INTRODUCTION

“The incomparable doctrine of Truth can be understood only after long, hard discipline & by enduring what is most difficult to endure, and by practicing what is most difficult to practice. People of inferior virtue and wisdom will not comprehend it, and their labors will come to nothing.”       

 ~Bodhidarma (A.D. 448-527)     

Paralysis is a condition, a disease, or an illness that can occur with a sudden onset of trauma, a blood clot, a virus, or venom that damages the spinal cord and/or nervous system rendering the effected areas dis-abled –temporarily or permanently. This happens so fast. Life is flowing, and then all of a sudden… it stops. We stop. Systems go off-line, but there is still a driver in the driver seat capable and willing. But not all paralysis’ are from traumatic injuries or venom; there are some types of paralysis that creep in slowly, sometimes taking years to fully settle in. There are powerful paralysis’ that can overheat the mind, numb the heart, and dehydrate the spirit. Paralysis in any case, has occurred because a connection has been lost or effected; paralysis in any case, can be cured by reconstituting that connection- before it is too late. 

In the wild injuries are natural parts of life, they have purpose, and every creature on the planet understands this –they are teachers for evolved living. Injuries are destructive, yes, but their purpose is transformative. In the wild, injuries teach us to not play with fire, they teach us to know our limits and what we are capable and not capable of, and they teach us to investigate the natural world for cures and ailments. They are meant to help us to sit and contemplate the happenings that lead up to the event. To analyze and to question, to explore the what’s, and when’s, and who’s, and how’s. Injuries are meant to bring us to the edge of stillness, stillness that brings us to the edge of silence. It’s in the subtle realm of stillness and silence that we find the witness and all the Native Intelligence that is meant to flow through it.

Injuries, they should really call them in-journeys. To look within we find interwoven layers of consciousness, beliefs, and governing mechanisms; we find the past that confines us, and the future we love and fear. In-journeys shine light on who we have been and who we are becoming: preserve and over-come, or become prey and die –figuratively or literally.  

Nobody asks for injuries, except maybe martial artists, extreme athletes, and healers. In nature, martial arts, and in sports it’s par for the course, it’s just a part of the game, an inevitability. And for healers it’s no different.

 We often think that to be a healer means to heal others, but every great healer knows that the only way to truly help others is to help yourself first. Only by freeing ourselves of afflictions will we find the deeper understandings of healing’s true teachings, of injury’s true teachings. It’s not about the therapies we provide or the movements we engage in, it’s about the consciousness, the intention, and the presence that we engage with and through. It’s about our own ability to master our domain, to free ourselves of the illusions of defeat, and to discover that which can never be injured. 

All injuries have a story to tell, all injuries have wisdom within. Why this injury, why this condition, why this situation? Sometimes the best way to stop and hear something is to not be able to go anywhere. Paralysis is a type of guarantor ensuring I wouldn’t be distracted. My guess is that I needed to hear something, there was an insight, an understanding, a message that I needed to hear and the best way that Spirit could get the message into me was by making sure I couldn’t do anything else but sit and listen. With most injuries you can just get up and have insight later at one’s leisure, paralysis requires we do it immediately. Not later, not when it’s convenient, if paralysis is happening, it’s happening.

I wanted to know so badly: why paralysis? Why spinal cord injury? 

Maybe I had been holding myself back, maybe all the years of holding myself back through unconscious actions of self-sabotage had manifested as me now being held back by a body that has difficulties moving forward. Maybe I had paralytic thoughts and beliefs and now I had a paralytic body. Maybe I had felt invincible, like superhuman, and I needed a reminder that I was human, fragile, and flawed. Or, maybe this was an opportunity to show exactly how superhuman I was, maybe it was an opportunity to show how good of a healer I actually am, a way to test my skills and talents and heart. Maybe it was an excuse to keep me from having to live to my greatest potential, maybe it was just an easy out for me to throw in the towel. No one would think less of me for just being a paraplegic, accepting my condition as a life sentence. Maybe this… maybe that… maybe it could mean whatever I wanted it to mean.   

What I found through my time with a spinal cord injury is that paralysis and spinal cord injuries are not exclusive. There are people with spinal cord injuries that are not paralyzed, and there are people without spinal cord injuries (or any other poison, trauma, stroke or physical reason why they should be paralyzed) who are paralyzed. 

I had a spinal cord injury and doctors said I was paralyzed, but that never rang true for me. I knew I was injured, and I knew I wasn’t paralyzed. I was having a spiritual cord in-journey and my body required a reboot -a conscious reconstitution and resurrection, if you will. 

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