Cultivating the One True Freedom That Can Never Be Taken Away From You Regardless of What’s Happening With the Coronavirus
A Fresh New Perspective on Health
Feb. 14, 2020 by Jonathan Ley
We spend a lot of time talking about diet, medicines, etc but so little attention and focus given to having more fun and joy in life and how much the impact of having an inspiring future to live in to affects our health and well-being.
While diet and detox is certainly important and valuable to do, I’m finding that perhaps the biggest factors behind why people have health problems is that much of the joy and fun has gone out of life and they might not have an inspiring future to live in to. Years ago, I learned that the future that someone is living into determines who they are being right now in the present moment (affecting their energy levels, hormonal levels which impact how well they eliminate from their body, food cravings, their overall health, etc). . .and so much of this has to do with “perception” more than anything.
For example – someone could be feeling miserable for weeks, but perhaps they get a phone call from out of the blue from someone they haven’t seen in a long time to go and do something exciting to go to on the weekend, and in that instant, they immediately start feeling better with more energy. Nothing in their material circumstances had really changed but they had a different future to live into now.
One of my mentors used to lived in a community run by a genius guy who didn’t really know much about health, but the one thing he did know was that when people were sick, it very often had something to do with that they had stopped having fun and pleasure and a lot of the joy had gone out of their life. In the 1980s, the community relocated to Hawaii and at one point almost everyone there had the cold and flu and were miserable for weeks and no money was coming in to the community.
One night the guy leading the community woke everyone up at 1:23 am (which is when he would hold random meetings) and told everyone that they had to have a party right now in that moment and have fun . . . and if they were in an intimate relationship, they had to have some romance. He was met by a ton of resistance – people complaining that they were sick and tired, didn’t want to party and he responded saying “have a party right now or get your stuff and get out of here on the next bus in the morning!” and they knew he was serious. People reluctantly took out their guitars and instruments and started to play, alcohol , food came out, couples started communicating, and people started to have a party. . .and a very strange thing happened. . .within 2 hours everyone’s colds and flus disappeared and didn’t come back the next day or the next week or the week after that, more money started to come into the community – all because they were having more fun and pushed through their resistance to having fun.
Years ago, I stumbled across a fabulous course where I learned a critical piece that perhaps had a bigger impact than any else I’d ever done in my life. the program was called the “Basic Sensuality” course.
In the weekend event, I was introduced to the concept of “perfection” – which is the possibility that maybe the world, our lives and the lives of others are happening the way they are for a good reason and it’s for our greater benefit things are transpiring just as they are. Thus the world, ourselves and others are really “perfect” the way we are and that there is nothing to be fixed or changed about the world or anyone. No one needs to be saved or rescued (unless they are specifically coming to you asking for help).
This had such a profound impact on my entire life that it kicked me off on an experiment which I am close to 10 years into at this point. The experiment has to do with changing my perception and developing the mental muscle to see everything around me and my life, the lives of others and the world as perfect just the way it is – with nothing to change, fix, save or rescue.
But isn’t the world messed up? Aren’t people messed up? Aren’t we all kind of crazy in the head? After years into this experiment, I really question these prevalent notions and honestly don’t know anymore. Perhaps we’re here to learn to be more loving and compassionate and how can you experience more love and compassion, unless you have the opposite – a waring planet with tremendous greed, hate, anger, etc.
Even though there’s a ton of goodness all around us all the time and so much to appreciate, isn’t it interesting that instead mostly all we’re surrounded and bombarded with are messages that the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, we’re told there’s something wrong with us, we’re told how we should be living our lives to be happy and for the most part it’s not an inspiring or uplifting future to live in to. I find when I adopt these prevalent viewpoints and focus my attention on them, I notice how it certainly doesn’t feel good in my body, I have less energy, less inspiration, less excitement in life, etc.
There’s a shift that happens when we start seeing the world, ourselves and others as perfect – or at the very least, trying it on as an experiment. . .and it’s more like a gradual transition. I’ve found with the energy and attention going from trying to fix ourselves, others or a planet things that potentially was never broken (depending on how you look at things) , this releases us from the tremendous burden of having to fix / heal things including ourselves, and frees up enormous amounts of time, money and resources to go for things that really feel good.
This might seem irresponsible at a first glance but it actually might just be the most responsible thing that anyone could do with their life and perhaps the greatest way that someone could truly make a difference. When someone is more “freed up” they become a much more useful “vessel” to serve others. When we do things out of enjoyment versus out of obligation or survival, there is a much greater chance of us being successful in whatever it is we are doing. I’ve found there natural and gradual shift in our lives towards doing paid (or non-paid) work in the world where we get to be used for our fuller creative potential versus doing stuff just to maintain a certain material standing or survive. We gradually gravitate towards spending more time in nature and appreciation for all the good stuff in life. We cultivate deeper and more meaningful relationships with others, have more time to reflect and self-examine, etc
Perhaps the biggest thing is having more space and time to just be with and listen to others without reacting or trying to fix or change them. Over the years, the thing that I found that people probably want more than absolutely anything is for someone /anyone to just listen to them, get their experience and acknowledge where they’re at and let them know they’re ok just the way they are and that they’re loved unconditionally. I find it’s so incredibly rare for someone to have someone who listens to them from an unconditionally loving place in their lives and, in my experience, it makes far more of a difference for someone than anything else you could possibly ever give or teach someone. I’ve seen a ton of miracles happen for people when they finally got heard and acknowledged – especially miracles around their health – which is why that’s so much of what I do in my practice with others nowadays (both in the coaching and healthcare work) , since I consistently find that it has the biggest results of all when you can help someone alter their perception and the future they’re living into.88
Published on draxe.com on July 27 by Jonathan Ley
The Art of Having a “Sane” or “Real” Conversation With Someone About Cancer
Published in Medium.com June 27, 2019 by Jonathan Ley
I have found that I can’t have a “real” or “sane” conversation with someone about cancer until we’ve considered that it’s just a valid a viewpoint if they want to die as well and that’s okay if they want to go that way and nothing wrong with that. After all, we all have to have something that takes us out of here at some point when we are ready to go (and that’s something that’s normal or inevitable – and can actually even be seen as a good thing because keeping in one’s awareness that we will for sure die, has us take more risks in life, let go resentments, express love for others – because we can’t take any of that anger, fear, etc along with us when we go). In a case where someone is truly ready to go, what’s wrong with them having cancer?
I find once someone realizes that I’m not attached at all to whether they stay or go, they start to open up and get way more “real” about what’s going on in their life – all the stresses, frustrations, anger, fear, challenges, etc. that they have no clue how to work through and may look way easier dying than staying. Up until the point where I was attached to the idea that people live, I found that the people I worked with with cancer would never completely open up and say everything that was going on for them because I wasn’t living from a completely unconditionally loving a safe space where whatever choice they made could be honoured. This is kind of the pink elephant in the room and has the “emotional charge” around cancer disappear when this gets revealed.
At that point, if someone wants to stick around, I find it’s more a matter if someone wants to expand their awareness to see life from another perspective that could have them move through their challenges. Or they might not want to do this and find that life is too hard and it’s better going (which is a reasonable choice).
That being said, I always find that there are no mistakes at all why someone has the life, the parents, relationships and circumstances they are in in life. Someone might not be able to see it, but there is a whole other context to see things from which can give someone tremendous freedom with all of the suffering. . .some incredible lessons to learn this lifetime (and if you look really close, what you might notice that life keeps on throwing the same challenges our way again and again. . .but when the lesson is learned, you don’t have to go through the specific horrible stuff anymore and life can shift in beautiful ways and often faster than could possibly ever be imagined if someone is really surrendered. . .I have seen cancer and other conditions completely disappear for some people in a matter of weeks even) However, it came down to a personal choice on their part if they wanted to do the awareness work to stay or not.
The Miracle That Listening and Unconditional Love Can Have For People With Cancer and Other Serious Health Conditions
article published in Medium.com March 5, 2019 by Jonathan Ley
Years ago, I had the great fortune of getting to train with a well-known naturopathic doctor who had a very high success rate turning around serious medical conditions like cancer, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, and much more.
I had the chance to learn a unique approach to helping people detoxify their bodies using a combination of dietary recommendations and medicinal herbs as well as helping them develop a greater awareness of how they lost their good health to begin with. This approach made way more sense than anything I’d ever come across before, and I thought that if could just align myself with what he was doing, I’d be able to replicate that same level of results.
As I got out into the world teaching this methodology, developing my practice and taking on more and more clients, my level of effectiveness and success gradually went up to the point where I was working with a lot of people with advanced cancer and other serious health conditions all over North America.
I saw people having some of the most remarkable recoveries but on the flip side there were also people that I worked with who didn’t recover no matter what I did with them, which is something that health practitioners seldom like to talk about.
I never had bought into the idea that there is such a thing as an incurable autoimmune disease but rather inherited the belief system that it is possible to turn anything around if someone has a strong enough conviction to live and is willing to do whatever it takes to heal . Even though I was very effective as a practitioner by most anyone’s standards, if some of my clients weren’t getting better, there was still more for me to learn.
So I redesigned my practice, developed better ways of helping people change their diet and working through food cravings. I also started using different natural remedies, and incorporated other alternative healing modalities in my practice. As a result of these changes, my level of results went up again, but I still had health clients who weren’t getting better.
Around the same time, I was working with another brilliant mentor who suggested that I try “active listening” in my practice.
Although I had heard this term mentioned before and understood the importance of listening, I still didn’t quite grasp what he meant by that. After all, I thought I had been listening to my clients . . . they would come into my office, list out their symptoms and ailments, and I’d get them to write out in detail what they were eating and the food cravings they had. I’d ask them about sleep patterns, their home environment, and would even ask them to list out what stresses they had in their lives.
He said that active listening isn’t just about listening to a report of their symptoms and life circumstances. Rather, it is about creating a safe enough space for them to open up and share a lot more about the sensitive or delicate areas of life that aren’t normally discussed and to be an unconditionally loving witness, feeling where they’re at and what they’re going through without reacting, or necessarily jumping to fix any of their problems or giving advice.
He expanded on this further suggesting that perhaps a big factor to why people are unhealthy is due to being stressed out or feeling stuck or powerless in particular areas of life where they are jammed up with emotions or feelings they’d been unable to fully feel, express or release.
One of the biggest gifts someone could offer them would be to listen to them fully and give them the space to feel and process their way through these emotions. He added that if people could feel their way through things, this could potentially open the door for miracles to happen with their health.
I resisted the notion of doing this for a long time. With only a limited time per appointment, the idea of taking the extra time to find out a lot more about where they were at, along with taking on their energetic burden seemed like opening up Pandora’s box and more than I could handle. Furthermore, I could tell that many of my clients just wanted to get in and get out with a quick solution to have some relief and weren’t really looking to open up about what was going on in their lives. But then there were others who I sensed were looking for something more and yearning for someone to just listen to them.
I also had read and studied enough about the mind-body-spirit connection to know that people’s health conditions are often connected to the stresses they are experiencing in their lives, and I’d seen countless examples of that happen where someone’s symptoms would flare up the worst when they were under high amounts of stress. Experience had told me that unless some of those underlying stress factors got addressed, there was a good chance that whatever medicines, dietary changes, or other recommendations I made might not make much of a difference at the end of the day.
When I was finally ready to try this out, I remember working with a woman who had been diagnosed with endometriosis which is atypical or abnormal cells in the lining wall of the uterus. Her doctor had also found precancerous cells in her cervix.
She desperately wanted to have another child but her doctors were considering recommending she have a hysterectomy (surgical removal of some or all of the organs of the female reproductive system) which would have ruled that possibility out. When I first started working with her, I could feel that she had a huge amount of anger and frustration bottled up inside. She’d been to many other allopathic and alternative health practitioners with no results to show and it seemed like no one had been listening to something she had been trying to say.
I created a safe enough space for her to open up and eventually she felt comfortable enough to let me know that she had been sexually abused by someone in her family over a decade ago. . .something she had been terrified to talk about with anyone. Although the incident had happened a long time ago, it was as fresh in her mind as if it had happened yesterday. I just listened and felt where she was at. As wave upon wave of anger, guilt and shame came up for her to feel her way through, she eventually came to a new level of clarity and peace.
The results were nothing short of amazing. She eventually took it upon herself to forgive the family member who had abused her (which was one of the most challenging things she had ever done in her life) and the anger was replaced with love and compassion.
A month later she went in for another medical scan of her uterus and cervix and the doctors couldn’t find any sign of the inflammation and atypical cells anywhere! She never had to go through with the hysterectomy procedure.
Shortly after that, I worked with a woman with stage 4 cervical cancer after she had been given a terminal diagnosis by her oncologist and told she only had a short time to live. Stage 4 cancer essential means that the cancer has metastasized or there are tumours in more than one location throughout the body. The most serious tumours were compressing her ureters, which are the tubes in the body that connect the kidneys with the bladder. Urine is produced in the kidneys, goes to the bladder via the ureters, and then is eliminated out of the body. As the tumours continued to swell and grow, this blocked urine from going into the bladder and getting out of the body and she was very quickly losing her kidneys.
At that time, she was having her bloodwork taken every single day in the hospital to check her level of kidney function. If someone’s kidney function gets too low they can quickly die or go on dialysis.
When I first met her and her family, she and her husband were quarrelling incessantly. They also had a special needs child. Needless to say, there was a tremendous amount of stress in the family in addition to what she was going through with the cancer.
She wasn’t really able to hold down much food or medicinal herbs and, in the beginning, one of the only things I was able to do was just listen to her and create a safe space for her to talk about what was going on in her family life.
Listening to her without reacting was incredibly challenging as she had a tremendous amount of anger in her, but I continued to make it okay for her to express herself and the most remarkable thing happened.
Each day after we talked when her bloodwork came back, we could see her kidney function improving with the only variable that had changed being that she was opening up and communicating a lot more about all that was going on in her life. But then she’d get to a certain point of improvement, get into a big fight with her husband, and her kidney function would start going down again which we could see almost in real time through daily changes in her bloodwork.
At first I found this hard to believe, and I thought it must be due to some other factors, but as it continued to happen like clockwork even when there were no changes in diet and medicines, I finally started to see the connection of how powerful a healing experience it was for someone to have the experience of being heard and loved unconditionally.
Her kidney function trended up remarkably for a few months doing this gradual yo-yo sort of thing with her processing out a ton of anger and other emotions during this time, but she reached a point where one day said she’d had enough and passed shortly after. During this time, however, she let go of a tremendous amount of her anger to the point where there was a lot more peace and love in her relationship with her husband and she departed on much better terms with him.
In no way am I suggesting that active listening is a silver bullet solution. Although most everyone wants to feel better, the reality is that most people perhaps aren’t at the place where they’re ready or wanting to start doing the work of changing their diet or looking at some of the more troublesome or stressful aspects of life and making changes at these levels. For these people, maybe it’s the right thing to do to take a pill, natural remedy or have a procedure which acts to “suppress” or “manage” the symptoms even if there are potential undesirable side effects that come with this approach.
I also realize that it would take a lot for doctors and alternative health practitioners to reinvent themselves and their practices to include the option of working with some of their patients and clients in this deeper sort of way spending a lot more time listening to them and giving them space to open up instead of prescribing a medication or giving a treatment right away.
For the patients and clients who are really wanting to share more about what’s happening in their lives beyond just reporting symptoms, I’ve seen how giving them the experience of really being heard can sometimes produce miracles where nothing else seems to be working. Putting this into practice I found to be incredibly enlightening and pointed to a whole other way of working with people that, my sense is we will see a lot more of in years to come in health care.
Pain Free Happy Life 