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LightHearted Musings - You Wander from Room to Room
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on December 21st, 2008
You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck!
During this holiday season, I’d like to take a moment to put your health into a larger perspective, because Bruce and I have a bigger message for you than just “eat healthy and take your pills on time.” To do this, I’d like to have some fun with you and take you on a mystical journey - a journey to your inner castle. Each of us has one, a quiet place within ourselves with great treasures, with a deep wisdom that is meant to show us our higher purpose. And what a beautiful and magical place it is!
Feel free to close your eyes for a moment in order to better see your castle. As you approach, you may notice how it shimmers like a jewel, promising…what?
The door opens easily and you step into the foyer. Inside is a great hall, surprisingly more solid-looking than the outside had appeared. Something is wrong, though. You were hoping to actually be walking inside your castle, touching, hearing and seeing everything as if your body was actually there. Instead, you feel like you are floating above the scene, like you are outside your body, looking on. You feel detached somehow and want to feel more grounded. Just then, you hear, “This is Lesson Number 1.” How many of us go about our days, not really present in our own lives? It is as if we are watching ourselves from above, focusing on the past or on the future, critiquing our bodies, our thoughts, our emotions or our place in the world. We seldom just live within our own skin. Being totally present in your own life is called mindfulness. How much of your time is spent in mindfulness? What are the forces that are pulling you away from yourself, making you an observer instead of an active participant in your own life?
Next, you climb the main staircase and find the master bedroom. It is a very romantic room with a four poster bed, lush carpet and curtains, and a fire in the fireplace. Something is slightly off about this room too. Everything is too neat, the bed is perfectly made up and there is nobody else in the room. You hear, “This is Lesson Number 2.” This room symbolizes physical and emotional intimacy, love, companionship and rest. With those elements in the room, the bed sheets should have been mussed up, lived in. Close your eyes for a moment and look at your master bedroom. Is it filled with love, companionship, intimacy, and sexual fulfillment? Are you giving yourself that same love and intimacy that you want from another, being your own best companion in life? Are you your own best friend? Are you spending enough time in your bedroom to get the rest, quiet time, and rejuvenation that you need?
You pass a number of other bedrooms and notice that these are both family and guest bedrooms. This is Lesson Number 3, a sense of community, of family and friends, of love and acceptance going in both directions. Is there a group of people that loves and takes care of you when you are down, and do you love and take care of them in return? Have you worked out old hurts and misunderstandings so that you can get to the point of assuming each other’s good intentions? There is a beautiful point in between dependence and independence - often overlooked in our busy lives when we either want it all done for us or we want to do it all ourselves - where interdependence can enrich life tremendously. Are you able to embrace the interdependence in your life?
You get to the end of the hallway and instead of stairs, there is a slide. As you hop on and go down, you feel a great sense of joy, like a kid at play. I think I even hear a “Whee” come out of you! This is Lesson Number 4. In your castle of life, where is the joy, the play? If you can’t find it around the main staircase, try looking for it at the end of the hallway. Without that slide, your castle would have seemed darker, less loving and nurturing. The slide is a gift. Give yourself a chance to let your joy come flooding out.
At the bottom of the slide is the kitchen and next to that is the bathroom. How’s that for breaking the mood of your castle! But this is Lesson Number 5, that even in this mythical, mystical castle, we have to take care of our bodily needs. It’s a matter of ins and outs. What you put in is what you will get out. If you take care of your body with good food, exercise, and responding to your bodily needs (not just the bathroom variety), your outs will more likely take the form of freedom from illness, fewer aches and pains, or maybe just the ability to walk up a few flights of stairs without being winded.
Then you come upon the office, and “Lesson Number 6″ is whispered in your ear. Are you spending your time in meaningful activity? Are you doing your part to make the world a better place? How are you spending the majority of your waking hours, and does your life feel good to you? If you are not in right relationship with your job or your other daily activities, then it is difficult to feel in alignment with yourself. There is no one life purpose that is right for everybody, but finding the one that fits for you is worth the effort. Is there a well-stocked bookshelf in your office, where you can satisfy your perpetual curiosity about the various wonders of the world? Do you feel perpetual curiosity and wonder, or have you stopped searching for your answers?
Next, you find an enormous room with beautiful wood walls and a high ceiling. In the middle of the ceiling, there is a round skylight, and the sun’s rays cascade to the floor in a brilliant puddle. You walk over to the light and stand within its embrace, arms outstretched, receiving the warmth in all its glory. You feel transformed. Ah, Lesson Number 7, the connection to a spiritual power, a force so much grander than ourselves and yet lovingly embracing us in its light, melding with our own light into a feeling of being one with all that is. This doesn’t have to have a name or even a structure - it is more a sense of being at peace, of being connected to all that is around you. This is the center of the castle, around which all else is built.
As you walk around, you realize that your castle is much more real-appearing than you could have imagined. You had known that it was filled with wisdom and transcendence from its outside appearance. The inside did have wisdom and transcendence, and yet the lessons were embedded in fairly ordinary earth-like architecture. It was a home! Our wisdom is always like that, far simpler than we think. Maybe that’s the key to the castle, that all the wisdom of the universe is to be found within your own simple abode.
How does Holistic Medicine fit into all of this? That question is answered differently depending on the holistic practitioner you talk to. The answer for Bruce and me is that we help you to keep your lovely, shimmering castle in your consciousness, so that you will remember to access its wisdom whenever you need to. It is an acknowledgment that true health is health in all of its manifestations. Freedom from illness is one important part of this castle, but it certainly isn’t the whole structure.
Just one missing room would create a gaping hole in the castle, as mind, body and spirit are all essential aspects of health. You can think of the various holistic medicine modalities as bricks in the wall or better yet, as mortar to connect the bricks together. They all give great value to your structure but ultimately, the healing comes from within.
We help you to explore the rooms of your castle so that it becomes your everyday home, a place of sustenance, wisdom and love. We help you to recognize the sacred within the mundane and the mundane within the sacred.
Search outside of yourself as you please, but know that the jewels of your life are within your internal castle. As Rumi says, the diamond necklace is already around your neck. What a treasure your life is!
May you have a blissful Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa - whatever form of celebration you call your own, and we wish you every happiness!
Dr. Molly
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