Ways of Knowing™ Symposium: Exploring Cultural Based Healing Traditions & Practices

Pre-Symposium survey questions at time of application:

1. What calls you to this Symposium? Tell us about your interests, experiences and what you have read on cultural based healing traditions and practices.
2. What ways of knowing, e.g. training, intuition, cosmology, do you find yourself turning to consistently? 
3. What is your personal definition and understanding of what creates well-being and health?   Please share one or two things that you do to renew yourself.
4. Healing Stories:
   a. What called you to healing/healthcare practice, an inspirational event, a relationship, cultural or family tradition, etc? 
   b. Please share a healing story from your practice. 
   c. What favorite stories or examples do you find yourself telling to encourage patients, clients, family or friends?
5. In your opinion, what are some commonalities across healing traditions and practices?
6. What books, research, articles, and movies would you recommend to others?
7. Last year we shared some of the survey stories and quotes with the participants and posted some of them on line as part of the proceedings.  May we use your stories or quotes? Yes/No
8.  In the ideal world, how would you change the education of healthcare professionals and/or community healers to include cultural-based healing practices and traditions?

Sample of Participants Survey Answers

What ways of knowing, training, cosmology do you find yourself turning to consistently?

• Primarily conventional medicine and relaxation methods.
• Relationship as the healing force and point of connection to healing.
• Mentoring and intuition.
• Varieties of contemplative practice…through which one can relate to the fullness of any subject to which one directs one’s attention.
• More intuition or ‘alternative knowing’ than anything.
• Meditation and the insights that come from practicing insight meditation.
• Aztec medicine and my studies with medicine people in Mexico and Guatamala.
• Sustainability and connect to nature.
• Prayer, narrative theory and advanced empathetic listening.
• Heartmath.
• Buddhism as well as other spiritually-based readings.
• I am a researcher…I learn through reading, reflecting and being with others.
• Traditional African ones among the ndeppkats of Senegal….
• Annishnabe worldviews, classical Chinese medicine, Eugropean folk healing and biomedicine.
• Connecting to higher knowing from the universe through nature and inner guidance.
• Amazonian shaminism.
• Holotropic Breathwork/Buddhist training/meditation/mind-body psychotherapy…
• Meditation, yoga, guided imagery.
• Traditional Chinese Medicine
• Inspiration from teachers in nature and shamanism.
• Meditation, prayer, and openness to people.
• Being in community.
• Yoga, MBSR, meditation—both sitting and walking, natural health products, energy work, remembering that I am exactly where I belong being.
• The animals are my friends, confidants, and teachers.
• Enjoying multi-perspectives.
• Trance work, journeying, and creative practices/art and energy of personal guide.
• Cosmology (Celtic and mysticism) and intuition.
• Mindfulness based practices training to enhance life.
• Quantum physics, neuroscience, and imagery.

 Commonalities Across Healing Traditions and Practices:

• We are universally human and uniquely divine.
• Love and trust.
• Belief in a higher power.
• The need to take ownership over your own health, self-care.  The need for balance.
• Nature as a tool for healing.
• That the person receiving treatment is important & can heal/recover best with help of supportive family and friends. They all assist the innate healing abilities of human beings.
• ds.
• Nature as a tool of healing.
• A belief in a higher power/source, a desire to learn and grow to become more connected to God.
• They all invoke the power of the universal energy pervading the univers and the Spirit Powers guiding cosmic destiny.
• The energetic connection between all beings and the recognition of a higher or universal power/Spirit that flows through each of us.
• All invoke something larger than one’s self
• The notion that we are one with nature.
• Listening to personal stories in a non-judgmental ways.
• All true healing traditions seem to grasp the concept of the web.
• Centrality of compassion and commitment to harmlessness.
• Awareness and respect for the human spirit.
• Finding balance with the challenges of daily living with spiritual living.
•  Our body is wise, and with support and caring, it can heal itself.
• Many healing traditions and practices call upon a higher power.
• Honoring the earth and all of creation.
• Establishing trust and engaging the individual’s belief system.
• All well being is spirit connected.
• The sense of spirituality, the idea that we are connected to nature.
• Power of prayers…more than 50% of a person’s healing depends on his/her belief.
• Deep caring for individual and the planet, sensitivity to an individual’s needs.
• Love, intention, community, relationship with nature, belief in spirit, acceptance of mystery.
• Ownership of self-discovery and healing, purposefulness.
• Understanding interconnectedness of life; body & spirit cannot be separated.
•  Only the person can heal themselves; healers are actually facilitators.

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