Doorways of Support and Inspiration:
Healing Your Mind/Body/Spirit

Working with Life Threatening Illness Shakti Gawain
 
Obviously, with a life threatening illness or accident, the growth process is greatly intensified. Many people find that a critical illness causes them to confront major issues and, through this confrontation, gain life-changing awareness.
 
Some illnesses are here to help someone transition into another plane of existence. Again, we need to be careful about judging ourselves or others for having a serious illness or for any of the results that follow. We need to understand that death can be a legitimate and positive choice, not a failure to heal. Who are we to judge the journey of our own or another person's soul?
 
My sense is that our physical death is a choice we make on some level consciously or unconsciously. At this stage of our evolution, most of us make this decision unconsciously, for example, we "fall victim" to an illness fatal accident.
 
Fortunately, we are becoming more aware of the process of death and dying, and learning something about how to honor and support that process. I believe that more and more of us will be able to choose to depart from our physical bodies when the right time comes, in a clear and conscious way.
 
My personal experience in working with people on deep levels indicates that when someone has a life threatening illness, there is a part of that person that wants to die. Usually, they are completely or mostly unconscious of that part. Generally, they are only aware of the part of them that wants to live. If they can get in touch with the part that wants to die and bring it to conscious awareness, it's often possible to find out why that choice is being made.

By getting in touch with the parts that want to die and the parts that don't, it is possible to make the choice a more conscious one. Oftentimes, on a deep level, the person may be feeling that his or her emotional needs are not being met and has given up on life. By consciously discovering this, there is a possibility for a great deal of healing, which may result in an extended life or a more peaceful death. On a spiritual level, the person may feel that they have accomplished what they needed in this life or that they'll be able to accomplish the next step more effectively on a different plane of existence, or in another physical lifetime.

Not long ago, a woman I'll call Carmen came to one of my week-long intensives. She had been diagnosed with an inoperable and incurable tumor and was in considerable grief and emotional pain. Through working with the part of her that wanted to live and the part of her (previously totally unconscious) that wanted to die, she came to a place of much greater understanding and acceptance of her own process. In the next few months, she did a tremendous amount of emotional healing, and completion with many important people in her life. One of the most touching scenes she described was being held on her mother's lap and rocked (she had never before felt truly nurtured by her mother). Not long after that she died fully with loving friends and family around her.
 
Another woman I know was diagnosed HIV positive a number of years ago. Since that time she has done a great deal of healing work on all levels, including working with the part of her that unconsciously wanted to die. She is today extremely healthy and active, and in the last year married and gave birth to a beautiful, healthy girl.

I know the idea that we may have a part of us which unconsciously wants to die may be shocking or difficult to accept. However, like anything else we become conscious of within ourselves, it can be a very healing awareness. If you wish to explore this idea, I suggest working with a counselor or therapist who has experience working with life threatening illness, or a therapist trained in the technique of Voice Dialogue....

Excerpted from The Four Levels of Healing, A Guide to Balancing the Spiritual, Mental, Emotional, and Physical Aspects of Life, ©1997 Shakti Gawain, Nataraj Publishing, a division of New World Library, Novato, CA. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Shakti Gawain is the author of many best-selling books including Creative Visualization, Living in the Light, The Path of Transformation and Creating True Prosperity. She leads workshops internationally and has facilitated thousands of people in bringing greater balance and wholeness into their lives. Shakti and her husband make their home in California and on the island of Kauai. For more information, go to www.shaktigawain.com or www.nwlib.com.

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