The Difference Between Healing and Curing

I tend to be on the wordy side, so I will begin with the tl;dr (too long, didn’t read) version first.

I use the word healing on this website quite often, but what does that mean? To me, it is hoping for a cure, but trying to increase healing in every way possible.

Curing: This is one most people think of when they hear the word healing and think about doctors. It is when an illness is gone and there are no symptoms.

Healing: An approach that looks at the whole self in sum, and recognized that healing is about having a greater sense of peace with the present. It may include a reduction in symptoms, but is often a longer process then curing as it works at building a solider foundation.

Both aim to increase quality of life, but healing will help you come to terms with what you can’t change and be happy with it anyway. It is from an inside out perspective.

Healing should not be, and is not separate, from the modern medicine way. Healing may be a focus on making someone happiest in the situation they are in, but sometimes that is what modern medicine also seeks to do when it doesn’t have a solution.

With spiritual healing, many feel like it should bring them a miracle because it touches on something beyond and greater then ourselves. It is there to bring hope when modern medicine feels like it has failed us. Over the years, my definition of the interplay of healing and curing has changed. But I want people to understand what the process of healing entails, because that is what I try to help my clients achieve. There are times where I have done work, and my clients report near miracles and cures. Often, there are much smaller victories, or healings that seem to do little but later on it’s realized that it is has opened a gate to something greater that can bring a gift we never expected. Healing has no guarantees and can look like so many things it can be easy to miss. I hope that all my client’s find the cures they are looking for, but until then I try to help bring healing to them in whatever form I can.

 

So after saying all of that, let me elaborate more in the longer version. Both healers and doctors may try to find the cause of a symptom. Doctors tend to stick more to whatever level (mind, emotional, physical) that they have been trained on, while spiritual healers tend to look at it in a broader sense. They realize causes may not be on the same level that the symptoms is. Once the cause is found it can be targeted.

This is not to say that the healer is always better then the doctor. Not all doctors are rigid in their thinking, and with their strong knowledge of the body can do a lot of good for some people. Some spiritual practitioners may have a general idea to look at all the levels, but they may not be trained properly to work on those levels. No matter the type of practitioner, they are human, which means they make mistakes. These can come from being too rigid in their views to open up to possibilities, or being under-educated on a topic without being aware of it, refusing to keep certain healing avenues open and much more.

Keep in mind that causes may not be just one thing, and finding a cause may be more like finding a puzzle piece and moving it. Healing can be a very subtle process.

Any type of dis-ease on the emotional, mental, spiritual or physical level can create problems on any of the other levels. But by looking at the mental, emotional, and spiritual levels it’s possible help heal on other levels. Healing an ailment on the spiritual level can sometimes also prevent physical ailments from manifesting.

Taking a holistic healing approach is a process that it is more of a journey then a quick fix that we sometimes associate with modern medicine. The client must actively participate in it acknowledging and changing problems in their thinking, nutrition, environment and other sources. Without active participation, the client can only hope to achieve temporary suspension of symptoms at best as the energy can only help to temporarily correct the problem. It is not a magic bullet.

Think of spiritual work as either a cleansing and/or conditioning solution to help the individual move toward positive change. Although sometimes this is enough, it’s much more effective if the client learns proper energy management and healthier thinking and behavioral patterns. This involves both wanting change, and the will and desire to create and change sometimes fundamental parts of themselves. It is work, but it can be rewarding.

Often times people get upset that when they have a specific problem the guides may speak about it having an emotional origin such as suppressing anger or sadness feeling that this means that the client somehow deserves the illness because they did or didn’t do certain things. By stating that certain diseases are partially a result of certain emotional conditions, the guides are not trying to create a sense of blame.

We are all spiritual beings living in a physical body where we are constantly learning and growing. I feel that identifying the cause of a problem should not be seen as blame which bogs the person down with another negative emotion. The condition is how it is, and we are complex beings who experience emotions and illnesses from a wide variety of intertwined sources.

One might ask then, if blame isn’t the reason for bringing up the emotional issue then what is? Energy healers often see illness can often be a teacher. If anger, for example, is one of the many factors that contributed to the disease, then by changing that pattern we can get closer to curing the ultimate disease, possibly preventing it from getting worse, or at least help in other areas of our life. This also illustrated the interconnectedness of the symptoms of the Self. The illness has successfully gotten us to slow down and become aware of something we need to deal with. Again with healing, this is a holistic approach and we often work around the main symptoms as much as we may work with the symptoms themselves. Although this can frustrate people, it is again a necessary part of the process.

Healing is a very complicated process, in the end aimed at creating long lasting change, by taking a holistic approach to eliminating the cause of dis-ease rather then just targeting the symptoms. As it isn’t a simple process, as it forces the client in need of healing to take an often uncomfortable look at their lives while finding the courage to change destructive mental and behavioral patterns. Although healing isn’t guaranteed to completely eliminate symptoms or conditions, it is aimed at creating more favorable conditions for it, while raising the personal standard of living.

In short healing can be a difficult path, but it can result in increased happiness, fewer symptoms, and extensive personal growth. We can all hope for, and seek, the right factors to be cured of what troubles us, but when we focus on healing then we can call a brighter new day no matter whether we find a cure or not.