EDSA Shangri-La, Ortigas
September 25, 2005
TOPIC : HEALING THE BODY, MIND, EMOTIONS & SPIRIT
SPEAKERS : MARIBI MAPA-GARCIA,
BETHESDA SPRINGS OF HOPE HEALING MINISTRY
MARIBI GARCIA (MG):
We are going to have the healing of body, mind, emotions, and spirits teaching. So I will be focusing on inner healing. A lot of people have been asking how I got involved in healing.
Some of you may be called here; your coming here is not an accident. Some of you here were really called by God because you are being called to serve others. And so I hope my little sharing will give you inspiration.
I realized that when I was a little girl, I went thought a lot of humiliation and pain in school, from teachers and nuns. I was told that I was going to hell because I could not pray the rosary. I was told that I was a bad angel and naughty because my name is always in the blackboard, and I was always punished because I would fall asleep during mass, especially if the homily is very long, and I would fall asleep and giggle sometimes during rosary time, benediction time.
So that was the task that I had, so my being here is a miracle in itself, and after that, I found my worth when I was discovered for commercials on TV. Praise God, I came out in a lot of commercials, and I was discovered for modeling, 60 pounds ago, 60 pounds and 35 years ago. So that's where I felt good. I said: “Okay pala ako, noh!”
What I didn't realize was that I was just internalizing these things, but never confronting them. I never shared them with my mom. I just kept quiet during those times when I was punished. A nun shook me, shook me literally because I could not memorize the mysteries of the rosary; and she shook me and my headband fell, my blouse opened, and she told me to transfer my books to the left side, which was the “burning fires of hell.”
You know that was the old way of teaching religion before. God was like a policeman, always watching us; but things have changed, and the Lord now is the Father of the prodigal son. No matter how “red” your sins are --crimson red--He will turn it as white as snow. All you have to do is repent, say sorry, go to Him, and let Him take over your life.
So after that, the next crisis was that I went through several teachers. Usually, the teachers were humiliating me whenever I was in front of the class. So I had this inferiority complex. I could never speak without trembling, and I have to go to the bathroom every time.
Then the next one was when my father passed away from cancer. He was only 58 years old, and from the time they discovered his cancer, it just took one year. We even sent him to Houston . But when he came back, I almost could not recognize him because he aged by, like, 30 years; and my mother, wala pang mga healing centers noon, e . That was the 70's. I was pregnant with my 2nd daughter, 4 months pregnant. So they kept me away from seeing my father. I lived with my husband away from my family, but I found out that my mother sent my father to faith healers. My sisters were telling me the stories of them taking out cigarettes from my father's stomach, kasi he was a smoker; and they took out match sticks, too. So I found it a bit uncomfortable. They would have to go there at 3:00 in the morning, then ang daming ritwal . So I prayed to God, I said: “Lord, I wish there could be a place where people could go for spiritual healing, and the prayers will be the ones that would heal because I was uncomfortable with the way they did it to my father.”
Next instance was when he came back from Houston . I was really in anguish, seeing him so thin, and we brought him to Manila Doctors Hospital . I think after a week in the ICU, we were told that we have to “surrender” him, and that he could go anytime. I thought my baby was going to come out na. We were all crying in the ICU. There was this group that knocked on the door, a small group of men and women, and they asked us if they could pray for the family. So, they prayed, and I felt like a big rock that was pressing down my heart was just lifted up, and I was able to surrender my dad. He passed away within a week. So, that prayer that was said did not take away the sickness of my dad, it did not let him live longer; but it was for the family to accept, to surrender, and to let go and let God take over. So that inspired me, and I said again: “Lord, thank you so much again for that group of men and women, they did not even know us, they just knocked. Probably you send them because who would know?” We were just crying there after the news, and I said “I wish I could do this for others.”
That was 1978. I was a banker. I was with Bank of America for 15 years, but in 14 th year I felt restless. I didn't like my job anymore. I had a Spiritual Director who's guiding me, and he said: “Probably the Lord wants you to serve him” and I said: “Lord, show me the signs because I still have a housing loan to pay. 25 years pa . They bank gave me an early retirement, and that was God's answer. I was able to pay for my housing loan with the early retirement packge, and then I was invited to write Presence Prayer Book because I was telling the Lord that I have so many blessings, what can I do in return? Then I got this letter inviting me to write for St. Paul 's Presence Prayer Book to people. I said: “Why me? I am not a writer, and you know my past. In grade school, I was even rejected when I applied for Sodality”
When I accepted the work, I fell naman into depression because I told the Lord: “Take away whatever blocks my being worthy to be a writer.” So I went into a clinical depression for 2 years, and during that depression, I read a magazine article that said people with depression who kept dwelling on their negative feelings could end up with cancer or other sicknesses. Natakot ako because my father died of cancer. So I really was determined to fight my depression, you know, I even had suicidal thoughts. I don't have big problems, but I entertained suicidal thoughts, probably because of the medicine, I don't know, maybe it's the effect of the medicine, I am not sure, but it's part of depression.
Sometimes, in our center, we call them as cancers supplicants, outlived the normal ones. Mayroong dumating na healthy, then after 3 months, he died of a heart attack, and there we have our cancer supplicants who were in the 3 rd stage daw or 4 th stage who are still living up to now.
So that's what the Lord does, He can work miracles.
It is believed that sickness causes an individual to be divided and broken.
Healing comes from the Anglo Saxon word “Hælan”, meaning to make whole. Rendering healing services help people to become whole. So the memories of my sufferings gave me a heart of compassion, it gave me passion. That is why I shared my story with you because I'm sure many of you here are being called by the Lord to reach out to others. Even if you are sick, you are able to reach out to others.
Holistic Healing is healing of the body, mind, emotions and spirits. By popular demand we have also added Healing of the Pocket, kasi kapag ang pocket nyo ang may sakit, may sakit lahat. If the pocket gets healed, gagaling din yung iba diba? When you have physical sicknesses, your pocket will get sick, too. So the sickness in one aspect causes sickness in the other aspects, likewise the healing of one aspect affects the healing of others.
Kinds of Healing
Well, we have physical afflictions, psychological, if it is the mind and emotions -- which are the ones we are concentrating on now -- psychological healing, that's inner healing. Your mind involves your mental state -- negative thoughts and attitudes, mental disorders, and other related cases; and your emotions are your feelings -- anger, hatred, fears, worries, anxieties, tensions, depressions, hurts, resentments. This is the essence of inner healing.
So the spiritual deals with our relationship with God, our prayer life, repentance and reconciliation. If we do not believe in a God, it's difficult to go through cancer, but knowing that there is a God who loves you and will never forsake or abandon you, can help you go through deliverance. There are some people who could be oppressed and the Devil takes over their life. We have that kind of healing in our center.
Financial involves the healing of one's finances, setting free from poverty and debts of financial uplifting.
The basis for our healing of body, mind, emotions, and spirit is this new field of science called psycho neuro immunology or PNI. It's the science that studies how the brain sends messages to the nerves and other organs of the bodies through chemicals. These chemicals can either build up or weaken our immune system. Happiness substances, when you are happy, just what like Michelle said earlier, when you happy, your body becomes happy too because your brain secretes a chemical that lifts up your immune system. These are endorphin, cephalins (?) and the PEA, it's hard to pronounce, so just call it PEA, and when you're sad or you dwell on negative feelings, we have the negative substance called noradrenalin. So the thing is we have all these activities to give you that happy substance, the better endorphins that will strengthen your immune system.
A lot of people focus on physical healing lang and then they forget their emotions, the feelings. In fact they say there are 4 deadly emotions that you have to confront: fear, anxiety, anger and guilt. These are the 4 core emotions that trigger physical sicknesses, all the way from upset stomach -- when you are anxious, di ba? Sumasakit ang tyan nyo ?-- upset stomach to cancer & heart attack. So why is inner healing important? Because when the emotions are buried, it leads to emotional instability and emotional stress. The immune system is lowered, and this leads to physical illnesses, and the most often is heart disease and cancer.
For fear, the antidote is the prayer of faith, that's why we prayed that earlier, having faith. The antidote to anxiety is also faith; anger is forgiveness, and guilt is repentance. These emotions are at the core of most emotional instabilities in our lives, these form the root of all potentially crippling emotions such as resentment and bitterness. At the core of 10 major neuroses describe by American Psychiatric Association, the negative feelings that I experienced as a child -- I say this to you because many of you might not be able to connect your cancer. Sometimes you have, in the past, entertained negative feelings, and you just kept it to yourself, and you were not able to release it or talk about it; and that stayed as energy, and that stayed in your subconscious, waiting to be released. So sometimes it gets released by bad temper, but sometimes it goes into sickness.
Negative emotions. These are the negative emotions you should not entertain, because they give you the bad substance that would break down your immune system -- fear, anxiety, guilt, anger, hatred, inferiority feeling, shame, self pity, worthlessness, condemnation, depression, rejection, loneliness, resentment, bitterness, sorrow and worry. Then the positive emotions -- well, love, joy, peace, you know naman the positive emotions.
So what is Healing? It is not the Lord taking away your sickness because sometimes people sick with cancer get depressed when sickness is not taken out. Kasi what's important, is the way you're going to live your life even if you are sick. Of course, we all want our sickness to be taken out, but let's not make tampo to God, because again, with the resentment against God, we create a negative feeling. Obtaining the grace and strength to accept God's will and see the blessings. If you focus that there will be a blessing out of every pain and trial and if you are, mabait ka naman, wala ka namang kasamaan sa mga ibang tao, no way that God will, you know. He will always be there so healing is really seeing our Lord from a negative into a positive. So focus on the blessings. Lord, there's something good out of this, there will be blessings. So it's not God granting what we ask for in our own terms, it is God's terms. We have the songs that prepare you for that.
Kinds of healing -- instant, progressive. Instant, agad-agad yun; but progressive, it goes in stages. Usually, the healing of cancer is progressive, always, no? Preventive and Christ's healing. But we have instant healings in our center even from a distance. There's a person who is supposed to be operated because there is a blockage in his heart. The father prayed, the father prayed for him and the whole family went to our healing mass, and they got news that he didn't need to have his operation anymore, and so that's instant healing.
So these are important. I got my research from Dr. Carl Simonton. They have his studies in the States, he's an Oncologist, and other medical journals.
Findings of medical research, ok…
Here, this is what's important. Cancer often develops 6 to 18 months after an emotionally stressful situation, such as divorce, death of a spouse or family member, retirement, loss of something very significant such as one's job, house gutted by fire, so if you went through an emotional stress that was very traumatic, and you were not able to process this properly, it would lead either to heart disease or cancer because that's what happened to my father. We were ejected out of our house one week before my wedding, there was a case, and it was really embarrassing, we won the case but the humiliation happened already. You can't put it back anymore, and I saw that my father just kept quiet, and he was just making like that, and within a year the cancer was seen then within a year he died.
Cancer cells developed and are disposed of daily in our body, so all of us have cancer cells and they are developed and disposed of. When stress occurs, an adrenalin response prepares an individual for fight or flight response, when the response is not neutralized, through physical activity or emotional expression, tissue destruction results. So the breakdown of tissue, and emotional stress are very much related to cancer malignancy. Stress hormones triggers with emotionally tensed situation, they play an important part in offsetting the body's normal process of disposing of cancer cells. Emotional stress that triggers the fight and flight response plays a key factor in allowing cancer cells to dominate. Production of stress hormones can slow down the formation of antibodies that fight the cancer cells.
Findings of Medical Research. Well these are just findings. People prone to cancer have either one or more of the following traits:
So what's self Image? It is your mental picture of yourself, as influenced by what significant other persons in your life, and your environment, say about you, all resulting to your conclusion. Self image has a lot to do with cancer. When you think low of yourself, you will dwell on feelings of resentment, rejection condemnation.
Causes of low image, these are things you could probably reflect on. We just don't have the time, but you can attend our seminars in the Bethesda . We give sessions on forgiveness & repentance, experiences in the past and present, distorted image of God, inherited behavioral patterns, and social pressures and family tree influences. The enemy also, the devil, wants to whisper negative things to you. So when you go for cancer healing, conventional treatment, psycho therapy, and we add to the above proper nutrition and exercise, relaxation and recreational activities, prayer and spiritual healing, support of family and friends, alternative medicine and other ways. What is important lang is your forgiveness.
The essence of my talk is going through your emotions, and don't let anger and resentment and fear and anxieties stay in you that will make your cancer worse and you can do it by prayer and sharing it with a friend, and doing other things. You can go to our center. We have the brochures so, I'll just ahhh… close your eyes and we are just going to have a closing prayer which is a song asking God for a miracle. Close your eyes, put your feet flat on the floor and palms up. The song is entitled… “Do you have a Miracle for Me”. Let this be a prayer of your heart…