By healing ourselves, we heal the world. When we are balanced and whole in ourselves, we shine like the sun, enlightening everything around us, transforming the world with our every breath. And the world helps us heal, helps us be whole, so that we can be whole together, dance in beautiful synchrony, embrace the wholeness of life.
Healing is a journey, a journey we travel throughout life, continually walking deeper and deeper within, time and time again facing ourselves and everything that hurts.
Giving time and space to healing is not easy. It requires both bravery and compassion; for us to gently and lovingly sit with ourselves, to sit with what hurts.
While we travel through the patterns of our lives, bravely releasing the old, gently – and sometimes not so gently – taking the time to heal, life, the universe, helps us on our way. Helps us by bringing us the people we need, taking us to places and situations that help us open up, help us heal.
While we sometimes find ourselves asking ‘why is this happening again’ or ‘why is this happening to me’, I think some part of us knows how important the hurts we are facing are for our growth. The more we allow this process of growing and healing and the more open we are, the easier, freer and more abundant our lives get.
We are the key that unlocks the hurts, we heal ourselves and no one can walk the healing journey for us – no matter how much we wish they could or how much we sometimes wish we could walk it for others.
Even though we have to face our own hurts, it does not mean we have to face them alone or that we cannot ask for help.
As has famously been said: when the student is ready the teacher will appear.
Sometimes the teacher is not a person. It can be a place, a situation, a change, a random encounter, a new job, a pet, a moment, an atmosphere, an image, music, a movie – almost anything we come across in our daily lives.
Barcelona has been a wonderful, healing, supporting, ever-helping guide and teacher for me, and I thought I would share the most healing spaces and spots in this city of light with you. Share the spots and the wisdom their energies carry.
Whether you are in Barcelona or not, each and every one of these magical places has something to share with you, a beautiful exercise that can be adapted to any place and time to support you on your healing journey.
I hope through these wildly different, yet strongly transforming, purifying, healing and cleansing energies in Barcelona you will not only discover Barcelona on a deeper level but new parts of yourself as well.
A space to release
embracing the healing fire of Montjuïc
If you have read Our healing planet, you are already familiar with what healing forces both water and nature are. Our healing tour in Barcelona will start in an enigmatic place where the ocean and nature walk hand in hand, have cleansed, purified and supported Barcelona and its inhabitants for centuries. We will start in Montjuïc;
Montjuïc - rising from the hidden depths of the ocean, moulded around a fiery heart where earth and water meet. Hills that have been painted with blood, hills that have for millennia stood as a last refuge, as an everlasting source of compassion and love.
Montjuïc carries within itself an immense healing power, an energy that has been a comfort to too many, a reminder of how even the ugliest parts of humanity can be healed - can be transformed into blossoming gardens, beauty and peace.
Beneath everything that history has painted on its grounds lives a healing force, the warm embrace of the earth, the cleansing current of the sea.
What human memory forgets, the earth remembers -and heals; giving its unconditional love and support to anyone who belongs to it, shining light on the dark, so that it can be seen and healed.
Montjuïc is a powerful place, layers upon layers of history and memories with a golden core of flowing, healing light.
This beautiful mixture of fire, nature and water guides us in healing;
You children of the Earth and the Light, to be able to fully heal, you need to fully see, feel and understand what needs healing. Only by understanding, only by acknowledging what hurts, will you be able to start the process of letting go.
Your memories, everything you have ever experienced live in your body. Your life is imprinted on your skin, and to be able to heal you need to bring the pains forth, activate and release what has been pushed down, stored within.
Connect with your body, connect with the fire of this earth. Walk up my hills and let the old pains surface and release with the movement, the breath, the sweat.
Let yourself immerse with this uplifting and releasing fire, feel the burn until the flames die out and find yourself a soft spot in the lush gardens, let the earth embrace you, nature revive you and the arms of mother earth love you whole.
Feel the cleansing winds of the ocean and know that you are whole, loved and supported here and now, connected to yourself and the earth you so bravely walk on.
Let us carry your burdens
naming your pain by the sea
After physically releasing the pains, hurts and knots we have stored in our body, after bringing them forth, we are guided to the cleansing waves of the sea, the ancient waters guide us:
We welcome you to the tidelands, the ebb and flow of life, the free flow of energy. Now that you have brought forward what weighs you down we stand here with open arms, creating a soft and sacred space for you to name your pains and release them.
Walk the shoreline, let your feet connect with the water and watch how we help you bring forth what needs to be let go of. Name your pain, your hurt and find a physical representation of it: a stone, a shell, and pick it up.
To this element we have brought to you, share your pain. Tell to it what you have experienced, how it has made you feel, how it has altered your life, and finally thank the pain, the experience, and let it go. Release it into our waves and we will help you let go, take your burdens to be cleansed in our never-ending flow.
A haven for recovery
reconnecting with the present in the grounding Umbracle in Ciutadella
Now that you have with your body recognized the pain, with the help of the free and healing embrace of the earth brought your pain forward, named and released it to the ocean, you are guided to a balancing safe haven that gives space for the healing to fully inhabit you and helps you re-ground into yourself, helps you find your roots. We are taken into Ciutadella, the Umbracle shining its emerald light at the south wall of the park.
The Umbracle represents the cleansing, life-giving force of the jungles. It is a healing, grounding force brought to life by endless supplies of water coursing beneath our feet, throughout the inner earth. This man-made, consciously cultivated space has evolved into a vibrant energy of its own, a refreshing paradise, a haven for life.
Here, in this tiny paradise of green life, you are asked to completely immerse yourself in the present. Close your eyes, sense the life around you and focus on your breath.
Breathe in all that you need, all the love, healing and balancing power that you are in need of. Feel how with every breath your body is connected to the present, filled with the renewing energy of the jungle – all the jungles on earth.
With every exhale let go. Let your body relax, get heavy, grounded and absorbed with the life around you.
Inhale nourishment, exhale all that you no longer need, and through every breath notice how you become more grounded, more whole. How you grow deep roots, become connected with the world, the nourishing nature, the cleansing water, the purifying fire – with all existence.
Healing is a journey
walk at your own pace
Take the time you need for each of these places and do the practices and exercises as many times as needed. Listen to yourself, allow yourself to heal at your own pace, face all that you can face today. Meet yourself at every instance with love and compassion, and most of all, thank yourself for taking the time to heal and transform.
Remember that you are whole, whole even when you are healing, whole in yourself and a part of the whole world.
To magnify the healing journey and the effect of the exercises consdier writing down all that you experience.
And, at every instance, no matter what you are going through in life, remember you brave soul that you are exactly where you are needed and where you need to be. The world around you supports you, and life rejoices in your existence.
Walk with ease and know that you are not alone.