Today, the owner of our Ubud hotel, Mark, took us to see his healer (shaman/medicine man). Danielle and I were both curious about visiting a healer and thought it would fit in nicely with our (Eat, Pray) Love experiences here in Ubud.
Our healer, Cokorda Rai is from Lohtunduh, just south of Ubud. He is actually part of the royal family of Lohtunduh. The 83 year old was sitting in his chair in the small outdoor temple he uses as his “clinic” when we approached.
We took off our shoes and sat on the edge of the temple until he called us to come to him. I went first. Nervously, I walked towards him and sat Indian-style in front of him while he looked me over (channeling my mom, he commented on the spot on my chin that I had picked at and said it was no good). He then asked me to turn around and began feeling my head, face, ears, lymph nodes, neck and shoulders (my right shoulder is still covered in scrapes from my moped incident).
He identified several spots of pain in various points, specifically on my right side. He then had me lay down on my back on his mat while he looked at my feet. He poked at different points on my toes with a small wooden stick, telling me which section of my body each represented. My heart, lungs, gallbladder, liver, kidneys, blood and pancreas all passed the ‘poke test’ with flying colors. He then poked at my lower back, which made me squirm with mild pain, followed by my ovaries/lower stomach, which hurt slightly more and finally he poked at the place representing my mind, which made me contort with pain.
As I was twisting from the pain he said, “your mind, it’s not good.” I giggled out loud (because what else do you do when someone says your mind is no good) thinking to myself, lovely. He began performing his ritual of moving his stick over me, circling every part of my body (it was almost as if he was drawing on me). After this, he re-poked all of the points on my toes, all previously painful points hurt less. He did one more once over on me with the stick, followed by another round of poking and shockingly, none of the points were painful.
He began explaining to me that my hormones were low in my ovaries and to increase the hormones, I need to find passion. Once I have passion, he says, the hormones will increase and all pain in that area will diminish. He also said that I have too much negative energy in my mind and it is connected to and affecting everything else in my body. He told me that he cleaned everything out so I was starting fresh today and to let go of the past and stop worrying so much. He also told me that I get a lot of ideas and I need to run with them, opening my mind up to only creativity, shutting out all negative energy. Finally, he told me I need to exercise more (I know, I know…) to help with the creativity.
The Balinese healers don’t pull any punches and aren’t afraid to tell you how they see it, doing so very publicly in front of anyone who is present (there were two students when we were there for a total of six onlookers). The Balinese believe that every point in your body has a code and they are all connected (i.e. – when you have anger, jealousy or worry in your mind, it negatively affects other parts of your body).
I think he is 1000% correct when saying that I worry too much and perhaps fear the future. Mostly fear of certain things not working out, happening, etc. For instance, this past Easter in church, I almost started crying because I saw some of the older ladies in the congregation sitting by themselves and I fast-forwarded myself sixty+ years down the road, worried that I would one day be sitting there old and alone with no family.
He did concern me with the hormone thing, not that I’m going (or ready!!) to rush out and try to find a baby daddy, but sheesh, having someone suggest that your hormones are low and that could mean that you may have trouble having children when you’re not even trying to have children is worrisome – the exact opposite thing I’m supposed to be doing. Crapppp.
There was a slight language barrier, so I didn’t always understand what he was telling me, but I was insanely fascinated. So much so, that I want to go back again before we leave Ubud just to sit Indian-style and talk with him about life. Hell, even traveling, I still FaceTime with my therapist on a weekly-ish basis (and will be emailing immediately upon finishing this post).
Now, as for finding passion, Javier Bardem (I use him because of the movie because if I’m picking a celebrity, y’all should know it’s James Marsden), I’m waiting!!!!
On the ride home, I felt the stiffness in the right side of my neck had disappeared. As for everything else he did, I suppose we’ll find out in time…
(me & Cokorda post ‘healing’)
I’m not giving advise but … heck you have done more in you 30 yrs than most of us have done in a life time… i won’t tell you how long that is.. you’ll have to guess..