There are many reasons why a healing may not take effect. Below are some of the most common reasons, but there are others not listed here.

Conflicting Wishes

If a person has two wishes that conflict, then obviously they will experience disappointment of one of them. For instance, if a person wants to be healed of a physical or mental disability, but doesn’t want to go back to work, they have a conflict. Because going back to work can involve fear, the desire to stay home may triumph over the request to be healed.

A true-life example of conflicting wishes occurred when a mother requested a shamanic healing for her teenage daughter, who because of a difficult birth had become severely mentally impaired, needed constant care, and was prone to violent outbursts. During the shamanic journey, I requested a healing for her daughter, but was told by the spirit guide that the young girl had agreed to this disability before coming into this life to learn a tough life lesson. In previous lives, she had been extremely beautiful and enjoyed many privileges. She also had been unkind and sometimes cruel, because she could get away with it. She now was experiencing a lifetime with that same beauty, but with no way to take advantage of it and was relying on others for help.

As the spirit guide explained this to me, the young girl’s spirit watched in the background hoping for a healing because she did not want to complete this difficult life lesson, but the spirit guide said it would be a waste of an important life lesson if she were healed.

Her current wish to be rid of this disability conflicted with her first request to make spiritual progress through a difficult life lesson, and only one could be honored.

Fear
Why would a miracle cause fear? When a person experiences a transformation in this reality that cannot not be explained with laws of this world, they have to accept that there is a greater force outside of this reality. This could result in uprooting their entire belief foundation and cause fear.

The Spirit will withhold a healing if it will induce fear, however, when the person is ready to accept the healing without fear, it will be waiting for them.

Removing the Root of the Problem
Your entire being is created by thought, as is the universe. Your thoughts are extremely powerful and have the power to create your life, including happiness and love, and, on the less positive side, illness and misfortune.

For instance, if you are holding a grudge against your mother because she was emotionally abusive, your anger will produce negative energy, flowing throughout your body, looking for an outlet. If it is sustained long enough, it may cause an illness to develop.

The thought must be removed from your mind for healing to occur. You may temporarily ease the symptom through medications, or time may seem to heal it, but it most likely will recur because the root problem still exists, although it may reoccur as a different illness. It’s like crabgrass where you have pulled out the green blades of grass above the surface, but the roots remains, ready to regrow.

To completely remove the cause, you must release it through forgiveness. This can be hard work, and I recommend that you ask the Spirit’s help with this one (see the #3 meditation technique: “Releasing the Past”). If you have suppressed your emotions, it may take a lot of honest reflection to reveal your true state of mind.

Guilt
Guilt can easily project its negative energy into the body to induce and retain illness.

The ego uses guilt to keep you focused on seeing yourself as a body instead of a perfect spiritual being. An effective diversion tactic (unfortunately).

Again, I recommend the meditation technique “Releasing the Past” for releasing this emotion, because guilt can be a tough one to release on your own.

Acceptance
A healing needs to be accepted, even if on an unconscious level, to be effective. If a healing is not immediately accepted, it will not dissolve. It will wait patiently until a person is ready to accept it.