A friend whom I knew from a healing group told me an
extraordinary story about how she used our healing practices in her
daily spiritual work. From the get-go, the woman who became
her mother-in-law despised "Jenna." There was
nothing she could do or say or not do or not say that could not
elicit angry criticism, spitefulness, complaints and condescension.
There was nothing Jenna could do right, no matter how thoughtful or
kind she might be.
The woman lived in another part of the country, and once or twice a
year she would come and stay for two weeks. The day she would
arrive, Jenna's husband, Jeff, would basically "disappear"
for as many minutes of that two weeks as he possibly could to avoid
the frigid emotional tensions. It was so bad that after the
first few visits, "Amelia" just ceased coming altogether.
A few years passed, and then Jenna and Jeff had their first child
who grew to be about a year old. Jenna wrote her
mother-in-law, inviting her to come see her new grandchild.
Jeff was himself an only child, so this baby was Amelia's only
grandchild.
Starting around Easter of that same year, Jenna began incorporating
her mother-in-law in her inner healing work, using a process called
Toning [See Laurel Elizabeth
Keyes]. Every day she toned for a number of people
with various needs for healing. In the case of Amelia, she did
it unasked, which is unusual, but she did it out of love, because
she saw her for what she was, a very lonely woman who was playing to
the max the role of the jealous mother. So everyday, starting
in April, she toned for her mother-in-law; it was just something she
did, thinking it couldn't possibly hurt.
During the holiday season in December, Amelia arrived, usual
attitude of hauteur intact, although there was something a bit
hollow about it this time, kind of like the feeling of an old role
that had lost its punch. She was not well. Over the
years, and not surprisingly, given her predominantly hostile nature
[not reserved for Jenna alone], her physical health began to reflect
in her unwell attitude as a number of chronic problems like varying
difficulties with her GI tract and skin cancer.
The second morning of her stay, Amelia came into the kitchen
sometime after Jenna, the baby, and Jeff had had breakfast and Jeff
had made his hasty exit to parts-unknown. Jenna had her usual
routine in play of fixing what she knew Amelia enjoyed, including a
fresh, hot cup of coffee, which she poured for her as Amelia sat
down at the table. Other than a bit of cooing play with baby
Katya when she first walked in, the older woman was unusually quiet,
and Jenna asked her if she was okay. She seemed to be deep in
thought and it took a moment before she was able to put it in words:
"I think I'm dying."
Alarmed, Jenna asked, "What makes you say that?"
Amelia wrapped her hands around the mug of hot brew, preparing to
take a sip, and with the same reflective voice and eyes, stretching
for the right words, she replied, "I can't seem to hate like I
used to." [!!]
The air felt thick as a blanket and neither knew what to say at that
point. In the meantime, Katya was totally unimpressed by all
this, having found a glorious puddle of sunlight near the back
glass-sliding door. She plopped down on the floor, half in and
half out of the light, first wiggling her fingers in the light, then
taking them out of the light, back and forth, giggling with delight,
discovering who knows what great new baby wisdom.
More for lack of something to say, Jenna asked, "Well, when did
this start?"
Amelia said she had just been trying to figure out that very thing
and guessed it must have started around April. After an
instant, Jenna suddenly paled with insight, and very hesitantly told
her mother-in-law that 'just coincidentally', that was about the
time she had begun to include Amelia in her healing work.
The two women looked at each other across the table, one
wonderingly, the other a bit piercingly with the unspoken question,
"And .. ?" Jenna explained about the healing group
she had been working with for the last few years and about the
practice of using sound or the voice to heal. She told her of
instances the group had witnessed healings and of its restorative
powers Jenna had felt within herself. And she said simply that
she had felt drawn to do this for Amelia, too.
While she had been describing this, Amelia's long-standing armoring
and hostility toward her began to crumble and soften, until she was
openly agape at the very idea someone to whom she had been so
unremittingly abusive could in any way care about, much less love
her! She suddenly looked and felt old and frail and
vulnerable. Again the silence became another presence in the
room, although this time its quality was quite other.
Jenna asked if Amelia would like to see the room where she did her
toning work, and Amelia nodded, a completely different woman.
Both mother and grandmother in the same moment looked to see why
Katya was so quiet now, and realized she had fallen asleep on the
rug across the room. Jenna molded a favorite blankie around
her daughter, then straightened up and took Amelia into the Toning
room. She had noticed a new skin cancer on Amelia's left
hand and asked if they could tone for that purpose, and Amelia
agreed. She was now openly curious and still as much mystified
by her daughter-in-law's lovingness toward her as by the very idea that the change within herself could possibly be related to
something like this healing practice, not to mention from more than
a thousand miles away.
From that day forward, the relationship between them was
transformed. Incidentally, Jenna, with Amelia's willingness,
toned daily for her health, and in less than a week the skin cancer
disappeared.
Such is the healing power of Love that will not be daunted.
