“Your mind’s a dangerous neighborhood: don’t go there alone.” ~Mary Karr
People often ask me, “Did you always know you were a healer?” The better question is, how did I go from being such a huge skeptic, to someone who believes in this so much? I used to help teach a Physics class in college where we touched on the topic of psychic phenomenana and I thought it was a bunch of crap- a waste of time and psychics were making stuff up based on reading the body language of the person. It was going to take a miracle to change my mind.
In March of ’07 my life changed when my partner said, “Why don’t you try meditating.” My reaction was, I’m not doing that– I can’t do that! I can’t even sit still! My ego didn’t want her to know the truth, so out came, “O.K.” I could just feel myself energetically slapping my forehead thinking– you idiot! Now I had to do it. I’ve always been a person of my word– especially to myself. I had to give it a try.
So I sat down one chilly morning in March on my little brown couch, turned on soothing music, and held on to my coffee tightly (I wasn’t about to meditate without coffee–I’d probably fall asleep!). The plan was simple. I wasn’t going to get off the couch for the next hour. I was going to force myself to sit still for an hour. I figured if I sat long enough something was bound to happen. So I sat, and I sat, and I sat. Day after day meditating. Waiting, listening, and finally one day I suddenly felt my eyes burning. Holy moly! I opened my eyes. What was that? And then it was gone.
I closed my eyes again, and it was back. This time I kept my eyes closed and let myself feel what was going on. They felt like they were burning like there was sand in my eyes. Jeesh, do I have pink eye? Then I tried to figure out what had crossed my mind just prior to the burning sensation. Sara! And then I knew, this was not mine. I can’t really explain how I knew so definitively that this was not my eyes burning, but my twin sister Sara’s! This is crazy! I started meditating to gain inner peace, and now, I’m in pain. Is this a joke? I put my coffee down, mustered up the courage to pick up the phone, and call my sister at 8 in the morning.
This was our conversation:
Me: Sara, hi, it’s me (the one you shared the womb with). Um, I have a weird question for you, but could you just answer it for me?
Sara: Hi, um, yeah.
Me: Are your eyes burning right now? Like you have sand in them?
Sara: How did you know that?! I have a double pink eye infection– one in each eye. They are killing me. How did you know that, I didn’t even tell Mom.
Holy crap! I started to shake, I was a little scared, but intrigued. Was this “twin tuition” or something else? I explained to her that she popped into my head when I was meditating and my eyes started to burn. I couldn’t offer much of an explanation. I knew I sounded crazy.
The next day, I sat down again and started to meditate. I got bored so I started to wonder how my dad was doing. Ouch! What the heck was that? All of a sudden my tooth was killing me in the back of my mouth. I knew this was not mine either. So I sat with the pain, trying to figure out which tooth it was in my mouth. Once I located it, I decided to call my mom. The conversation went similarly to the one with my sister.
Me: Mom, what’s wrong with the tooth in dad’s mouth? It’s all the way in the back, on the top, on the left side. Does he need to go to the dentist?
Mom: Yes, he is going today. Last night he bit down on a walnut and cracked his tooth. How did you know that? Wait, which tooth did you say?
Me: The one in the back on the top, on the left side.
Mom: You know, that is probably right. It’s definitely on the left side and in the back on the top. How did you know that?
Again, I really didn’t have a good explanation. I thought, what is going on? What is the purpose of feeling someone else’s pain so intensely? That question lingered in my mind for several months.
I continued to tune into other people’s pain during meditation only after getting their permission. I started getting phone calls from friends and family asking me what I thought of a certain pain/problems they were experiencing. The more I was accurate, the more I knew there must be something greater at work here than just me. How could I possibly know these things?
Suddenly it dawned on me (I’m a little slow sometimes), if I can feel their pain and I can heal with my hands, maybe I’m supposed to combine the two and help make people feel better! Cue the Alleluia music, angles and fairies dancing and a bright light shining between clouds that have just parted. I had just found my purpose!
Now what do I do with that?!