Reflections by Dr. Jealous

Finding the Health

January 2021

This simple phrase is the hallmark of traditional Osteopathic practice. It is the essence of a perceptual awareness gifted to a few and earned from years of service to many. It is not seen by the outer senses where we meet the world, but rather by the inner or instinctual senses where we meet nature and the divine. This separation is an effect of urbanization and over-development of the rational linear thinking function of the brain.

‘Find the Health, anyone can find disease’ is the direction that the Master Osteopath, Dr. Still, plainly spoke. It could be mistakenly rewritten in our comprehension as “bring out the Health in the patient” or “make the patient healthy.” No, he was clear….. find the Health, and in teaching Osteopathy …….this is where one begins as one relates to the patient, not to the lesion or the chief complaint. It is not an obvious social endearment.

The first step in realizing this beauty, is to believe that this is a truth in each of us. Some have a natural instinct that this is true but a deeper reality then they can ever expect to experience. I began practice in 1971 and from my first day “I knew” this must be true… there was this Health present in the patient even though there was no sensory awareness of It for me. I completely embraced the Idea. Could I feel it… no… but I sincerely embraced the idea as I studied basic sciences at Kirksville College, especially Embryology, and realized the Truth behind Life. Science was only a mirror reflecting some deeply moving cause that one responds to from a subconscious breathing sense of Self. The majesty was there in an as yet undefined place. This was not a belief but a knowing. We are born with this. If you do not feel it… acknowledge it in formlessness… and wait. Waiting is a doorway.

Next

Relaxation……………………Meditation…………………………………….
Contemplation…………………..

Changing our Inner Rhythm

Momentum and Inertia

October 2020

These are the two functional laws of nature. In everything, concerning the body and soul of all living things, these laws are foundational.. They are expressed in all spiritual and scientific teachings and of course are central to embryology and Osteopathy.

These laws proceed from the Mystery of primary respiration as it creates and sustains the middle circle. Or, one could say from the Tao expressing yin and yang. Or, one could say from the Breath of Life as it expresses the universal feminine and universal masculine.

The two expressions and their natures are the two foundational laws.

They are not opposites. They are the swing of life as inhalation and exhalation. A third principle unites everything in a wholeness that cannot be partitioned. There is no competition in natural laws although it may seem so to the intellect. Life needs death to express itself freely and without limits. The symbol of the two fishes in a circle representing momentum and inertia are inside a circle representing the Ocean or Upper circle in which all life is whole and indivisible.

The Yin/Yang and the Ocean function as One expression.

As we are, we die/renew/grow every moment.

Osteopathy is about understanding balanced rhythmic inter-change and proportion as expressed in the individual patient.

Fear

July 2020

Fear is something we all experience, but individual relationships with fear vary considerably. As a general practitioner for over fifty years, I have had intimate conversations with thousands of unique individuals about “their fear” and their relationship to it. Fear can vary in nature from an acute emergent terror to a chronic subliminal fear so akin to the individual that it remains constant and unnoticed (PSTD). Under natural conditions fear comes and goes along with life’s surprises. Where fear becomes “steady” and “unyielding,” successful resolution is proportionate to the health of one’s perceptual integrity and stability.

Practicing amongst the rural “natives” of Maine, I soon came to realize that they had something “special” behind a sometimes-stoic veneer. Rural persons live on the land, deeply aware of the seasons, of changing weather and the “inconvenience” of natural events. They live in tempo with nature and her moods. This daily relationship keeps one’s observer “active” but in a way different from the “urbanite.” A natural perceptual balance between something greater and something living within that Greatness (oneself) is constantly nurtured. One does not override natural events and “speed up” the pace of life. When one’s attention is not only focused on the event at hand but is also simultaneously aware of the “background” (divided attention) … a certain balance is maintained that allows one to “observe” one’s fear in a broader more peaceful context. This separation between the observer and the fear creates a balanced relationship that allows the fear to be understood not “overlooked” or denied. One’s perceptual integrity is an essential feature of how one responds to, integrates and understands fear and its true meaning. Faith in God’s love and shelter will heal the imbalance.

In addition to learning from and admiring my rural neighbors, I have learned a great deal about fear from animals encountered on wilderness journeys. Naturally free, animals in the wild, are like the rural natives, alert and uniquely balanced individuals whereas domestic or captive animals tend to lose sensory precision. Animals in a wild environment are very alert, their sense wide and full. When sensing danger, these wonderful creatures become “still,” without “neurotic” fear. They wait, observe, and then act instinctually towards a sense of continuum and wisdom. Waiting is a key element in responding to the unexpected. In the case of human illness, fear can run wild and the individual will make irrational decisions by being overly “rational” about the situation. Waiting and allowing intuition and instinct to contribute to one’s moment with fear (however long) will yield unexpected ease of action. One senses oneself as an ally to oneself embraced by a tempo that is calming.

Fear brings us knowledge. If we “wiggle-away” from it, our senses will collapse and fail. If we wait, one finds that fear is bringing oneself to a deeper trust, delivering us from the “grip” of rational ambivalence with its frightening need to be immediately comfortable and subdued by denial.

My conclusion, both in my own travails and those of my friends and patients is that the root of fear is a separation from the Wholeness of Love. Fear arises when we lose our sense of the Divine Background, when one shrinks one’s perceptual field to the point where one in “alone,” separate and coldly isolated from the widen peripheral sense of nature’s tempos and the Divine warmth of Oneness.

During stress, the sensorium collapses, an individual feels “fear,” an alarm goes off warning us we are in danger of losing ourselves, of compressing our Souls and imprisoning our sense of Livingness. Fear as a healthy alarm clock tries to jolt us unto reawakening. If we do not, the fear remains chronically embedded in an ever-increasing grief and loneliness that forgets the object of its causal state. One remains “lost,” often not remembering “oneself” as the perceptual cycle closes more tightly. In all of its variety fear reminds us that something is missing and eventually we come to a point of memory that speaks to us so deeply that a softness pervades the sharpness of fear and we sense the healing light of a widening vista and the Divine embrace of freedom.

Fear is our Friend ringing the doorbell of our being, hoping for someone to answer. Our task is to hear this call and wait in a wider vision, until a natural balance emerges from the instinctual core of our being. This is not faith, it is an instinctual knowing of one’s Origin in and from the womb of Life, it carries with it an awareness that carries us into the calm of maternal forces present in nature.

An Osteopathic treatment is aimed at neutralizing the fear and becoming more at home with it…the nit slowly resolves the fear as understanding nurtures change.

Quote: “Never be ruled by fear, only by Love’………. (Sufi master Richard Feilds, 1978).

The Love that rules us is sweet and eternal. Fear is the opposite……align with the vertical light that feeds you.

The Inner Child – Section One: The Origin of the Idea

December 2019

This commentary is personal research. The purpose is to clarify the words inner child and True Self as separate aspects of Life yet deeply connected. Also, it is hoped that the nature of the inner child as “not wounded” can be communicated. The wounds of childhood create a separate compensatory function called the ego, which forms from grief and isolation once the inner child can no longer be felt even though it is present. The ego sees life as a duality, which creates lots of emotions and thoughts. The inner child (Health) sees wholeness and transmits love while the ego fears loss.

I wish to establish at the outset that this is a spiritual tradition and as such links all actions of healing to a Higher Power. The Higher Power is the Creator of Life. It is eternal, benevolent, charitable and Loving. God does not follow a religion… the Divine One is in all of life and is not tainted by discrimination against anyone. This Pure Love is given to us all and is so near that we can miss it with a single thought or distraction. Upon awareness of Divine Love one is healed and the inner child becomes evident.

The awareness of an inner child penetrates the whole of history of mankind. In ancient Greece and Rome the myths frequently mention a “primordial child” which means present from the beginning of existence. Later…Carl Jung refers to the inner child as the Divine Child. Emmet Fox, a Quaker Mystic and Nobel Prize winner refers to the inner child as the Wonder Child. All of these directly place the inner child in a divine landscape meaning it cannot be wounded because of divine connection and wisdom.

The ancient 50,000-year-old oral teaching of the African Bushman had a ceremony… soon after a child was born the mother would carry the child in her arms and walk out into the desert at night amongst the shining stars. Here she would lift her child up to the heavens. She then said to the stars, “take my child’s heart and replace it with Yours”. This request for absolute purity beyond the human was an acknowledgement of the True Self and a connection with the inner child.

Psychology has used the idea of the inner child for its own needs and has made the child a victim of dysfunctional environments …if this is solely true there could be no real trust or inner connection with a Divine Presence. If ACA were a therapy or a psychological program the whole definition of the inner child would be very different. The same words would have a meaning of something that could be wounded or ill, removing the divine un-alterable nature of the inner child’s world held in the arms of the Beloved.

In ACA we learn to listen in humility as others expose their story. As we do this, it frees us to know that a Listener is vital for our healing…. that Listener in us, is the inner child and its link to the Higher Self.

Our “adult child” cannot parent the inner child. We cannot re-parent except by seeing the ego and accepting its existence and choosing otherwise. The observer that begins our observation of recovery is a part of the ego that has a positive worldview and seeks higher ground. Later, the observer yields to the inner child as it reappears in the silence of our hearts. Then, the Original Observer, which is the inner child, becomes “who one is” and the ego fades into the background and withers…its job is done….

The inner child is more developed than the adult child. Stillness of the inner world is the foundation for feeling the inner child. Once felt, it is obvious it is not wounded. When we take our inner world into a Silent Land the ego will slowly be still and follow you and the inner child. …Home. As we heal the grief becomes love for the inner child and Higher Self and slowly the Original nature of ones existence is expressed in peace and joy sheltered by Wisdom.

“Heaven is within you… unless you become like little children you can not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Christ)

“… and the child shall lead you.” (Isaiah11.6)

The Observer and the Observers

August 2019

We are trained to believe in our perception. Teachers often believe there is one kind of observer and it is the same in everyone. This would be a wonderful world if we all were aware in the same manner, with the same motive. But this is not the case. The attention itself can vary from efferent to afferent in different people. That means education needs flexibility to nurture a variety of types.

As we meet students in the practical sessions we meet many different kinds of awareness. The awareness is not “seen” and so the observer is not noticed as to its skills and more importantly its methods, concepts and motives.

An observer is conditioned by genetics, familial patterns, the culture in general, personality formation and the degree of love the individual has responded to. Some persons have no observer other than the awareness of others and conclusions that lack an awareness of their own imagination in such matters. The mind of most students is untrained and rational and as a result it jumps at conclusions as if there was a reality to the dualism of themselves and the other, never seeing oneself a shifting reflex.

From this we have academic factions that lack the real growth and humility necessary for helping serve humanity.

Notice you have windowpanes in your house and that someone is at the window looking out at the world…this is a gift given to serve and from which something can pass out into the world. Who is behind the window looking out, noticing… what does it do with the impressions? What is it doing at any moment during the day? Why does it believe its conclusions? How come you can see your observer looking out at the world? Notice that you can see the observer at the window…that there is another observer watching the observer.

What does all this mean?

There is an eye upon us.