DATE: 06-08-98

VARIOUS USA LOCATIONS

HEALING ARTS GROUP TEACHER: Marleena

T/R: Mare

SESSION TOPIC: Healing Inner Wounds

Purpose: to remove the infection from the body system and to prevent similar new wounds by learning from the experience how to avoid or prevent it in the future.

Methods: most important is reliving them with the loving help of Mother "at your side" to comfort you and heal you as you release the old emotions.

Releasing is very different from rehashing. Then you just bring them up, dust them off and feel hurt/anger but never finish, never get to the depth of that hurt with arms around you to give you strength to go the bottom.

To release you must allow Mother to be with you and put that 'ointment' directly on the

hurt so it does heal instead of turning to insidious infection.

Another method is to just give it to Mother and she will heal it. The key here is also the release. Joi can do this once she gets to this point. But you, Sharlana, cannot let go, release enough, long enough, for Mother to heal the injury. This is not a fault, it is simply how you operate, how you learned to cope early on and it has worked for you through out your life so is a major survival coping skill for you. Your tenacity will gain you much in the future. Treasure it rather than put yourself down for it.

Another aspect of healing is prevention. It is similar to the concept of not wearing a chip on your shoulder. It deals with your basic attitude toward those around you. There is a fine line between being vulnerable (necessary for intimacy) and being risky in your openness.

It is not in what you reveal but in what you expect from those to whom you reveal. If you reveal your inner most secrets (especially those that bring condemnation and/or shunning from society at large) for the purpose of giving trusted others a better understanding of who you are, what your struggles are, where you've been, then you are on pretty safe ground. (This is the type of sharing I am encouraging here in this group.)

If you are sharing from "woundology" you can be in trouble. Woundology is reopening, stirring up old wounds, sharing for the main/sole purpose of finding a common tie or bond with another based on similar wounds. Woundology encourages keeping the wounds fresh and hurting rather than opening them to air for healing. Wounds themselves are very poor bonding mechanisms.

The experience of having healed past wounds can be a very healthy way to bond. Or current/recent wounds that each helps the other to heal are healthy bonds. Mutual wallowing is self-destructive.

This is Marleena, and yes, Child, please post this for the circle.

Shalom.