The Lightning Process, Christianity, Spirituality,
Are They Compatible?
...Continued from LP for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome UK
To be very clear, the Lightning Process™ is not a spiritual process, but this is a spirituality website, so this advice may apply to you. If you have spiritual beliefs, pray for guidance as to whether the LP™ is for you. I have a lovely story about someone doing just this. Eight months before I did the LP, a Christian author kindly came to pray for me at my home. He had recovered dramatically through faith, but still had some niggles in his health. As a Christian, he was concerned, for some reason, that the Lightning Process™ may not compatible with Christianity, and yet he had become interested. Which was God’s will? What he heard from others, or this feeling in him that it was worth doing? He knelt down and prayed. He heard the post (the mail) being delivered. After praying, he went to the door and opened a letter from myself showing me standing up the day after doing the LP. He felt his prayer had been answered and he signed up. I am a great believer that what is right for one is not necessarily right for the other, so please don't take this to mean that I think the Lightning Process™ is necessarily for you. If you think it may be for you, please pray for guidance.
For me, the LP was very much an answer to prayer. I had been building my faith for healing for 3 years using scriptures for healing. I had increasingly frequent moments of knowing I was healed. In these times, I rested in a place of knowing that illness does not exist on some fundamental level, because it is not a reflection of the God of Love. But still there was no change physically. Increasingly, I had a sense healing would come, because the feeling of peace was there. But I couldn’t quite see the healing happening in a church. I think it would have been uncomfortable for me to go into a church in a wheelchair and walk out healed. Don't ask me why! For me, the language of NLP, the placebo effect, the impact of the mind on the body – this is a language that I personally am more comfortable with. (I am quite happy to pray for healing for others, so – just to repeat – this is not particularly logical, but there it is.) I believe God can work in my life through whatever is available to work with. (Do you know
the story of God and the helicopter?)
So there I was increasingly, knowing myself as healed, and along came this process which incorporated the spiritual mindset I was familiar with – the idea that our beliefs are influential in our reality – and yet was open to someone at the level of health I was at, well at least in theory. Nothing like that had been available before. To me the Lightning Process™, Christianity and spirituality are very compatible. In my opinion, the LP draws on what are currently more recognised as spiritual laws than scientific laws. This is now changing. More and more
science is recognising the power of belief
– the impact of the mind on the body. I told the Lightning Process™ practitioner that, for me, the process was consistent with faith for healing. It was important to me to check that he was comfortable with me being a person of faith. He was. In Phil Parker’s book of the Lightning Process, he states that he is asked the question about whether the Lightning Process™ and spirituality /religious beliefs are compatible. Most people find apparently, like myself, that there are “conceptual similarities” between the two.
The main concern for those with religious beliefs seems to be the hypnotherapy techniques in NLP and the LP. Perhaps, you are worried that you will be put in a deep trance and give access to your mind to another. This is not the case. The hynotherapy is done standing up – if you are physically capable. (I was in the wheelchair.) You hear every word that is said and you can snap out of it at any time of your choosing. The principle behind the hypnotherapy techniques is that your mind has the answer for what is best for you. It is not about a practitioner imposing suggestions in your mind. The images you come up with will be your own. To understand this is terms of Christian or spiritual and religious beliefs, you can trust God to give you the images and thoughts to guide you to peace.
As it was, because I couldn't speak on the phone or write and had little assistance for such things, it took me over 2 years to access the LP. This was strange, because it just so happened that I lived, at that time, about 10 minutes drive from the main centre for the process! I only managed to access it after moving away. It is important to me to state that I credit my healing with other things just as much with the LP.
I had 3 years of building up faith-for-healing using bible quotes on healing.
I had used many other spiritual and psychological practices as indicated on this website on the pages on
recovery from ME/CFS.
The spiritual journey in the year preceding my recovery had been particularly rich and fulfilling, including successfully
handing over my life to God.
I was, I believe, ready. Yet it is also important to say that the Lightning Process™ was clearly the trigger for recovery. On the third day of the course, I started walking again.
Move to the next page - The LP - Can It Be Dangerous?
Move to the Contents List for The LP – Working With The Mind Body Connection For Health
Click here to move from Lightning Process Christianity Spirituality to the Home Page - How To Explore Our Spirituality
|
