Natural Healing Methods

When we get hurt, physically, emotionally or spiritually, we have a tendency to automatically begin healing our pain. We only need to look at the natural responses of any young child to understand these universal patterns.

One of my clients, Doug Talley, made an interesting observation a while ago. As he, I and others in his company were discusing our tendencies toward certain destructive behaviors, he noticed that each of the five destructive victim behaviors had a related healing process. Here is the list that emerged from his insightful observation:

Destructive Victim Behaviors and their Related Natural Healing Processes
Victim Behaviors	Natural Healing Methods
Blaming	Venting
Avoiding	Reflecting
Whining	Crying or Feeling Sad
Labeling Negatively	Labeling Positively
Sarcasm	Humor

These patterns give each of us the opportunity to make an important choice: instead of choosing to behave destructively and make victims of self and others, present and future, we can choose another path. We can choose to pause, to heal and to expand our thinking. Then we can plan our strategies for leading in such a way as to fulfill healthy values. There is no single more important quality of effective values-based leadership. It is the lesson of Jesus, of Gandhi and of Dr. King. It is consistent with leading by example. And this strategy of healing instead of hurting allows us to practice the golden rule.

While there are specialized antidotes to victim behavior and subsequent victim cycles, these natural methods will often be enough to prevent us from doing harm, violating values and perpetuating pain.

Home