Navigating Healing Part 1 of 3

"When I navigate a voyage, I know when the storm comes it's gonna take you to the bone. And if the storm keeps coming you gotta stand up, it's just what you gotta do." "And it's this zone where you learn to make fear your best friend. You hold it really close to you and open up that door to believing that you can make it." ~Nianoa Thompson, Hawaiian Navigator

Healing is a voyage. The most important trip you'll ever take. It occurs when you make fear and pain your friends. When you stop fighting what is happening inside you and begin to work with it. In 1976 Nianoa Thompson was part of a crew of visionary Hawaiians who sailed a double-hulled voyaging canoe from Hawaii to Tahiti and back using only primitive navigational tools for 5,500 miles. Proving that Hawaii could have indeed been settled by ancient Polynesians which was a ground-breaking idea at the time.

"Nobody could see the canoe here (in Hawaii). Too beaten, knocked out of you, no dreams, no hope, can't see." "There were those in this community that loved this canoe, prayed for it. And there were those who feared this canoe because they sensed change."

This is what often happens to those of us with chronic pain and physical dysfunction and all too often to just about everyone throughout the course of life. When people finally get here for treatment, they can hardly believe that healing is even possible any more let alone dream themselves living the life they've always really wanted. So many of us have forgotten how to dream or have had it beaten out of us by life but our injuries are not punishments, they are invitations for growth, learning and increasing self-awareness.

~To be Continued