Exploring the Labyrinth_ A Guide for Healing and Spiritual Growth - Melissa Gayle West [58]
Promoting relaxation and destressing, allowing for tapping into one’s own guidance about how to deal with the illness.
Suspending of usual attitudes toward disease, disability, or pain, allowing reconnection to Self and Spirit.
Inviting illness or pain to be an ally and teacher rather than a persecutor.
RELAXATION AND GUIDANCE
At the most basic level, walking the labyrinth focuses the attention, stills the mind, and quiets the breathing. Once the mind is stilled and the heart opened—often quite a challenge in the midst of physical pain or life-threatening illness—the walker can tap into his or her own intuition and wisdom about choices to make about treatment and how to deal compassionately with the illness itself.
“Walking the labyrinth in our cancer retreat program is a healing force because it’s about getting quiet,” says Gretchen Schodde, a nurse practitioner as well as executive director of Harmony Hill. “The labyrinth is such a profound vehicle for grounding; walking the labyrinth nourishes these people step by step. The same thing happens with them that happened with me with the rototiller: realizing there’s a way to the center, to stop going in circles so they can find purpose and meaning in the midst of their illness instead of feeling out of control.
“I know people feel so helpless, confused, and overwhelmed when they get into crises that involve the medical field. They often get so much information that they don’t know how to deal with it, and the information is often conflicting. Walking the labyrinth gives people who are seriously ill a chance to find their own centers and sort things out, helping them to think through difficult decisions in a reflective way.”
Neal Harris uses the labyrinth to work with those who are seriously ill. He theorizes that the design of the labyrinth is so ancient that walking it taps into the power of the collective unconscious. “Because people are following in the path, as they walk the labyrinth, of millions and millions of others who have trod it before them for healing and other higher purposes, all of that healing energy is available,” Harris speculates. “It’s not surprising at all to me that certain people tap into that wisdom and healing energy very profoundly, and it can provide them with guidance to troubling questions about their health.
“Because labyrinths have been used for healing at many levels over thousands of years, it’s possible that that energy becomes tangible in the labyrinth. You dip yourself into this pool of energy and things happen, not physically like the pool at Lourdes, but at the level of transformation and healing.”
Linda Sewright, a professional labyrinth facilitator, says that the healing power of the labyrinth stems from how it allows people to leave the cares and worries of their illness behind at the threshold of the labyrinth. “They can then open to something more than their usual way of looking at their illness, a larger picture than that afforded them by Western medicine. The labyrinth allows them to open to their own intuition and wisdom about their illness, which is always there underneath the worries.”
When Sewright works with people with serious illnesses, “I talk to them about trusting the images they get while walking the labyrinth, and the messages they get.” Sewright encourages them to leave their old selves at the threshold and ask while they’re walking, “What if I were healed? What could the labyrinth say to me, offer to me, to do that? How could walking this path heal me?” She then encourages them to play with whatever comes in response as if it were real.
If you are ill, try walking the labyrinth asking these same questions. Perhaps you might walk before making any big decisions about treatment options. I also encourage seriously ill people to walk the labyrinth or use a finger labyrinth before visits to the doctor, to get clear on questions or concerns they may wish