing information I feel like has been 'downloaded' into me for healers, I watched as my hand opened a new window on my computer and retrieved an interview, which I'd listened to before. This time I listened with a different ear. I cried, and for the first time in my life I was ready to both truly admit that I might have dyslexia, and for the very first time, I wanted to get help from someone else to DO something about it.  

Sometimes, the first step to healing an issue is simply to see it, to authentically recognize it for what it is. Like a child clenching a stinging wasp in a fist closed from fear and pain, in the simple action of opening to what we've been carrying around hidden from ourselves, we automatically begin to let it go.  

Almost every detail in my life story above is typical of a dyslexic mind, as it turns out. By reading Ron Davis's book "The Gift of Dyslexia", I am coming to understand how my mind works, why I can read perfectly well on rare occasion, how I get off track reading, and how I can get myself back again. It has been astonishingly helpful, and I highly recommend this easy-to-read book if you have a dyslexic you love in your life.

I come from people who tend to say, "I don't need help," but tomorrow I have an appointment with a Ron Davis practitioner for an evaluation.  I'll let you know how it goes.

To be continued....  

Resources

~ If you'd like to hear the FREE interview with Ron Davis, born dyslexic and autistic, that helped me so much, go to Conscious Media Network, enter the site, and find Ron Davis in the list of interviews in the upper left corner dropdown menu.

~ Click on this link to order Ron's book "The Gift of Dyslexia" from amazon.com. I also highly recommend "The Gift of Learning", where he describes clearly and simply what's happening in the mind with ADD / ADHD and other learning issues, and how to help.  Dyslexia is a GIFT, and in another post I'll tell you what it's gifted to me.

~ Visit Ron's website for details, a practitioner listing, and learning materials at dyslexia.com.

Q&A with Daria: Am I a healer? What do I do about it?

Q:  Who is a healer and how can you tell?  Are healers chosen by God, or is there just something an average person starts to do one day that makes them a healer?  Do healers have certain gifts other people don't have?

Most of all, how do I know if I myself really am... a healer, and what do I do about it?

A:  These are questions that obsessed me, too, early in my spiritual journey as a healer, and still drive me to seek answers even more deeply, more than a decade later.  Back in the beginning I was feeling the pull, getting strong hints from the Universe that I was a healer, but doubting and feeling very uncertain about it all -- after all "healer" wasn't on the list of recommended careers at the high school guidance office!  I don't remember my parents ever telling the neighbors they wish I'd grow up to be a healer, either.  ;)

After I finally admitted to myself (though it felt rather pompous to think at the time) that I was a healer, then I wondered whether I should do anything special. How could I be a good healer? How could I help others -- and myself -- heal, at the utmost level possible?

Here is what I have discovered in over a decade of mentoring other healers and helping them to heal so that they could maximize their potential to create healing in the world:

(1) Yes, you are a healer: choose to step into it.  It's actually true that everyone on the planet has the potential to awaken their inner healer, when and if they decide to. This is not an easy decision, though sometimes it even seems to happen by itself!  It helps to know what's involved in being a healer as well as to get the support and guidance to do it well.  But so often, healers get in their own way.  We think our technique is what heals and we undervalue what we do and who we are.  Choose to step FULLY into being a healer and learn what that means so you can do it.  (I had to figure all this out for myself: it's not commonly taught anywhere!  And that's why I've founded this blog and the Int'l Institute for Practitioners of Genuine Healing -- to help you fully unleash the master healer within you!) 

(2) What you do about being a healer depends on what sort of healer you are and why you're here.  Learn whether you are: a wounded healer, creative healer, healer to healers, a trickster, etc. You may be different types of healer in different areas of your life, too.  Learn how each type of healer operates and creates healing, and then allow yourself to do that!  Also find out your healing mission, exactly what you came here to do (hint: It will be easy for you!) and step into that, too.

(3) Once you begin to activate your inner healer, understand genuine healing and learn how to move forward along the spiritual path of the healer towards it.  Your natural healing gifts awaken when your inner healer does.  Find out what these gifts are and what suppressing them feels like.  Learn the shape of the healer's spiritual journey and how to recognize (and get out of) common pitfalls as well as how to move quickly through learning cycles.  

Most importantly:  If you are a healer (and of course you are, or you wouldn't be reading this!!!), I assure you that the Universe guarantees you can unleash your inner healer and fulfill your unique healing mission.  Nobody can be the healer you are better than YOU.  Nobody else came here with the healing mission you have, and nobody can fulfill it but you.  It may be to heal a single relationship, or it may be to help thousands heal.  Either is equally important as the other, and only you can do it.  

And you CAN do it.

Listen to your heart, and find the place inside you that KNOWS and has always known you are a healer. I assure you, it is in there! Then get the help you need to find and implement your mission to maximize the amount of genuine healing you can create in the world.

I love you. Go heal!

Further Resources:  Sign up for our emailing list (upper right corner on this page, free ebook offer) for announcements about our upcoming book and teleclass series, Awakening Your Inner Healer.  Learn two basic archetypes of healers (the wounded healer and the creative healer).  Hear about the nine attributes of healers, how these natural gifts work, and how to avoid letting them trip you up.  Finally, commit to five steps that will take you fully onto the path of the master healer.