True Healing: Finding Purpose in Pain

Published in Acupuncture Today February 2020 Vol 21, Issue 2

What do we think of when we hear the word ‘healing’? For many, the first conclusion is that healing means to get better, or to heal from a disease.  But what if this belief and concept about healing isn’t the whole picture? If healing doesn’t just mean to get better, then what does it mean? And how can this help us help our patients?

Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines healing as:
heal - transitive verb
1a:  to make free from injury or disease : to make sound or whole // heal a wound
B:  to make well again : to restore to health // heal the sick
2a:  to cause (an undesirable condition) to be overcome // MEND the troubles … had not been forgotten, but they had been healed — William Power
b: to patch up or correct (a breach or division) // heal a breach between friends
3: to restore to original purity or integrity // healed of sin

Our approach in healthcare focuses on the first 3-4 aspects of this definition - to heal a wound, the sick or overcome an undesirable situation.  While it is important to help our patients find recovery from the ailments that bring them into our office, in some cases, this isn’t always possible.  Chronic disease, terminal illness or life situations that are permanent are not so simply overcome in the sense that we can erase them from reality entirely.  It’s in this case where we have to focus on the last definition of the world healing - to restore to original purity or integrity. And while the sample of being ‘healed of sin’ takes on a different tone, what I believe this definition to point to is simply: to return to our original intention. 

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