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Healing Skills You Never Knew You Had

March 20, 2015  |  Practical life coaching

By Lloyd  J. Thomas, Ph.D.

When we scraped our knees as children, we came to believe that healing required some resource outside our bodies to be applied to the injury in order for it to heal.  As adults, we need to become aware of the healing activities/resources we have inside our bodies. 

Certainly, today's medical treatments are exceptionally critical to healing from injuries and diseases.  Nevertheless, those treatments usually enhance, strengthen and accelerate our own healing systems. 

In ancient China, medical professionals were paid as long as you remained healthy.  When you became ill, or were injured, their pay ceased.  Essentially, they were rewarded for keeping you well.  I wonder what would happen if we saw our medical professionals as teachers and coaches of preventative measures we could take and self-healing skills we could learn.  That concept certainly could enhance the current medical model to include our personal self-healing awareness and skills.

You cannot be held responsible for things you were never taught or never experienced.  You have no responsibility for that about which you are ignorant.  You may never have been taught what self-healing skills you have, how to create your wellness or how to become maximally well.  Here is a list of 30 self-healing skills you already have, but may not know it.  Each of these promotes and supports healing and wellness.  There are probably more than 30.  See if you can add to the list.

30 SELF-HEALING SKILLS

  1. Healing imagery - visualization
  2. Role playing and modifying your internal and external dialogue
  3. Nourishing the mind with new ideas
  4. Conversion of non-rational belief systems to rational ones
  5. Developing friends and lovers
  6. Self-love
  7. Giving to others
  8. Crying
  9. Walking
  10. Learning and using emotional-management skills
  11. Asking directly for what you need and want
  12. Remaking your history (healing the child within you)
  13. Perceptual paradigm shifting
  14. Managing your rest, sleep, and bio-rhythms
  15. Becoming addiction free
  16. Becoming self-dependent
  17. Creative dreaming
  18. Empathic listening
  19. Writing (journaling and poetry)
  20. Maintaining ideal body weight
  21. Cognitive retraining (mastering your mental habits)
  22. Pain management skills
  23. Humor and laughter
  24. Practicing skills of love, nurturing, and sexuality
  25. Making music and singing songs
  26. Altered states of consciousness (e.g. meditation, self-hypnosis, etc.)
  27. Play
  28. Bodywork for release of blocked energy
  29. Practicing forgiveness
  30. Re-programming your subconscious mind

Many of the skills listed above will not only strengthen your healing skills, they will also serve as illness-prevention skills. When "optimal wellness" is constantly being held up as a personal responsibility, perhaps we need to learn and practice at least some of those skills listed above.

 

Dr. Thomas is a licensed psychologist, author, speaker, and life coach.  He serves on the faculty of the International University of Professional Studies. He recently co-authored (with Patrick Williams) the book: "Total Life Coaching: 50+ Life Lessons, Skills and Techniques for Enhancing Your Practice...and Your Life!" (W.W. Norton, 2005) It is available at your local bookstore or on Amazon.com.