After 9/11: The Eight Spiritual Laws for Healing the Wounds

In my previous post, I posed these questions: 

How do we cope with these catastrophes?  How as a human race do we continue living on without accepting a unified, shared consciousness in the pain of these calamities?   How do we as individuals move on with our lives if the pain of these events or loss of a loved one hits us every day?

If you were directly affected by 9/11, you have felt the dire impact of suffering  — perhaps loss of a loved one, loss of personal property, loss of self, and ultimately loss of the delicate balance of your web of life.  When your life fabric is disrupted in such ways, severe sorrow and a stress response follow.  Numbness (lack of feeling) and shock may first set in.  Life appears to be a movie, and you’re just the observer.  Tears roll down as you begin to understand the shear depth of the tragedy.  You may find your life spinning out of control due to these unexpected, unplanned changed.  You may develop insomnia and nightmares as a result.

The shock of what has happened makes it extremely difficult to adapt and adjust to these events.  Your grounding is lost — understanding becomes clouded.  Darkness sets in — there appears to be no clear light on the meaning of these events.  You may withdraw from ordinary life, and even from loved ones.  Eventually, depression sets in, and may be confounded by drinking or substance abuse as an escape.

The final result is a maladaptive response in someone who is merely trying to cope — trying to comprehend and assimilate what has happened.  You try to remedy this, trying to feel “normal” again, but not knowing the path to “normalcy.”

In exploring this dilemma, I reflected on universal principles that could serve as guideposts on how to recover.  I was looking for the modern adaptation of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.  She had so eloquently described the stages of grief, such as what a person may go through when given a terminal diagnosis like metatastic cancer.  The “grief cycle” consisted of the following:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Well, I wanted these principles to be positive, basically like lighthouses [points of light] guiding a path away from the rocky shore.  This would be a step-by-step program, based on the system of chakras.  I based it, as you may have surmised, on my training in yoga.  It would take the person on a healing journey in a path of ascendance from the groundedness of the lower chakras, to the inspiration and guidance of the higher chakras.   If a person could experience through ways of thinking or action the healing energy of each chakra, they would be able to transcend, transform and heal themselves of their suffering.

Why the chakras?  The chakras are postulated to be energy centers in the body, starting at the base of the spine and moving up and along the spine, focused in specific regions of the body.  There are purported to be seven chakras in the body, with more complex layers outside of the physical body.  Each one of the chakras has its own unique vibration, the lowest at the base of the spine, and the highest at the crown of the head.  This gradation of energy, from low to high, implies a hierarchy of being, or an order of passage, with the higher centers being closer to the soul, insight and understanding of life, whereas the lower centers ground us to our existence on this earth.  The duality of life is captured in the chakra system, as understood and expressed in the various religions of the world — the physical and the spiritual.  However, you do not need to be religious to appreciate the value of the chakra system as an intellectual tool by which to help transform your grief into joy and love.

At one point, I had suffered from depression late in my residency training, and I completely cured myself through yoga and meditation.  So, it was through my own experience and understanding of universal principles, that I devised this series of steps.

The “laws” or “principles” will take you through the steps you need to follow to recover and shine as the being that you are meant to be in this world.  Each law has a virtue.  The virtue is like a key that unlocks the healing potential of the law.  Each virtue frees you from the psychological blocks in each stage so you can move on to the next step.  The laws are tools for achieving freedom from grief, thus opening the path to a heartfelt existence full of happiness.

The Eight Spiritual Laws for Healing Wounds of Loss and Sorrow

1. The Law of Mourning:                        Virtue – Acceptance.   Allow yourself to mourn thoroughly and completely.  Ancient societies had rituals of mourning that could last for days or weeks.  We often package our mourning into a contracted time, then try to jump back into our daily routines without sitting with our sadness.  Give yourself permission to sit with the sadness.  Let yourself experience it for as long as you need to reach the point of acceptance.
   
2. The Law of Release:                             Virtue – Learning to Let Go.   One of the hardest things to do is to let go of loved ones.  In order to continue living, you have to release them.  They will always be in your hearts, but give yourself permission to move on with your life.
   
3. The Law of Creation:                            Virtue — Innocence.   This one is fun.  Find something you enjoy to do — whether it be painting, or sewing, or gardening.  Whatever it may be, it has to be an active act of creation.  Put yourself into the childlike mind of innocence, and lose yourself in the process of creation.  The healing from this is amazing.
   
4. The Law of Giving:                                 Virtue — Selflessness.  Find a charity you enjoy or a person that needs you, and give of your time.  It could be anything simple.  Lose yourself in the act.  Become selfless.
   
5. The Law of Forgiving:                           Virtue — Unconditional Love.  You are now ready to enter the heart chakra.  It is time to forgive.  Forgive whoever/whatever you think needs forgiving.  The simple act of forgiving releases endorphins and continues the process of healing.  To move beyond forgiveness, offer unconditional love.  To whom?  Perhaps it is yourself that needs to be loved.
   
6. The Law of Renewed Commitment: Virtue — Honoring Thyself.  The act of love brings us to the act of honoring yourself.  Allow yourself to do things that you enjoy.  Spend meaningful time with yourself.  Look at life with new eyes, like you are just being born. 
   
7. The Law of Insight:                                  Virtue — Trust.  We have moved on to the “third eye” — the center of insight.  The step is about reconnecting with your inner voice.  Learn to trust again.  Trust your judgment.  Trust yourself.  Spend time meditating, breathing and focusing your attention on the third eye.
   
8. The Law of Universal Sustainability:  Virtue — Honoring Others.   We are all in this together.  Connect with others.  Connect with loved ones, and what their needs are.  We are all one on this planet.  Connect with the earth.  Walk barefoot on the lawn or on the sand by the seashore.  Cherish the memory of your lost loved one.  Understanding this is the path to Sustainable Health and sustainable happiness.

Remembering 9/11: My Personal Account

Ten years ago, I was in my residency training at Mt. Sinai Hospital here in New York City.  September 11, 2001 started as a routine as any day could.  I remember what a gorgeous sunny blue-sky day it was — a perfect early fall day.  Little did I know (or any of us for that matter) how our world view would change forever on that day.  A few years later, I started writing my thoughts on these events, and the human tragedies that followed.

Here is an excerpt:

“The last decade has seen a multitude of disasters, both man-made and natural — all of which have been no less tragic.  9/11, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Wilma, the Earthquake in Pakistan, the Tsunami in South East Asia, the subway bombings in London, and a potential Bird Flu Pandemic – these are all disasters of the recent past or the soon to be future.  It seems that 9/11/01 marked the ushering in of this new age.  Before 9/11, we may have been relatively innocent.  But after 9/11, all of us were touched in some way or another.  Perhaps that is why I was inspired to write about this experience.  9/11/01 made me more deeply aware of worldwide human suffering than any event that preceded it.

By September 11, 2001, even though I had not been born in New York City, I felt like a New Yorker.  I had moved here in 1999 to begin my medical residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital.  Life could not be better than to live in one of the greatest cities in the world.  That day all would change.  That fateful morning as I slipped out of Medicine Grand Rounds early, I was stopped at the elevator bank by an attending I knew.  He asked me if I had heard anything about a plane hitting one of the towers of the World Trade Center.  He believed it to be a small plane.  In the hectic world of the hospital, I had not had a chance yet to catch a glimpse of the morning news by chance in one of the patient rooms.  We parted with little ado.  We had no foresight of how the world would change in the next couple of hours.

As I rode up the elevator to the hospital wing known as 9 West, I reflected on my last time at the “Top of the World Bar” in the South Tower.  I had been there for one of the best Salsa Bands in the city, no less.  The true nature of this tragic event had not made itself known as of yet.  I figured I’d learn more about what happened later and resumed my normal morning routine; however, there would be nothing routine about the rest of that morning.  In fact, life would cease to feel routine as it once did.  My life, and ours, was changed forever by the events seen unfolding on the television that fateful Tuesday morning.  In front of our eyes, we saw these great marvels of human engineering ablaze in flames.  In front of our eyes, we saw people jumping in desperation to their unspeakable deaths.  In front of our eyes – the world changed as we saw these great towers collapse.

When I saw the first tower collapse, I could not believe my eyes.  For a second, I hesitated, blinking several times in disbelief, wanting to trick myself into believing it was some sort of optical illusion.  I stopped breathing.  Silence, then outbursts of disbelief filled the nurse’s station.  In a single instant in time, the pulse of this city had been changed, and so of the rest of the country.  The hospital was soon placed under special emergency alert — Code E — only to be used under the most extreme of emergencies.  We were number seven in the hospital line-up that never happened.  We were expecting an influx of wounded survivors; instead, the emergency room remained half-empty waiting in expectation while CNN was reporting in the background.

There would not be many survivors.  Beyond words, beyond understanding a great tragedy landed on our doorstep.  My grandparents lived through Pearl Harbor, but this was my first experience with human tragedy at a grand scale.

Human tragedy has affected each of us.  Most of these tragedies are personal, but as the last ten years have shown us, there are tragedies that encompass orders of magnitude beyond our simple comprehension.  Whether it was a loved one that perished within the collapsing towers, in the crashing plane, in the Tsunami, or a grandmother that died helpless at a nursing home during  Hurricane Katrina, and the others that could not survive the aftermath because of days without timely food, water or proper medical care, human tragedy was here.  It was no longer something far away that you read about.  Human tragedy now had hit home for each of us in some way, shape or form.

Those left behind must somehow process what has happened; they must process these terrible tragedies and then somehow find a way to live on.  Having been so close to the events of 9/11, and thereafter having worked in a program that assessed those who participated in the relief effort at Ground Zero, I found myself asking these questions:

How do we cope with these catastrophes?  How as a human race do we continue living on without accepting a unified, shared consciousness in the pain of these calamities?  Seeing patients coming in even two years after the event still unable to see beyond a dark cloud over their heads, I wondered, ‘How do we move on with our lives if the pain of these events hits us every day?’

Perhaps this was a call to stop focusing on war and destruction and finally come to our own as the caretakers of this planet and each other.  Perhaps it was time to change our focus and really learn how to take care of ourselves.  How could we not feel a call to end this suffering?  Is there a solution to what we feel inside?”

From the psychological to the physical, health effects have definitely been observed in those that were exposed to the WTC debris.  This massive destruction released known carcinogens into the environment, not only affecting the “health” of our environment, but also the health of those that lived nearby or worked in the recovery effort.

We need to realize how everything is connected.  The environment and our health are intertwined.   This is what I mean by the concept of Sustainable Health.   We need to stop seeing ourselves as separate from, and more like extensions of our environment as it is of us.  A new study has shown a possible link between WTC exposures and an increased incidence of cancer.  In my post on Ecomii’s Food and Health blog,  The Health Consequences of 9/11, I explore what we know so far about health consequences for those that worked in the recovery effort at Ground Zero.

I did not lose a loved one in the twin towers, but I felt a great sense of loss.  I am grateful for all those that so bravely acted during this great tragedy.

Please share any thoughts you have in the comments section.  Thank you for reading.

To be continued….