The True Purpose of Healing (Part 2): Living from Wholeness

What if healing-work is not the same as fixing-work?  

This is a soul-led question that bubbled up from within during a meditation that I had years ago in which I felt completely broken and beyond “fixing”. 

I didn’t know it at the time, but this question initiated a turning point for me. It caused me to start and reflect on what was really up with the “path of healing” and what was its real purpose. A core part of me was waking up within me and I could feel that healing wasn’t really about just feeling better, gaining the ability to have more abundance of health, finances, career success and so on, or changing up of circumstances to match what I wanted instead of what was happening. I was beginning to understand the path of the mystics who have a very different definition and approach to healing. Healing isn’t a destination or about reaching a state of perfection, it is about learning to engage all experiences of life on life’s terms fully rooted in love, grace, and inner ease because it is all a part of the whole.  

At the time that this realization was coming to me, I wasn't completely open to the wisdom and teachings of the mystics as I am now. So I turned instead to two of my other favorite mystical sources, astrology and mythology. I felt guided to go back to the myth of Chiron, the first “Wounded Healer”. As I dove into his myth deeper, I found a book called Chiron and the Healing Journey by the amazing pioneering astrologist Melanie Reinhart. While I enjoyed learning more about Chiron in her book from the astrology perspective, the real wisdom and gems came from this work was the introduction to Chariklo, Chiron’s wife.

As Melanie shared the story of Chariklo she brought forward how Chariklo had a totally different perspective and approach to healing-work compared to Chiron. It was her approach that ultimately helped Chrion free himself from how he was isolating and disengaging from life in his pursuit to heal his unhealable wound. He was stuck in a cycle of constant striving “to heal/fix” his wound and wrestling with disappointment for over 350 years. Melanie teaches that the medicine Chariklo shares with us is to remember that the purpose of a healing journey is to not to reach perfection–physially, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually–because that pursuit only isolates us and leads us into an endless feedback loop of trying to control, change, and force “form” into our making. Instead, what Chariklo teaches us is that the true purpose of engaging on a healing journey is about us expanding our 

“...capacity to attend to the suffering of others and ourselves,
allowing life fruitfully to continue, regardless of our afflictions.”

Discovering Chariklo’s teachings was life altering for me just as it was for Chiron. Through her counsel, Chiron stopped trying to fix his wound. Instead she helped him learn how to turn toward it with acceptance, care, love, and asking how he can support the whole of his life the best he could even WITH a wound that would not heal. In doing this he came out of the cave he had isolated himself into and back into his life allowing himself to connect with the fruitfulness that was available to him, even though he also had afflictions or aspects of him that were no longer what they used to be or what he thought they could be. Chariklo helped him see the value of his life was still there, even with parts of him that were not “perfect”. 

Initiation into Living from Wholeness

The initiatory step of releasing one’s attachment to healing is the same as fixing, is a necessary stage of a healing journey. It helps us stop striving, waiting, and wasting away our lives and start living with as much joy, laughter, and love as possible.

In this phase we stop:

• Being driven by the fear of what if we can’t hold a “healing” or something good and start enjoying the “good” that is present. 
• Viewing dis-ease, shadow, or discomfort as a problem or measuring stick that we missed or did something wrong.
• Judging ourselves as “wrong” when something appears to go outside of our plans

Instead we open to:

• Supporting ourselves or another as they walk with that experience the best we can. 
• Liberating ourselves from the power unhealed wounds have to hold us in separation, fear, and shame 
• and Welcoming the medicines of connection, love, and acceptance. 
  
  

Curious to know more about the myths and wisdom held within Chiron and Chariklo? 

Check out episode 47 of Soulful Practices Podcast where I dive deeper into their stories and the significance of their “arrival” as stellar objects that are now a part of our collective astrology starting in 1977 with the discovery of a new asteroid that was named Chiron.   

You can listen to the full length episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcast.

Soulful Reflection Prompt

Take a moment and dwell in the questions:  

• If I soften my attachment to fixing, would that change anything? If so, what or how… 
• If I open to the idea that healing means wholeness, and wounds are a part of wholeness, what would that change?  
• If I open to the teachings of Chariklo, how can I allow my journey with healing to help me compassionately tend to my suffering AND engage in the fruitfulness of life at the same time? What would that look and feel like…

Soften, listen, and dialog with your Heart and Soul Beings. Let them guide you to responses and possible new ways of thinking, perceiving, and actions that might be beyond what you know and into a new level of healing-work. 

PS: Wanting to dive deeper into the healing wisdom held in Astrology and archetypal patterns? Check out our On-Demand 12-Part video course Healing through the Houses that walks you through the healing challenges and gifts held with the 12 houses of the astrological and archetypal wheels.