When Loved Ones Don't Like Your Approach to Healing

Have you experienced this? Someone that loves you doesn’t agree with how you want to go about approaching your healing. Or maybe you are on the other side of this experience. Maybe you are the one that is really uncomfortable with your loved one’s choices.

I meet people and hear stories about people on both sides of this significant concern…children that were concerned when one of their parents chose an allopathic approach to cancer that included chemotherapy, spouses that couldn’t believe their partner only wanted to use alternative means for healing, doctors that didn’t approve of their patient’s use of energy healing methods, and individuals that wished they had done more than listen to their doctor’s advice.

This is a very sensitive area for many of us. It is extremely difficult to watch our loved ones make decisions for themselves that we are afraid could cause them to become worse off, and it is equally difficult to be clear about how you want to heal yourself, and hopefully gain the support of your loved ones, especially if you choosing a healing approach that they don’t particularly like.

If you try to argue a case about what approach or methodology is right, you are going to have a difficult time. Data and statistics help us make wise decisions. And so do the heart and intuition. The latter two are less tangible, but equally important. Some healing approaches have proven to be effective, but if your heart and intuition are telling you it’s not right for you, there is a good chance it won’t work for you. I believe the greater question to be asking ourselves, whether we are the one being healed or the one concerned is this: “What is my ethical responsibility.”

I know for some of you, what I’m about to suggest is going to be very difficult to consider, but I’m going to ask you to withhold any judgment and consider this concept with me. To clarify, I am talking about adults of free-will right now. Whether you believe that you were given this body or you chose it, at some level there was an agreement that you are the caretaker of this sacred creation. Therefore, you are the one responsible for the well-being or the release of soul in this body. No one else is responsible for your soul in your body…not your doctor, healer, spouse, children, parents or friends. You are the one that lives in this body, and unless you are unconscious, you are the one responsible for the care of your body.

If you decide to surrender your care for any given amount of time to the expertise of a doctor or into the hands of a healer, for example, that is your prerogative. The responsibility of care may be released to someone else for a little while, as surgery or energy healing is being done. It is temporarily released, not turned over completely.

This is where we have become confused about healing. We have been operating from a model for hundreds of years that allows us to have the impression that healing is about someone else. In order to heal you find the right person and method and turn yourself over completely. However, as I say in my book, The Root of All Healing, “It is the human spirit that beats the odds and continually redefines the playing field of human existence.” That means that if we really want to heal, we need to be fully involved, and responsible for our own healing journeys.

My husband has looked askance at me a few times when I told him I was going to use my Sound Medicine to heal something, without going in for tests or seeking any other advice. Just imagine what was going through his mind when I told him that I had a dream explaining that the symptoms I was experiencing were onset symptoms for MS, and then told him I was going to heal with sound.

He was concerned and I’m glad that he cared enough to be concerned. He questioned me at length about whether or not I should be seeing a doctor or another healer and I’m glad he did, because sometimes I’m too close to my own condition and ultimately do heed his advice by getting help. Then there are other times, as with the onset symptoms of MS, where I heal the condition on my own.

I have chosen to be very clear that I am 100% responsible for my healing journey, and I respect in that my husband’s healing journey is his own. He loves me and I love him, but we are both clear that I am the steward of my body and he is the steward of his. (And I can assure you if he wasn’t clear about that, I would be, regardless.)

What we have learned to do is respect each other in a process of exploration. I listen to his concerns and his questions, considering whether or not he is making suggestions that feel right to me. If my intuition speaks strongly that he is bringing a solution to me, I follow his lead. If on the other hand, my intuition tells me I need to move forward by using my own gift, that’s what I do, until I am completely healed or meet someone along the way that my intuition tells me to see for additional assistance.

My husband checks in periodically on my progress from a place of genuine care, as I share with him my discoveries. He is not condescending toward me if I have chosen to heal with my own energy when he would have found a doctor. Nor do I attempt to persuade him to choose a less expensive route when he has decided on a healing approach that will cost us hundreds or thousands of dollars.

When I can see that he needs healing attention, I don’t push or insist he take steps that I think would be good for him. I make suggestions, and the rest is between him and Spirit. Even if I would make different choices, I stand by him in his, because I know how difficult it can be to make choices as conscious caretaker of one’s own body.

In the end, we don’t always get our spouse’s or our loved one’s approval about our choices. The best we can be is true to ourselves and ask for the loving support of those that love us.