unknown | Penny Heiple, Evolutionary Healing

Many of us (maybe even most) are quite terrified of the unknown. Perhaps this fear has to do with a feeling of being out of control. After all, we have certain ideas and visions about how we want things to turn out. We often want to control the process as well as the outcome, or at least know what is coming in the hopes that we can somehow prepare and be ready.

I’m in the midst of separating from my husband. The unknown is now a part of my experience every day. I don’t know if I will ever find a companion and partner again. I don’t know how I will fully support myself financially. I don’t know exactly who I am in the world without my best friend at my side, or how to move forward with that hole in my life. I don’t know when the grief will well up, overwhelming and incapacitating me. I don’t know how my path will unfold, or the strength and resilience that may lie dormant in my heart. What seemed known only a short time ago is no longer known.

The process of Life Itself is unknown. We can either embrace this fact or resist it. When we come into contact with the unknown, we touch the invisible world. It is here where we encounter our shadow, those unconscious aspects of us, both light and dark, that tend to run our lives unbeknownst to us. When we shine the light of awareness on these aspects, suddenly we have choice.

When we embrace the unknown, we also contact that part of us that is beyond conceptual understanding. Our minds can (and do) attempt to describe this world, but the descriptions and models in our minds are not the Reality Itself and never can be. The model is not the territory.

We touch the invisible world through direct experience. We can invite into our experience different aspects of our True Nature, or ask for our shadow to be revealed. Some of the more glorious aspects of our True Nature are often in shadow (unconscious to us), and have been called Health, Joy, Abundance, Gratitude, Clarity, Truth, Beauty, Peace, Unity… but these are just names. The key is that we invite into our experience something that is unknown to us.

Flower

We may have a concept, thought, or model of what it means to feel joy, for instance, or what it means not to feel joy. But Joy with a capital ‘J‘ is none of those concepts held in our mind. It is something else, and never what we think it is. The mind can only observe, label, and describe; the direct experience happens on another level. We must open ourselves to the unknown possibilities in order to experience who we are at a level we have never experienced before.

When we do this, what we experience is always a surprise. It is always a brand new experience when we invite in the unknown. And the truth is, much is unknown to us in this Life. Control is an illusion in so many ways… maybe even in all ways. Letting go into the unknown is the ultimate form of surrender to the flow of Life.

When I am working with clients, they often have particular conditions or issues they are facing which they would like resolved. I know that my clients have the full capacity to Heal through those conditions. But notice that I used the words “through” and also “Heal” with a capital “H.” Healing in the way that I view it does not necessarily mean the condition itself goes away. If a condition does in fact go away or resolve, I tend to call that a healing with a lower-case “h.” And of course this is a fantastic outcome! But sometimes the condition won’t resolve in the Healing journey. In fact, on the most extreme level, we can experience a full Healing and, at the same time, still die from the condition. In my own journey, when I really grokked on a deep level that all of us have a terminal diagnosis, the question of what Healing actually is became a much deeper inquiry.

All clients are their own Healers and hold their own answers. When I work with clients, I do not know the specific outcome or how the Healing process will show up in their bodies, mind, or spirit. There are many levels of change that can and will occur in the Healing process. When I work with clients, I am supporting them in Healing on all levels related to their specific condition or intention. Conditions and dis-ease provide a fantastic focal point because the center of the condition is actually the portal to the Healing process itself. That is why I say that we Heal through our conditions.

For me as a Healing facilitator, supporting Healing in this way involves reaching into unknown possibilities and inviting in whatever needs to happen for true Healing to occur. I never know exactly how that will look or what the outcome will be, but I have noticed the response is always Intelligent and beyond what my mind could ever have imagined or figured out based on my knowledge and training. I am amazed by my clients every single time. It is truly an honor to play a small part in their Healing journeys.