What does healing mean to you?

“I thought healing meant that we're going to fix everybody, but I arrived at a very stark realization that healing means so many different things to so many people, and there's so many journeys that one can take to get there. Healing happens differently for everybody,” says nurse Anne-Marie Pandya.

I read Dr. Victoria Sweet’s book God’s Hotel a number of years ago. She writes about the power of slow medicine, as opposed to fast medicine. It is slow and patient and careful and intuitive. It means listening deeply, not judging, guessing about what is missing and then asking for confirmation. It means making sure someone has shoes, actual or metaphorical, before asking them to walk home.

This type of “healing” isn’t only for the conventional medical community, it is something we can each do every day, with mindful presence. We are healers when when we invite a neighbor who lives alone to join us for dinner, when we take the time to listen with curiosity to a child who is in tears, when we pay attention to the power of touch as we massage warm lotion into the hands of a grandparent.

Check out more stories of healing transformations here.