This self-healing meditation transformed my relationship with my body

“The mind is a powerful force. It can enslave us or empower us. It can plunge us into the depths of misery or take us to the heights of ecstasy. Learn to use the power wisely.”

– David Cuschieri

We’re all aware that our mind is a powerful tool, but just how much of that power can be harnessed?

A self-healing meditation is a process of using your mind to heal your body, directing your breathing and feeling the energy flow throughout your entire being.

It’s both magical and transformative, and the best part is the results are limitless.

And as it turns out, a lot of that power can be harnessed and used to improve things from emotional processing to physical pain.

In this article, we’ll look at self-healing meditation in general, plus I’ll be sharing my experiences with a self-healing meditation which fundamentally transformed the relationship I have with my body.

What is self-healing meditation?

If you’ve ever wondered just how powerful your mind is, you’re not alone. Long before medicine and therapy as we know them existed, shamans and traditional doctors understood that the mind is the most powerful tool in our body.

Through developing their understanding of how the mind can be harnessed, meditation was born.

It’s believed that the first cases of meditation were recorded in India, around 1500 BCE.

And although there are different types of meditation, all centered on one thing – training the mind and gaining a deep understanding of your core being as a human.

Having control over your mind means having control over your body.

A self-healing meditation, like the one created by world-famous shaman Rudá Iandê, is designed to put you back in touch with your body.

Through focussing on your breathing, you’re taken on a journey within yourself, guided by your healer or shaman.

The goal is to bring about awareness, connecting your mind to the different parts of your body and tapping into parts which may be suffering.

We all feel our aches and pains, but instead of masking them with painkillers, wouldn’t it be amazing to deal with the issues simply using the power of our minds?

That’s what a self-healing meditation aims to do. No fancy tricks, no external substances needed.

Simply you, your breathing, and your mind.

It seems almost too good to be true, right? I thought so too. When I first started this journey I was skeptical.

Not because I didn’t believe it could work, but because I didn’t think I would be able to train my mind in such ways.

Now that’s not to say that I’ve fully reached the end goal because there isn’t an end goal. Our minds’ potential is endless, but I’ve started the journey and I can already feel the difference in how my mind interacts with my body.

The self-healing meditation by Rudá Iandê is designed to put your back in touch with your lungs, explore their potential and how your breathing can travel throughout your entire body. It’s a powerful technique to learn, to use your breath so freely yet with such direction.

Other parts of the meditation are aimed at boosting your overall immune system and restoring balance to your body.

So many of our bodily issues stem from problems which affect our mind.

For example, stress is one of the leading causes of illnesses that can result in death. From heart disease to depression and diabetes, stress takes a massive toll on our bodies.

A self-healing meditation puts you back in control of your mind, and therefore back in control over your body.

It gives you time and a chance to train your mind to overcome the everyday stresses of life and rebalance your body’s energy.

The scientific research behind meditation and healing

Before we go any further into how self-healing meditation can be beneficial to your life, let’s look into the research behind it.

1) It can reduce anxiety and depression

With depression and anxiety growing cases growing rapidly, alternatives to drugs and medication are widely sought after. One study found that positive mindfulness, or meditation, proved to decrease anxiety and stress levels when trialed on over 3000 participants.

Another study found that meditation had an impact on the structure of the brain, helping people process things like emotions, sensory, and cognition in a more positive way.

There are numerous studies that show that those who regularly engage in meditation can focus better, and have more control over their emotions, meaning meditation could be a great way to keep our emotions in check and balanced.

2) Helps with self-awareness

Some studies have shown that regular meditation can increase your self-image. This means that those who use meditation can effectively start to see themselves in a much healthier, positive way.

In a world that is increasingly designed to make us self-conscious and insecure, being able to train the mind against such negativity is a powerful tool.

3) It can boost your attention and memory

Not only can meditation affect your self-awareness, but it can also tune you into tasks at hand.

Studies have shown that there’s a link between meditation and an increase in attention span, which then leads to an increase in memory recall. As the brain is being trained to focus, this focus can then be applied to everyday tasks.

The brain is a muscle, and like with every other muscle in our body it needs to be trained. Meditation is a form of training the mind and the more it’s done, the stronger the muscle becomes.

4) It may help overcome addiction

Addiction largely happens in the prefrontal cortex of our brain, and as many studies are highlighting, meditation also affects the prefrontal cortex of our brain.

Whilst this is still an area that needs more research, there have been promising links between the effects of meditation and those who are trying to overcome addiction.

When a person suffering from addiction doesn’t receive their fix, it can cause that part of the brain to become stressed. Whilst meditation alone isn’t a cure yet for addiction, those who can effectively meditate may have better control over those stress levels.

Also, some studies have shown how regularly practicing meditation helped with alcohol addiction, but larger trials are needed to validate this research.

5) It can help with stress

Many studies into meditation have shown how it can help with stress-related illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

One such study looked into how meditation was found to be effective in reducing stress-induced inflammation. The study focuses on neurogenic inflammation, and documents that a decrease of psychological distress was achieved by using specific types of meditation.

In essence, meditation proved to help reduce the symptoms of certain types of stress.

Although meditation has been around for thousands of years, it’s only now being widely researched for its benefits.

And although there’s still a lot of work to do, the results so far show that there’s a very promising link between our mind and the rest of the body, if only we properly train the brain and bring about much more awareness into how our bodies work.

So now that we’ve got the technical stuff out of the way, let’s look into why people might turn to meditation in the first place.

Why do people turn to self-healing meditation?

Aside from the points mentioned above, there are many reasons why people turn to meditation.

There’s a reason you’ve made it this far into an article about self-healing meditation, so ask yourself, what are you searching for? What led you here?

For me, it was frustration with how I was living my life. I went through periods of having very little motivation, or of feeling self-doubt and lacking in understanding why I feel certain ways.

I turned to self-healing meditation because I got tired of Googling the answers.

I wanted to understand what makes me, me. I wanted to test the boundaries of my body and push the limits of my breathing and of how far my mind can go in controlling my body.

Others turn to meditation for reasons such as:

• To help with sleep issues like insomnia
• To gain a deeper understanding of themselves
• To work through trauma
• To break away from a stressful lifestyle and reconnect with their body
• To deal with health issues such as those mentioned above
• To promote healthy well-being and increase positivity

There’s no one reason why someone might take up meditation, but many people feel like it’s a completely natural way to overcome internal struggles without the use of man-made medicines.

As well as the points above, a lot can be achieved in terms of self-motivation and awareness. A self-healing meditation can help you focus on issues you’re dealing with, highlight blockages within you, and increase your capacity to deal with this stagnant or negative energy.

And the plus side is that the risks are extremely low. Breathwork and meditation don’t come with a long list of side effects like medications do, so it’s one way to build your sense of self and reconnect with who you are, virtually risk-free.

My self-healing meditation experience

I would like to now share with you my full experience of the self-healing meditation by Rudá Iandê.

The very first time I did the meditation, I didn’t gain as much from it as I’d hoped.

To be honest, I was disappointed. Not so much at the meditation or Rudá’s guidance, but at my inability to concentrate.

Looking back, I wasn’t in the right setting. To start with, it’s extremely hard to focus on your breathing and internal being when a small kitten insists on clambering over your belly every few minutes.

Secondly, I was rushing it. I had a million and one tasks to do, and attempting a self-healing meditation right in the middle of them wasn’t a wise idea.

The second and following times were much more effective because I changed my environment and ensured that I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually ready to embark on the healing journey.

We’ll get back to setting the right environment in the next section of this article.

For now, let’s focus on how the healing meditation made me feel.

Following the shaman, as he guided me through different points of my body was much needed, as I, like many, have a brain that tends to wonder.

Rudá’s soothing voice kept drawing me back in, gently putting me in touch with my breathing, the different spaces in my body, and certainly towards areas of pain or tension.

I relaxed, and in a way that I certainly don’t get from lounging around watching TV or reading a book.

My body physically relaxed, and my mind was free to explore. It was a journey that felt both physical and spiritual at the same time.

So what difference did I feel after each meditation?

Not only was I able to relax and de-stress, I eventually learned to begin harnessing the power of my mind towards certain parts of my body.

Here’s an example:

On the last occasion that I did the self-healing meditation, I had a lot of stiffness and tension in my left shoulder (most likely due to terrible posture).

I didn’t go into the meditation with that in mind, and the pain only became noticeable about halfway into the meditation.

Did the pain arise because I was focused on my body? No. It had been coming on and off all day, but since it popped up at the right time, I thought, why not deal with it?

I focussed my breathing, and I imagined the steps which Rudá was outlining when dealing with pain in the body.

At some points in the meditation, I zoned out because I was so focused on my breathing and my shoulder.

I’m happy to say, by the end of the meditation the pain had gone. And this time it was different to earlier in the day when the pain would subside naturally.

This time, I had been in control. Through the conscious effort of directing my breathing, I physically felt the pain decrease with each breath.

Now at this point, I would like to add – I have been doing a lot of breathwork with my yoga instructor, including private lessons on how to breathe correctly.

It’s only since improving my knowledge of breathwork that I felt this change during the self-healing meditation.

As Rudá mentions in his article on the power of breathwork:

“You can do a lot by channeling your breath. Knowing the right breathe techniques, you can empower your health and vitality, and unlock all your inner potential.”

It seems that, for me, there was a link between fully understanding my breathing and Rudá’s guidance during the meditation.

I’m nowhere near perfecting my meditation skills or breathing skills, but with each experience, I notice a much more heightened sense of awareness within myself.

My shoulder may have naturally sorted itself out, but I like to believe that it was the power of my mind which played a great role in that.

How to make the most out of your meditation

To avoid wasting time as I did, let’s look at how you can truly immerse yourself in meditation.

My personal tip would be to make sure that you go in with little or no expectations, and allow your body to surprise you.

There’s nothing worse than the weight of your expectations hanging over you as you try to focus, and it serves no purpose in helping your mind and body relax.

Here are some other measures you can take:

1) Don’t give up

If you don’t feel any changes straight away, that’s okay. This is a process, a journey, and it’s not one which has a time limit.

Some people naturally fall into a rhythm when meditating, and others take longer to achieve it.

Like with anything, meditation takes time and practice, and if you’ve never done it before it can be hard to tune into your body and breathing.

2) Have trust in the process

Choose one type of meditation and stick to it. There are many variations out there, but honing in and getting to grips with one type to begin with is the best way to learn.

Also – trust your healer or guide to take you along your journey. Trust in yourself that you can participate and learn from the process.

A lot comes down to willpower and motivation, so keep an open mind and allow yourself to flow with the process.

3) Create a calm setting

As I mentioned earlier, the setting is very important. I found that these factors helped me:

• Dimming the lights
• Using headphones to block out any other sounds
• Making sure that people in the household knew not to disturb
• Turning off mobiles or other gadgets
• Wearing comfortable clothes and sitting somewhere where relaxing

Ultimately, you need to find a setting that suits you and allows you to zone out and focus solely on yourself.

4) Do it in the morning

Practicing meditation in the morning is a great way to start the day. You begin energized and refreshed, and it can set yourself into a positive mood for the rest of the day.

It’s also a good time because you don’t have the tiredness or stress from the whole day hanging on your shoulders, so you should be able to focus better.

5) Don’t overthink it

Going back to the point I mentioned at the beginning of this section, overthinking your meditation or having lots of expectations can be a major distraction.

I like to go into my self-healing meditation with a blank slate and allow my mind and body to flow in any direction it chooses, without having a checklist of all the issues I want to tackle.

This might be tough to do in the beginning, but over time it becomes a lot easier to let go of all the millions of thoughts running through your mind.

6) Use it as a time to explore and reconnect with yourself

Don’t see meditation as a task or obligation.

Your mindset is really important here, so try to view it as a chance to explore yourself. Imagine it as carving out time just for you.

With much of our time dedicated to working, kids, or socializing, it’s important to take that time out every day, or a couple of times a week, to sit quietly with yourself and evaluate and check in with your body.

7) Forgive yourself and resist becoming frustrated

If you find yourself struggling to focus, don’t force it.

I find the easiest thing to do is come back to it at a time when you’re more relaxed and focused. Forcing yourself will only make it a frustrating, tiring experience.

With that in mind, being a little distracted is normal, especially if you’re new to the process. Go easy on yourself and accept that you’re still learning and it’s a work in progress for us all.

8) Reflect

I have found throughout my meditations that reflecting on the process afterward has shown me how much I’ve come along in my journey.

Without true reflection, you won’t be able to measure your progress and it limits how much you take away from each session.

Reflection doesn’t have to take long, in fact, even just sharing your experience with a friend or writing a few notes can help to keep a record of each meditation and how it affected you.

Embarking on a self-healing meditation is a wonderful way to realign your body, thoughts, and emotions. It’s not a journey that can be rushed, nor a destination which can be reached.

Instead, it’s a process that takes you inwards and forces you to realize the power of your mind and your breathing.

And once you have control over those, it becomes much easier to become in tune with the rest of your body.

If it’s something you’d like to try, I’d very much recommend the self-healing meditation by Rudá Iandê, as it’s free to download and is only 20 minutes long.

For me, as a beginner, it was easy to follow and I found Rudá guided me throughout each part smoothly and with confidence.

I still have a lot to learn and more to discover about my complex mind and body, but I definitely feel like I’m off to the right start.